What makes PSV special?
Design
Surprisingly, Sogabe (consol's designer) singled out the seemingly prosaic dual analogue sticks as the biggest challenge when designing the PS Vita.
"Originally, I was given a piece of wood, and asked to create the Walkman at that size," he said. More recently, he has worked on Vaio laptops and the PSP 3000. He candidly admitted that, as with any gadget, design compromises had to be made with the PS Vita.
"Speaking not only about the PS Vita, we always have a battle between engineers and designers," Sogabe said. "The original design of the PS Vita, for example, was very much thinner than the current retail product. From a designer's point of view, thinner is better-looking, but the engineers wanted to put all the features in. Maybe it will become thinner in the future, but the engineers would have to come up with a means to do that."
Surprisingly, he singled out the seemingly prosaic dual analogue sticks as the biggest challenge when designing the PS Vita.
"We had been developing the idea of dual analogue sticks for a long time – the PSP used slide pads," he said. "Making analogue sticks this small required very much effort on the engineering side, so we are very proud of this technology – it was very difficult to design."
Regarding the Vita's similarity in appearance to the PSP, he said: "We like that you think it looks similar, because we wanted to keep the identity of the PSP, but to evolve the design and brush it up. We came up with various patterns, including a clamshell one. Then we discussed it with a lot of publishers and settled on this shape."
Finally, Sogabe raised the tantalising prospect that one of the PS Vita's most highly praised aspects, its 5in AMOLED touch-screen, could have been even bigger.
"The PSP had a 4.3in screen, but we knew the PS Vita would have a higher resolution," he said. "So a 4.3in screen would have less impact than if the screen was bigger. There was a lot of discussion, and we came up with five inches as being best. We also had an idea to make a 5.5in screen, but we had to think about operability, as it is a portable device."
"Originally, I was given a piece of wood, and asked to create the Walkman at that size," he said. More recently, he has worked on Vaio laptops and the PSP 3000. He candidly admitted that, as with any gadget, design compromises had to be made with the PS Vita.
"Speaking not only about the PS Vita, we always have a battle between engineers and designers," Sogabe said. "The original design of the PS Vita, for example, was very much thinner than the current retail product. From a designer's point of view, thinner is better-looking, but the engineers wanted to put all the features in. Maybe it will become thinner in the future, but the engineers would have to come up with a means to do that."
Surprisingly, he singled out the seemingly prosaic dual analogue sticks as the biggest challenge when designing the PS Vita.
"We had been developing the idea of dual analogue sticks for a long time – the PSP used slide pads," he said. "Making analogue sticks this small required very much effort on the engineering side, so we are very proud of this technology – it was very difficult to design."
Regarding the Vita's similarity in appearance to the PSP, he said: "We like that you think it looks similar, because we wanted to keep the identity of the PSP, but to evolve the design and brush it up. We came up with various patterns, including a clamshell one. Then we discussed it with a lot of publishers and settled on this shape."
Finally, Sogabe raised the tantalising prospect that one of the PS Vita's most highly praised aspects, its 5in AMOLED touch-screen, could have been even bigger.
"The PSP had a 4.3in screen, but we knew the PS Vita would have a higher resolution," he said. "So a 4.3in screen would have less impact than if the screen was bigger. There was a lot of discussion, and we came up with five inches as being best. We also had an idea to make a 5.5in screen, but we had to think about operability, as it is a portable device."
The problem with games
"The jump from the PS2 to the PS3 was a huge challenge, so we had to increase the resources of all the teams moving from PS2 to PS3. There was a lot of staffing going on for the PS3, and unfortunately, that happened just after the launch of the PSP.
"But that's not happening this time around. PS3 is selling very well, so we have a stable platform there, and now we are adding the PS Vita, we are, of course, shifting some resources around from PSP development. So compared to the rampup challenge that we had working with the PSP and PS3, we are in much better shape. And of course, we have increased the overall resources from five or six years ago."
He was heartened that third-party publishers seem to have embraced the PS Vita, professing surprise that there will be as many as 33 games available at the UK launch: "I had no idea there were so many games targeted by third parties. Up until a couple of days before the Tokyo Games Show, I was working on the draft of my presentation, and talking about six or seven PS Vita titles.
"Then I looked and said: 'What? Are you sure that's for the launch, rather than the launch window?' As far as first-party games are concerned, we have many in the pipeline. So we are strategically spreading them out so that there will be a constant supply, because we don't have control over when third-party titles are released – sometimes we have to fill in the gaps with our titles."
"But that's not happening this time around. PS3 is selling very well, so we have a stable platform there, and now we are adding the PS Vita, we are, of course, shifting some resources around from PSP development. So compared to the rampup challenge that we had working with the PSP and PS3, we are in much better shape. And of course, we have increased the overall resources from five or six years ago."
He was heartened that third-party publishers seem to have embraced the PS Vita, professing surprise that there will be as many as 33 games available at the UK launch: "I had no idea there were so many games targeted by third parties. Up until a couple of days before the Tokyo Games Show, I was working on the draft of my presentation, and talking about six or seven PS Vita titles.
"Then I looked and said: 'What? Are you sure that's for the launch, rather than the launch window?' As far as first-party games are concerned, we have many in the pipeline. So we are strategically spreading them out so that there will be a constant supply, because we don't have control over when third-party titles are released – sometimes we have to fill in the gaps with our titles."