It could work pretty well as soon as you feel the contact to some objects or the steering behaviour and you aren't covering the display. It's worse for use cases where you directly want to click on something which could be enhanced if the pad would be able to recognize your fingers positions hovering below the pad as well, but it's still not the same then.
I think anybody interested should watch these videos of the announcement event. It's the official Sony video with spoken English translation throughout. The event is really long, so as a note:
First Video
-Actual device shows up at around the 4:30 mark
-Specs and features at 7:20
Second Video
-Around the 1:30 mark you get short clips of a variety of games for the device with names in the corner of each clip.
-Right after this is talk about the Uncharted adaptation, near the 3:40 mark. Actual play starts at about 6:13, and it shows a great gameplay demo for the various features of the device.
-After this, they talk about the UI and controls possible on the device.
-Around 12:10, the Little Deviants demo starts up. Another highlight of the event, like the Uncharted demo.
-Around 15:40, you have the talk of the LiveArea. Mostly about UI and the like for buying DLC and games, playing games, chatting, trophies, etc.
Third Video
-Talking about GPS features starts us off.
-Wow that takes awhile. Around 5:30, we get to see a Hot Shots Golf demo. Interesting tech demo showing some UI possibilities.
-After this, they talk about PS Suite for a bit. Cross-platform with Android devices. Android devices getting PSOne titles. Suite titles coming to NGP.
After this, various third parties came on stage to show off some technically impressive titles, but mostly ported from the PS3. It seems third-parties had this event sprung on them, and a more full view of what we'll see from the 80 announced supporting developers will come out later, most likely at E3. The third-party presentations can be seen here.
They haven't really announced anything. They've been way less informative about that that than have been about the Resistance game not being a port or remake.
The Playstation Suite and the Playstation Store are interesting if done properly and the NGP seems to be much better than the PSP but mobile gaming is much more influenced by iPhones, Androids and WP(7)8 in the future than by 3DS or a NGP because these devices are already capable enough and offer functionality these new handhelds are missing, can i use it as a phone as well? I don't want to carry both a phone and a handheld around with me. If you define mobile also as playing at your home in your bed, well, then it gets more attractive again but i'm doing this already with a) my iPhone, b) my iPad, c) with my MacBookPro and d) if i really want to i could use my PC this way as well.
So where is the real benefit? Why should i buy a 3DS or a NGP if i have an iPhone already? Will the games beeing available there be so much better? I doubt it. Will they ship with some batteries a few generations ahead? I doubt it. Personally i have almost no interest in playing PS3 games on a mobile as most games aren't interesting there but there certainly is a benefit for those who want. What i would like to see is a wave of unique and creative games. The device offers so many input possibilities but it also needs to be opened to indies because they need to be utalised in interesting games as well. I wouldn't like to play a single game presented there.
So Sony seems to get more games for the NGP but so far not the ones i would like to see as a gamer which then again doesn't make the NGP this interesting. So let's wait and see.
Btw the commercial was one of the worst i've seen since a long time, boring&lifeless.
Thumbs up for that the videos worked without Flash.
iPhone is terrible for "regular" games because touch analog sticks are absolutely worthless and nearly impossible to use well, plus covering half the screen with your thumbs is really annoying.
a) No, if you do it properly and it fits to your game design.
b) Yes, but there exist enough enjoyful games which are steerable with multitouch and an accelerometer, so it doesn't matter this much unless you're into specific genres. For those it would be nice having a combination of hardware sticks and phoning capabilities.
a) No, if you do it properly and it fits to your game design.
b) Yes, but there exist enough enjoyful games which are steerable with multitouch and an accelerometer, so it doesn't matter this much unless you're into specific genres. For those it would be nice having a combination of hardware sticks and phoning capabilities.
I own an iPod Touch and have yet to find a single game that really works well with exclusively touch controls. Most games feel very gimped by the lack of any buttons or tactile directional controls.
There are tons of games on the iTunes Store which work pretty well with the multitouch input. Everything where you need to point&click or point&drag. Virtual joysticks are another thing, a few are good, others aren't and even those which are good hurt after some time due to the friction. I guess it depends on how sensible and big your fingers are.
There are tons of games on the iTunes Store which work pretty well with the multitouch input. Everything where you need to point&click or point&drag. Virtual joysticks are another thing, a few are good, others aren't and even those which are good hurt after some time due to the friction. I guess it depends on how sensible and big your fingers are.
I agree that some games work pretty well, but in most cases, they would work better with standard controls, imo.
Also, I have gigantic hands and fingers, being a 6'4" tall monster.
Tap Tap Revenge plays pretty much perfectly with touch controls, since tapping directly on the chart gives a much better sense of connection than using a separate set of buttons. Music games and touch screens are always a potentially good match, see Elite Beat Agents on the DS.
Adventure games generally play pretty well on iOS, although there's some sense that a mouse would be better since the changing cursor is a helpful tool that is missed in most of these games.
Chu Chu Rocket plays amazingly with the touchscreen. Really feels like it was made for it. Same with most of the little Bejeweled-type games.
I can't really think of any action-type games that have worked well with touch controls, though. Games like Kirby'S Canvas Curse and Zelda: Phantom Hourglass work great on the DS, but I can't picture playing that sort of thing comfortably without the precise point of a stylus.
@SHODANFreeman
Multitouch is a extremely wonderful and intuitive input for where it suits. I can't imagine how i for instance should better place my units in geoDefense than by multitouch. Or how do you better draw a route in Flight Control? Or jamming around in Pocket Guitar, do you want to do that with an analog stick? And so on...
Multitouch is not only a mouse replacement, it adds some more benefits and if you can make proper usage out of it due to your game design then it's a win. There is a reason why they've implemented in the NGP as well. And again, of course it's not the perfect input solution for all type of games/steering behaviours, that's also the reason why they've added analog sticks and so on, but it's a good solution for many many enjoyable games. Moreover iPhone games are priced very low compared to those from Nintendo's and Sony's handhelds.
Comments
First Video
-Actual device shows up at around the 4:30 mark
-Specs and features at 7:20
Second Video
-Around the 1:30 mark you get short clips of a variety of games for the device with names in the corner of each clip.
-Right after this is talk about the Uncharted adaptation, near the 3:40 mark. Actual play starts at about 6:13, and it shows a great gameplay demo for the various features of the device.
-After this, they talk about the UI and controls possible on the device.
-Around 12:10, the Little Deviants demo starts up. Another highlight of the event, like the Uncharted demo.
-Around 15:40, you have the talk of the LiveArea. Mostly about UI and the like for buying DLC and games, playing games, chatting, trophies, etc.
Third Video
-Talking about GPS features starts us off.
-Wow that takes awhile. Around 5:30, we get to see a Hot Shots Golf demo. Interesting tech demo showing some UI possibilities.
-After this, they talk about PS Suite for a bit. Cross-platform with Android devices. Android devices getting PSOne titles. Suite titles coming to NGP.
After this, various third parties came on stage to show off some technically impressive titles, but mostly ported from the PS3. It seems third-parties had this event sprung on them, and a more full view of what we'll see from the 80 announced supporting developers will come out later, most likely at E3. The third-party presentations can be seen here.
It appears to be.
So where is the real benefit? Why should i buy a 3DS or a NGP if i have an iPhone already? Will the games beeing available there be so much better? I doubt it. Will they ship with some batteries a few generations ahead? I doubt it. Personally i have almost no interest in playing PS3 games on a mobile as most games aren't interesting there but there certainly is a benefit for those who want. What i would like to see is a wave of unique and creative games. The device offers so many input possibilities but it also needs to be opened to indies because they need to be utalised in interesting games as well. I wouldn't like to play a single game presented there.
So Sony seems to get more games for the NGP but so far not the ones i would like to see as a gamer which then again doesn't make the NGP this interesting. So let's wait and see.
Btw the commercial was one of the worst i've seen since a long time, boring&lifeless.
Thumbs up for that the videos worked without Flash.
a) No, if you do it properly and it fits to your game design.
b) Yes, but there exist enough enjoyful games which are steerable with multitouch and an accelerometer, so it doesn't matter this much unless you're into specific genres. For those it would be nice having a combination of hardware sticks and phoning capabilities.
I own an iPod Touch and have yet to find a single game that really works well with exclusively touch controls. Most games feel very gimped by the lack of any buttons or tactile directional controls.
I agree that some games work pretty well, but in most cases, they would work better with standard controls, imo.
Also, I have gigantic hands and fingers, being a 6'4" tall monster.
Adventure games generally play pretty well on iOS, although there's some sense that a mouse would be better since the changing cursor is a helpful tool that is missed in most of these games.
Chu Chu Rocket plays amazingly with the touchscreen. Really feels like it was made for it. Same with most of the little Bejeweled-type games.
I can't really think of any action-type games that have worked well with touch controls, though. Games like Kirby'S Canvas Curse and Zelda: Phantom Hourglass work great on the DS, but I can't picture playing that sort of thing comfortably without the precise point of a stylus.
Multitouch is a extremely wonderful and intuitive input for where it suits. I can't imagine how i for instance should better place my units in geoDefense than by multitouch. Or how do you better draw a route in Flight Control? Or jamming around in Pocket Guitar, do you want to do that with an analog stick? And so on...
Multitouch is not only a mouse replacement, it adds some more benefits and if you can make proper usage out of it due to your game design then it's a win. There is a reason why they've implemented in the NGP as well. And again, of course it's not the perfect input solution for all type of games/steering behaviours, that's also the reason why they've added analog sticks and so on, but it's a good solution for many many enjoyable games. Moreover iPhone games are priced very low compared to those from Nintendo's and Sony's handhelds.