Sony's PS Vita puts living room gaming into your hands

PS Vita: Box Back

The back of the box breaks out what the PS Vita can be used for, as well as details on the box contents and some disclaimers.

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Read my review of the PS Vita in TechRepublic's Geekend blog.

PS Vita: Box Open

Opening the clamshell lid reveals the PS Vita wrapped in a padded plastic bag and a cardboard divider/lid hiding everything else.

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Read my review of the PS Vita in TechRepublic's Geekend blog.

PS Vita: Under the partition

Removing the divider/lid reveals the rest of the box contents in the packaging.

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Read my review of the PS Vita in TechRepublic's Geekend blog.

PS Vita: Box Contents

I've spread out some of the box contents here, including the power adapter (three pieces, top), the PS Vita, the Quick Start Guide, the Safety Guide, and a packet that contains the Augmented Reality cards (more on these later), the memory card, and some advertisements about the PS Vita accessories and the AT&T data plan.

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Read my review of the PS Vita in TechRepublic's Geekend blog.

PS Vita: Front

The PS Vita up close. The controls include a D-pad and control stick (left), the four standard PlayStation buttons and another control stick (right), a left and right trigger button (top), and the touchscreen. There are also three smaller buttons on the surface: the PS button (which is like a "System" or "Home" button), a Select button, and a Start button. The face camera is just to the top left of the standard PlayStation buttons. On the bottom edge is the connection for the charger (center) and the headset jack (right of center).  Along the top edge (not visible) is the power button, the PS Vita card slot, an expansion slot (for add-on devices), and volume buttons. The speakers are on the far left and right behind the 6-hole grilles.

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Read my review of the PS Vita in TechRepublic's Geekend blog.

PS Vita: Back

The back of the PS Vita looks non-descript - a couple of finger grips, a rear camera, and a pattered backplate - but the backplate is actually a touch surface as well. Also somewhat visible are the memory card slot (bottom mid-left of photo) and SIM card slot (right edge of photo). The microphone is on the rear of the device, between and behind the charger connector and the headset jack.

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Read my review of the PS Vita in TechRepublic's Geekend blog.

PS Vita: Back up close

Here's a close-up of the patterned backplate. The pattern is made up of the four PlayStation buttons repeating over and over.

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Read my review of the PS Vita in TechRepublic's Geekend blog.

PS Vita: Lock Screen

After use, the PS Vita goes into a Standby mode. When woken from standby, either by pressing the power or PS button, the Lock screen is displayed. You simply "peel" the screen away from the top right to the bottom left to show the Home screen.

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Read my review of the PS Vita in TechRepublic's Geekend blog.

PS Vita: Home Screen

The default home screen is a page of 10 built-in applications, many of which I'll talk about in the coming slides. Other points of interest are the dots on the left side signifying which screen of the Home area you are on and how many screens there are. Also, the small bubble in the top right displays messages when tapped, including applications recently installed.

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Read my review of the PS Vita in TechRepublic's Geekend blog.

PS Vita: Welcome Park LiveArea

Launching an application, such as Welcome Park - the built-in PS Vita training app - brings up that application's LiveArea. The LiveArea is used to start an application in its primary mode, start an alternate mode (not shown), check for and install updates (shown later on Netflix), and, when scrolling down, show recent activity in that application. Like the Lock screen, peeling from the top right toward the bottom left will close the application and its LiveArea. When the application is running, press the PS button to return to the LiveArea.

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Read my review of the PS Vita in TechRepublic's Geekend blog.

PS Vita: Welcome Park

Welcome Park includes tutorials on how to use the touch surfaces, camera, microphone and speakers, and accelerometers to control the PS Vita and its applications.

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Read my review of the PS Vita in TechRepublic's Geekend blog.

PS Vita: Party

As the screenshot reads, Party helps you to set up a group that allows you to chat and play games with your friends.

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Read my review of the PS Vita in TechRepublic's Geekend blog.

PS Vita: PS Store

The PS Store is where you can download games and applications for your PS Vita. The PS Vita has native applications and games and supports games from the PSP (there is a special category for the games that are playable between the PS Vita and the PS3). The PS Store also allows you to download video, such as hit movies and TV shows for rent or purchase. There is even some free content available.

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Read my review of the PS Vita in TechRepublic's Geekend blog.

PS Vita: Near

The Near app tells you what other people around you are playing and allows you to share content and possibly play games with them. It appears no one around me has a PS Vita, or they're not sharing (Near can be turned on and off in the settings).

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Read my review of the PS Vita in TechRepublic's Geekend blog.

PS Vita: Web Browser

Like many other handheld devices, the PS Vita is equipped with a web browser. The browser is not branded with any obvious name, so I assume it's something Sony developed or modified from an existing browser, such as Mozilla or Chrome.

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Read my review of the PS Vita in TechRepublic's Geekend blog.

PS Vita: Music and App Select

The Music app lets you play MP3, MP4, and WAVE audio files on your PS Vita.  More importantly in this screenshot is the app selection view, which is activated by pressing the PS button when in a LiveArea or Home screen and shows all currently running applications cascaded on top of each other. Tapping an application brings up its LiveArea.

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Read my review of the PS Vita in TechRepublic's Geekend blog.

PS Vita: Google Maps

Another popular app with mobile devices is Google Maps. This works basically the same as the web version or any other handheld device version. In addition to providing location information, the app also functions as a compass, showing the direction the PS Vita is facing, which in my case is northwest.

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Read my review of the PS Vita in TechRepublic's Geekend blog.

PS Vita: Netflix Update

Many of the apps will have updates available from time-to-time that can be installed via the application's LiveArea. I downloaded Netflix the first day I had the device, and a couple days later there was an update. The update button appears at the top of the LiveArea as two arrows forming a circle.

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Read my review of the PS Vita in TechRepublic's Geekend blog.

PS Vita: Unit 13

At the time of this writing, there are 45 PS Vita games available (in addition to all of the PSP games), most of which have playable demos in the PS Store. I downloaded several games' demos in an attempt to find games that would let me experience as many of the various control mechanisms and graphics hardware the PS Vita has to offer.

The first game I played was Unit 13.  It is a special forces-type, first person shooter game where the player is given covert missions to complete. As you can see from this screenshot, the PS Vita has pretty good graphics, especially for a 5-inch screen.

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Read my review of the PS Vita in TechRepublic's Geekend blog.

PS Vita: Uncharted: Golden Abyss

Another game I played was Uncharted: Golden Abyss. The full story of the game eluded me in the demo, but apparently you have to escape from a burning building at the very beginning. This is another graphics shot to show the amount of depth the system can portray. The game didn't use much of the touch and motion sensors; instead, it relied mostly on the physical buttons.

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Read my review of the PS Vita in TechRepublic's Geekend blog.

PS Vita: Another photo of Uncharted: Golden Abyss

This shot of Uncharted: Golden Abyss shows the realism of the fire animation.

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Read my review of the PS Vita in TechRepublic's Geekend blog.

PS Vita: Super Stardust Delta

Another game I played was Super Stardust Delta, which is a Breakout-type game where you have to destroy asteroids and other obstacles as they are falling toward your planet. This game had a few options that allowed the player to choose what type of controls they wanted to use - buttons only or a combination of buttons and touch.

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Read my review of the PS Vita in TechRepublic's Geekend blog.

PS Vita: Another photo of Super Stardust Delta

This shot of Super Stardust Delta shows the eye candy of the weapon destroying an asteroid.

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Read my review of the PS Vita in TechRepublic's Geekend blog.

PS Vita: Reality Fighters

Reality Fighters is the game that impressed me the most, from the point-of-view of using the PS Vita's various control features. Prior to this screen, I was asked to use the face camera to take a picture of my own face, which the game then mapped onto the boxer on the left. There were two built-in boxers also available, including the zombie pictured on the right. Fight control is a combination of buttons, touchscreen, and rear touch surface. Reality Fighters will either put your boxing match in an idyllic scene or use Augmented Reality (AR) to put your fight in your own environment. More on AR in the next slides.

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Read my review of the PS Vita in TechRepublic's Geekend blog.

PS Vita: Reality Fighters, photo 2

The PS Vita comes with a deck of AR cards numbered 1-6, each with its own symbol. Reality Fighters uses any one of these cards to help the system determine where in your reality the fight should take place and what its orientation should be. As you can see, the fighters start out at either end of the card on my living room floor. I get the impression there must be something different that certain games do with the different cards.

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Read my review of the PS Vita in TechRepublic's Geekend blog.

PS Vita: Reality Fighters, photo 3

Here's an up-close shot of the fighters from a side-on view.

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Read my review of the PS Vita in TechRepublic's Geekend blog.

PS Vita: Reality Fighters, photo 4

I taped the AR card to my living room wall here to show that the fights can even take place on a vertical surface. If I wanted, I could have placed the card on the ceiling as well.

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Read my review of the PS Vita in TechRepublic's Geekend blog.

PS Vita: Connect to PC

The PS Vita also has the ability to connect via USB to either a PlayStation 3 or a PC. When you attempt to connect to a PC for the first time, you get this screen, which leads you to instructions on how to install the Content Manager Assistant for Windows (shown later).  Once you get the PS Vita connected to your PC, you can copy content such as photos and music back and forth, as well as perform system backups.

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Read my review of the PS Vita in TechRepublic's Geekend blog.

PS Vita: Connect to PC, photo 2

The PS Vita sets up a virtual CD-ROM drive that contains the Content Manager Assistant installation file, or you can download the software. Once the install is complete, you can finish connecting your PS Vita to your PC.

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Read my review of the PS Vita in TechRepublic's Geekend blog.

PS Vita: Content Manager Assistant

Here's a screenshot of the Content Manager Assistant installing on my computer. It's a quick install. The Content Manager Assistant runs in your system notification area, so be wary of excessive consumption of system resources.

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Read my review of the PS Vita in TechRepublic's Geekend blog.