@SythisTaru @ollirg @RealFabioSooner You'd still be able to use whatever on it that can be used without a service. You'd still be able to play a game or listen to music in it, for example.
The correct analogy here is "what if you bought a super cool phone and it SHUT DOWN COMPLETELY because AT&T/Verizon/whatever is down in your area?"
That's the KEY difference. There's no reason the game shouldn't work, just with social and multiplayer features unavailable. But it's not working because the seller doesn't want you to use your super cool phone to play Angry Birds if they're not watching.
@SythisTaru @ollirg And it just ocurred to me that many MMOs do refund you hours or days from your subscription period if they get offline for more than the odd maintenance downtime. With this kind of online DRM on a "service" sold as a product, there's no return of any kind to you. Much to the contrary - EA actually *removed* features to try and make the servers more stable, such as leaderboards, achievements and the quickest game speed. It's unbelievable.
@SythisTaru @ollirg Key difference being that MMOs are games where the whole point is to interact with people, as they rarely compare to single-player focused experiences on the same genre. For example, if you want to play a fantasy RPG alone, you won't fire up World of Warcraft, you'll play Skyrim.
My point being that you buy into the MMO (when it's not free, of course) knowing that you'll depend on other people and the infrastructure to play it. If some problem arises you wouldn't want to play it alone anyway. That's NOT the case with Diablo III and even moreso with SimCity. No matter how social-oriented these new games are, there's still no reason why you wouldn't want, or be able to, play them alone.
If they want to make them "services", fine, but then either charge a subscription fee and/or make them free-to-play with microtransactions, as pretty much all the MMOs do. The travesty here isn't so much the online requirement but asking for US$ 60 upfront as if it was a "regular" game. If you sell your "service" as regular product, people will want a fully functional product. There's no way around that.
@SythisTaru They already did postpone the review because there were problems *in the test servers reserved for reviews before launch*.
Also, this is not a mere bug or server problem. It's the end result of an enforced policy from up high that prevents people from playing a game that would be perfectly fine to be played alone. It's very different from when servers get down on an MMO or online multiplayer shooter.
Using the restaurant analogy made in a great Joystiq article about why this online DRM is not acceptable, imagine if you needed to pay a restaurant upfront only to be informed that there's no table and you won't be served food today, so please get back tomorrow. That is not acceptable. It's not the same thing as sitting down and discovering that they don't have your favorite dish today. You still have the option to leave without having paid anything.
@IanNottinghamX @wickdawg01 Sony's conference. They were very clear about this: their goal is to make all PS4 games playable via Remote Play on the Vita.
@oSoLucky And a sizable number of these were made available for free for PSN Plus members. Even if one wasn't a member already, it costs the same per *year* as, say, Fire Emblem and an eShop classic. No matter how good Fire Emblem is, in terms of games, the Vita today is the better deal.
@Incubus420 @emptycow Uncharted: Golden Abyss and Soul Sacrifice are already like this. Uncharted specifically has many of the exact same visual water effects that wowed us on Uncharted 2 for the PS3. And Need for Speed: Most Wanted is the exact same open-world city, which makes it visually impressive in another level, if not just immediately as beautiful as the others mentioned above.
@everson_rm @mtait01 @raiden-94 And worst of all, we make way less money than the average American or European working the same jobs.
But still, let's not crack up much at the Americans and the Europeans, people. Their situation is the ideal, ours is the odd one. These things SHOULDN'T cost that much. And it's all our fault, not theirs. That's what we get for supporting outdated, inefficient, bloated and corrupt welfare states. That's what we get for letting the left rule Brazil for 18 years: a tax-heavy place that crushes any attempt of improvement.
@mtait01 I hear you (living in Brazil makes these cards even more expensive). But note that there is a PC app from Sony that allows you to backup and manage Vita content just by plugging the handheld in a USB port. I don't delete the games, I backup them on my PC. That makes the whole thing a lot more tolerable, even if not ideal yet.
Hey @Szeiden , note that @MrMisanthrope is actually the one making a spin. The Vita has sold 11,456 units the week *before* the price cut, outselling the Wii U already. If it has increased by a factor of 4 it will reach more than 40k, which is significant no matter how you look at it.
And it's getting interesting games this, starting with Soul Sacrifice in a few days in Japan and next month in the West. The truth is that 3DS sales are still high but are slowing receding, while the Vita has ample room to grow and will do so.
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