Should I buy a Vita?

I am considering buying a PS Vita mostly for ZEN pinball and TPA, however I also plan on using the vita for non-gaming uses as well, such as web browsing. I have a few questions about the vita in general and specifically as a gaming handheld.

1. I keep reading that the PS Vita version of TPA doesn't look that good (I have seen the screenshots), but is the game still enjoyable despite the graphics?
2. I plan on playing the game in landscape mode to have the proper analog nudging and the tactile feedback of the shoulder buttons for the flippers. Is the screen large enough to enjoy the game in landscape mode?
3. How is the Vita at web browsing? I plan to watch youtube and vimeo videos as well as just general browsing. Is browsing the web on the vita comparable to browsing the web on a 5 inch android phone?
4. How are the other games on the vita? I don't want to buy a vita only for TPA and ZEN.
5. Do you use your vita for any non-gaming uses that I didn't mention?
6. Lastly, I should mention that I am a PS Plus subscriber and I buy all of my TPA tables on the PS3, so I know I get the vita versions for free.

I appreciate any information you can give me to help me make my decision.

1. I enjoyed it. I even beat some of my scores that I put up on my ps3.
2. landscape mode uses touch screen only, so no analog nudging during landscape. yes the sceen is big enough.
3. I don't like to use devices for browsing.
4. the vita is a beautiful machine. I would suggest making sure that they have the titles of the games you plan on playing.
5. Netflix ( the vita also has Skype if ur into that )

I'd recommend the Vita for gaming, but not so much for web browsing or media playing.

It's not that it doesn't handle them well, but more so because of the OLED and screen burn-in issues.

I may be a bit paranoid about it, but burned in images and dead pixels on screens drive me crazy. Google Vita OLED burn-in and you can check out some examples.

I mostly use my Kindle Fire HD for web browsing....using it now! and Netflix, YouTube, etc.

Anyway, if you've been a Plus user for a while I hope you've been grabbing as of the great freebie Vita stuff. I think it's worth it to buy a Vita just to play all of those... Here's what I've kept track of while on Plus.

Free from PSN Plus (in the order they were obtained):
Uncharted Golden Abyss (2.9GB)
Gravity Rush (1.4GB)
WipEout 2048 (1.6GB)
Jet Set Radio (1.1GB)
Tales of Space Mutant Blobs (130MB) (paid)
Final Fantasy Tactics TWOTL (200MB)
Retro City Rampage (29MB)
Chronovolt (261MB)
Jetpack Joyride (29MB)
Wake-Up Club (104MB) app w trophies
Fooseball 2012 (134MB) + Add-on DLC
Ninja Gaiden Sigma (2.1GB)
Mega Man Maverick Hunter X (412MB) <PSP/Vita>
Plants Vs. Zombies (70MB)
Tekken 6 (714MB) <PSP/Vita>
Disgaea 3: Absence of Detention (2GB) PS Vita
Soul Calibur Broken Destiny (357MB) <PSP/Vita>
Zombie Tycoon II (1.6GB)
Knytt Underground (639MB)
The Pinball Arcade
Germinator (363MB)
BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Extend (3.3GB)
God Eater Burst (977MB) <PSP/Vita> +DLC (33.9MB)
Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward (1.2GB)
Metal Slug XX (166MB) <PSP/Vita>

I was lucky enough to grab a new Vita bundle w/Assassin's Creed III, PlayStation All°Stars Battle Royale, and 12 months of Plus on Amazon's BF deal for $179.99.

You'll probably want a 32GB memory card ($90) as well.

TPA is a bit of a mixed bag for the Vita. Some tables look and play great, while others need work.
I do most of my pinball gaming on my PS3, but it's nice to have them all on the Vita too.

I'm still hoping Farsight might consider adding Cross-Controller support to the Vita/PS3 so we could play it like their Wii U version,with the DMD on the Vita and the rest on the large display.

Sony claims to have big plans for the Vita when the PS4 comes out too. Most PS4 games should remote play on the Vita so if you plan on buying the PS4 there's that too...

The game is still very fun despite the poor graphics quality of some of the tables. I personally like playing it on Vita more than PS3, maybe because the tables seem a little easier on Vita.

The browser is okay, I don't feel it's any better than browsing on an Android phone. I only use it to quickly look up things on forums like this while I'm gaming. This can be problematic depending on the game, though, since while you have a game running there's not much memory available for the browser and it frequently reloads pages when you switch back and forth.

There are a handful of decent games on the Vita, just depends on what you like to play. Wipeout 2048 is a great game. Right now they have a slew of iPhone/Android ports coming out, though... not a lot of "AAA" titles. The Vita will be more useful when the PS4 comes out since you'll be able to stream games from PS4 to the Vita.

neglectoid said:

2. landscape mode uses touch screen only, so no analog nudging during landscape. yes the sceen is big enough.

Click to expand...

This is not correct, landscape mode is not touchscreen only, you use the shoulder buttons for flippers and left analog stick to nudge, these are the default controls. For the plunger you can use the right analog stick or the touchscreen... I find the touchscreen has better accuracy for that.

I would advise you to buy a tablet.

Only when you want to play handheld games, i would buy it. For non gaming always get a tablet.

But for pinball arcade i would advise a tablet too. Its better and you got portrait mode, which vita does not have, and if it does, the controls suck.

You can hang a gamepad to a tablet anyway, so i think handheld gaming will dissapear in one or two generations.

But..... I you like games like uncharted for the go, then the vita is your thing. Al other cases, buy a tablet.

For pinball a tablet is the only real choice is my opinion.

I agree ^^

Sony can talk all they want about how great the Vita is "gonna be" when the PS4 comes out.

I call BS.

I was an early adopter of the PSP - yeah the original 1001 model with UMDs. Remote play has NEVER worked reliably on that thing, and the browser is painfully slow and useless.

Within 6 months, the 2001 came out, and they almost instantly changed to everything running off Memory Stick/PSN license. Great!

They they changed it all up again with the PSP Go - which was a big ole bag of fail.

Now, they want us to buy a Vita. Uhhhhhhh, no, I still own the damn 1001 model that gets no love, no games, no NOTHING. It's a $300 paperweight with 2 cool games I got on UMD before they quit making them.

If you're gonna spend money on a portable gaming device, get an android tablet, root it with Sixaxxis controller app and BANG! That's the setup right there.

I agree 100% with Dutch above me - dedicated handheld gaming devices like this are going the way of the land-line and fax machine. Seriously, almost any newer android or iOS device has dual/quad core processors, GB's of RAM, and HD screens. They all SMOKE my PSP and any other handheld gaming device I've ever owned.

Plus, if you get a tablet that's the same flavor OS as your phone, you can share all your purchases and enjoy them on both devices.

Vyrastas said:

This is not correct, landscape mode is not touchscreen only, you use the shoulder buttons for flippers and left analog stick to nudge, these are the default controls. For the plunger you can use the right analog stick or the touchscreen... I find the touchscreen has better accuracy for that.

Click to expand...

ooops, I thought he meant if you turn the vita on its side. got my terms mixed up.

I would like to thank everyone for their advice and information.

I think I will buy a vita used from gamestop so I can return it for a full refund if it doesn't do everything that I want it to do.

I am really looking forward to the ps4's remote play. The problem with the original psp's remote play was that very few games supported it, on the ps4 every game (with a few exceptions) will be required to support it.

I also like the idea of owning the vita version when I buy the ps3 version of some games, and i really want to play my free copy of plants vs zombies as well as uncharted that I got for free through ps plus.

I've been tempted to get one, but the price of the memory cards is just beyond stupid.

Edan-Grossman said:

The problem with the original psp's remote play was that very few games supported it, on the ps4 every game (with a few exceptions) will be required to support it.

Click to expand...

Errr..... no.

The problem with the original PSP's remote play was that is simply... never worked. The number of games "supported" or not was irrelevant, since the thing would never connect, and if it did, it would hang on a black screen loading the XMB and bomb out.

I don't see the Vita version getting much in the way of love or bugfixes. It's a freebie add-on that comes with the worst console version of TPA - which is already famous for game-killing bugs and graphical issues in the regular console ports. Of course you are free to do what you like, and buying it locally with a return policy is definitely the best way to go about it if you are set on one. However, if I was buying a gaming device mostly for TPA and ZP, the Vita is quite frankly, the last device I would even consider. That platform makes FarSight no money, and therefore, no incentive to really make it a great port. iOS and Android on the other hand, are the two highest selling platforms for this game, and accordingly, where FS puts a lot of their dev time/money, testing and bugfixes. They also get the tables 2-3 months earlier that the PS3/Vita, if that's of any concern to you. PS3 is always the last platform to get DLC (outside of the 360 debacle which I think is now fixed).

If I was looking at a portable gaming device purely for pinball, it would probably be an iPad. Which also happens to be quite useful for about a million things OTHER than pinball, and that's where the Vita falls flat on its face.

Fairfax, eh? I grew up there. Right across from the cemetery off Braddock/Burke St Rd.

Lord Boron said:

I've been tempted to get one, but the price of the memory cards is just beyond stupid.

Click to expand...

I agree, I am going to keep that in mind when I make my decision.

MonkeyGrass said:

Errr..... no.

The problem with the original PSP's remote play was that is simply... never worked. The number of games "supported" or not was irrelevant, since the thing would never connect, and if it did, it would hang on a black screen loading the XMB and bomb out.

I don't see the Vita version getting much in the way of love or bugfixes. It's a freebie add-on that comes with the worst console version of TPA - which is already famous for game-killing bugs and graphical issues in the regular console ports. Of course you are free to do what you like, and buying it locally with a return policy is definitely the best way to go about it if you are set on one. However, if I was buying a gaming device mostly for TPA and ZP, the Vita is quite frankly, the last device I would even consider. That platform makes FarSight no money, and therefore, no incentive to really make it a great port. iOS and Android on the other hand, are the two highest selling platforms for this game, and accordingly, where FS puts a lot of their dev time/money, testing and bugfixes. They also get the tables 2-3 months earlier that the PS3/Vita, if that's of any concern to you. PS3 is always the last platform to get DLC (outside of the 360 debacle which I think is now fixed).

If I was looking at a portable gaming device purely for pinball, it would probably be an iPad. Which also happens to be quite useful for about a million things OTHER than pinball, and that's where the Vita falls flat on its face.

Fairfax, eh? I grew up there. Right across from the cemetery off Braddock/Burke St Rd.

Click to expand...

I have experimented with the psp's remote play and I was able to get it to work, but didn't work 100% of the time and it didn't do everything that I wanted it to do. While I do believe that the ps4 remote play will be much better, I am going to make my decision based on the vita offers now, not what sony promises it will offer in the future.

The delayed releases don't bother me that much because i play free trial versions of the new tables on my android phone to get a taste of the new content. I buy the ps3 versions when they are released and I have a lot of vita tables sitting on my hdd going unplayed.

You also grew up there too, eh, I'm not too far from that cemetery.

Don't buy it for the Pinball Arcade buy it so that you can stream PS4 Pinball Arcade to the Vita. That's what I'm doing. Can't wait.

Basically look at it like : PS4 = 400. Vita = 200. 600 for like the Ultimate Wii U.

MonkeyGrass said:

Errr..... no.

The problem with the original PSP's remote play was that is simply... never worked. The number of games "supported" or not was irrelevant, since the thing would never connect, and if it did, it would hang on a black screen loading the XMB and bomb out.

I don't see the Vita version getting much in the way of love or bugfixes. It's a freebie add-on that comes with the worst console version of TPA - which is already famous for game-killing bugs and graphical issues in the regular console ports. Of course you are free to do what you like, and buying it locally with a return policy is definitely the best way to go about it if you are set on one. However, if I was buying a gaming device mostly for TPA and ZP, the Vita is quite frankly, the last device I would even consider. That platform makes FarSight no money, and therefore, no incentive to really make it a great port. iOS and Android on the other hand, are the two highest selling platforms for this game, and accordingly, where FS puts a lot of their dev time/money, testing and bugfixes. They also get the tables 2-3 months earlier that the PS3/Vita, if that's of any concern to you. PS3 is always the last platform to get DLC (outside of the 360 debacle which I think is now fixed).

If I was looking at a portable gaming device purely for pinball, it would probably be an iPad. Which also happens to be quite useful for about a million things OTHER than pinball, and that's where the Vita falls flat on its face.

Fairfax, eh? I grew up there. Right across from the cemetery off Braddock/Burke St Rd.

Click to expand...

I never had a problem with Remote Play on the PSP. Once it was matched up it worked perfectly.
I think you had to have a strong wireless signal at all times though.

I really loved the PSP, especially once it with custom firmware. It had great emulator support. Coupled with 32GB of SDMicro in a Photoflash SD2MS adapter it was massive & cheap memory. It was nice having 40 or so PSP iso's on a single card too. Even without CFW it was still a great system.

Games like Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker, God of War Ghost of Sparta, GTA LCS, GTA VCS, Lumines, Rock Band Unplugged, Ratchet & Clank Size Matters, PJ Monsters, WipeOut Pulse/Pure. Once I started playing those, it was really hard to look at a DS.

To be fair though, just about all portable web browsers in 2005 sucked. At least with the PSP I could Remote Play into my PS3 and use that browser.

If you're looking to save a few bucks I recommend the Kindle Fire HD. I bought the 32GB version last week for $200 and it looks incredible, but to be honest, I don't like playing pinball as much without physical buttons. It just looses the magic.

Mark Wyda said:

Don't buy it for the Pinball Arcade buy it so that you can stream PS4 Pinball Arcade to the Vita. That's what I'm doing. Can't wait.

Basically look at it like : PS4 = 400. Vita = 200. 600 for like the Ultimate Wii U.

Click to expand...

Exactly!
Like Mark said....when you can stream all of the PS4 TPA tables to your Vita it will be the best portable version of TPA..
Sony claims they will all be playable on the Vita screen right at launch.

Lord Boron said:

I've been tempted to get one, but the price of the memory cards is just beyond stupid.

Click to expand...

If you have PS Plus, then you don't need to worry that much about the memory cards.

PS Plus gives you 1GB of cloud storage for the PS3 and another 1GB of cloud storage for the Vita. I personally only have a 8GB memory card for my Vita, which I got on sale for $20. I really depend on the cloud storage and my download list, but 8GB works fine for me. I usually only play a few games on my Vita at any given time. Once I complete a game, I transfer the game save over to the cloud and delete the game off of my memory card, then I download a new game. If I want to play that game again, then I just re-download it from my download list and download to game save from the cloud.

Edan-Grossman said:

I am really looking forward to the ps4's remote play. The problem with the original psp's remote play was that very few games supported it, on the ps4 every game (with a few exceptions) will be required to support it.

Click to expand...

Yeah I think the PS4/Vita remote play will be very cool.

MonkeyGrass said:

Errr..... no.

The problem with the original PSP's remote play was that is simply... never worked. The number of games "supported" or not was irrelevant, since the thing would never connect, and if it did, it would hang on a black screen loading the XMB and bomb out.

If I was looking at a portable gaming device purely for pinball, it would probably be an iPad. Which also happens to be quite useful for about a million things OTHER than pinball, and that's where the Vita falls flat on its face.

Click to expand...

I never had a problem getting remote play to work for PSP with games that were compatible. It was nice for playing PS1 games I had on the console. Since all PS4 games will support streaming and Vita is part of Sony's long-term strategy, I'm sure it will work just fine.

As for tablets, I always recommend a console version or Vita over the tablet versions of Pinball Arcade, unless you have something like iCade or whatever that serves as an actual controller. 100% touchscreens controls just don't do it for me, it's harder to play and doesn't feel the same as pressing an actual button. But each to their own.

Edan-Grossman said:

I agree, I am going to keep that in mind when I make my decision.

Click to expand...

This kept me from buying right away, but I was able to get a discounted Vita that offset the memory card price. They probably won't come down in price any time soon so it's just part of entry cost for the device. It's Sony, they're all about proprietary formats.

I agree, Vyrastas! The Vita is great for pinball on the go. Some TPA tables don't look so great, but I know all the ZP2 tables look AWESOME!!! As others have said, I'm sure when we can stream the PS4 games onto the Vita things will look better.

Oh and I also didn't have a problem with remote play for PSP. Dude must have had bad luck with his.

Point in all, the Vita is a great handheld. The only problem with it is the lack of games. Seriously. Well..outside of those pricy memory cards.

i am replying from my new used vita. i have 7 days to decide what I want to do with it. my initial impression is fairly positive. a quick question, are the game saves for tpa cross compatible from the ps3 to the vita? I cannot seem to figure out how to sync the saves as f they are.

Bad luck that would include my 1001, my brother's 1001, his 2001 model, and four different PS3's (2 fat OG 60GB and 2 120 GB slims) over the course of two years? Sitting next to a Wifi Router at 100% signal strength at all times?

Seriously I'm amazed that you guys were able to get it working at all. I think I managed a connection to the XMB 2-3 times in 2+ years of trying to get that thing connected. It just wouldn't work. It would pair and authorize as far as the PS3 was concerned, everything was set up perfectly on the config. Then it would just sit and spin, trying to actually connect to the PS3. That's with all firewalls off, believe me I'm a network admin/consultant by trade I know my way around a router and I tried EVERYTHING for months to get this working. Never happened. My brother actually went and bought the 2001 when it came out, hoping that it *might* actually work as promised. Nope, another $300 paperweight. At least he could load movies onto the MS and let his kids use it on car trips. That and the occasional game of MSG, Worms:Armageddon, or Twisted Metal is about all it was ever used for. CFW was the saving grace of that device, and made it useable for sure, but that had obviously nothing to do with Sony.

Sorry I really don't mean to pee on Sony's parade but I have been burnt so many times with the changing of the MS format (MS - MSPro - MSDuo), the game formats (UMD - MS - PSN), and the general lack of follow-thru on the whole PSP/GO/Vita thing I'm just over it. Instead of actually fixing what was broken, or any real support, they would just release a newer model and expect us to rush out and buy that, then drop all support for the older models. Combined with the state of several of the un-fixed PS3 tables and issues on the platform makes it really hard for me to recommend to anyone to buy another Sony handheld gaming system.

I hope it does what you want it to do. Perhaps Sony has learned a few things since introducing the 1001, and applied that to the Vita. I'm just not willing to spend $200 to find out, when I have dual core android devices with GB's of ram that have turned into my primary mobile gaming platforms. A rooted Android setup with Sixaxxis controller is like heaven for mobile gaming, IMO. I also have fairly bad eyes, so being able to play on a 10" screen, instead of a 4-5" screen, makes a tremendous difference for me.

Yeah judging from the sound of your post, you do seemed burnt out. Well yes I would still say it's a surge of bad luck with you, judging by others here who have had a success with our Sony devices. Sorry that happened to you man!

@Edan- No they are not cross save compatible unfortunately. They are 2 different entities that only share cross buy and leaderboard abilities.