[KalBalboa]

While talking to a friend on G-Chat earlier, it dawned on us that the Vita's operating system comes so very close to raising the bar for making the "social experience" of gaming better than ever. It's nice to want things, but I think everyone can agree that a few basic tweaks to the PSN integration on the Vita would make people spend more time on the network and flesh out the PlayStation "ecosystem."

The messaging system, game feeds, Near, cross-game chat- you name it, it's all there... but one or two small changes would make all the difference. These are those changes that are hopefully coming as soon as possible. Feel free to add whatever you think is a no-brainer to add into the Vita/PS3 in this thread.


1) Vita Online Status Visibility On PlayStation 3s



This is not only a simple change but something that seems fairly easy to implement. One of the first things Vita owners noticed was how they would seemingly disappear from their friends' buddy lists on PlayStation 3 consoles. The Vita, on the other hand, can not only see whether PS3 and fellow Vita gamers are online but it can also discern and tell you what platform the person is playing on.

Based on the fact that the PS3 friends list will show a currently online Vita gamer as either offline or bump them to the bottom of the friends list with an undetermined amount of "offline time," it's clear that there's some status changed on the PSN from the Vita's end. The PS3 needs an update that follows in the footsteps of the Vita, letting PS3 owners view their friends if they're online on a Vita console, and an option should exist to disable sign on/sign off notifications for Vita-specific games when playing a PlayStation 3.

3) Portrait View in the Web Browser



With firmare 1.8 the Vita's web browser recieved a bunch of smart changes, namely rear-touch scrolling.

What's next? Portrait view, of course. The Vita has a beautiful 5" 16x9 screen that nearly rivals most low-size tablets, so why not add to the Vita's versatility and add a basic function that all tablets and smart phones include?

2) Vita Trophies Viewable On PlayStation 3s This update is incredibly similar to the previous suggestion and is frankly likely to happen considering my Android phone can view both PS3 and Vita trophies simultaneously. The Vita's trophy browser and upload function work miles better than the PS3s, but it's worth noting that the Vita was designed with trophies in mind whereas the PS3 had them added into its operating system a year or two into its lifecycle. All this update really needs to do is add Vita trophy visibility on PS3s, a request that seems fair, easily doable, and extremely likely to happen. On Tuesday, October 23, the PS3 recieved a firmware update that added this exact feature. 2) Visually Indicate Which Cartridge Is In The Vita. A simple change that many have requested, a basic glow or halo around a cartridge that's currently inside the Vita seems like a no-brainer. On Tuesday, April 9th, the PS Vita added a firmware update that added this exact feature. 3) Push-Notifications From Game Activity Feeds As of August 28, this was added in firmware 1.8,as seen below: This is a slightly deeper change that would open a lot of peoples' eyes to an already built-in social feed that's part of games on the Vita. When you touch a Vita game from the console's home screen, you're brought into a mini-desktop of sorts that presents to you the game's manual, official website, trophies, and anything else the developer wishes to add. Below this information is a feed consisting of your activity in that game, whether it be high scores you've recently attained, trophies you've unlocked, chapters in a campaign you've beaten, etc. This feed also aggregates the same information from your friends on the PSN, so you can see when your buddy unlocks a trophy or beats a lap time or whatever without even launching the game- it's pushed to the Activity Feed. In a very Facebook-styled way, you can comment & like these activities, a novel idea that helps connect friends on the PSN and breed competition and instill this sense of persistence akin to achievements, trophies, and the like (it also helps build brand loyalty while strengthening people's usage of the network itself). The problem? Nobody knows when you comment or like their activity. The Activity Feed needs push notifications to the Vita's main Notification bubble. Without notifications, the act of commenting and "liking" is rendered virtually invisible and useless to anybody who tries to utilize it. Adding in notifications would make Activity Feed use sky rocket for some people, easily. An option to disable these notifications would be a smart addition too for those who aren't terribly into social networking. 4) An Option To Keep the Vita "Always On" The PSN* As of August 28, you no longer need to wait when going back to your Friends list or Trophies on the Vita and sign back in when switching apps. The Vita's operating system is incredibly snappy and covers every base in the online-gaming rainbow. Game invitations, cross-game chat, friends lists, group messaging, trophies- it's all there. There's just one problem though: When going from one application to another we're constantly given this (brief) interruption while an app reconnects to the PSN, seemingly. Certain games even disable the PSN altogether, pulling us from the network, taking away our ability to use cross-game chat, and more. An operating-system level option that allows us to keep at least the bare-bones PSN applications (namely the Friends and Messaging applications, not to mention system notifications) would make the Vita's connectivity sing. While it's true this would drain the battery a bit more, having an option for "power users" certainly wouldn't hurt. This option would honestly make a few inconveniences in the Vita's operating system vanish away and could even solve another frequently requested update: the consolidation of the Friends, Trophies, and Messaging apps.

These are just a few basic PlayStation Network-focused updates I assume and hope will be coming to the PSN sometime soon. These would all greatly improve the Vita's role as an online-enabled gaming platform and get more people taking advantage of the PSN's already robust network. None of these changes seem to require altering the Vita or PS3 much and none require new programs, databases, or programs to be created. Does anyone else have any super-simple "ecosystem" updates that should be coming with PSone support & YouTube this summer? I'll update the original post if anything simple, obvious, and mutually beneficial to Sony & gamers comes up.

[panama chief]

companies take what we think as common sense and wait until the last moment to implement it. this shouldve been day 1 stuff.

[chubigans]

Yoshida already commented on the fact that you cant see Vita statuses on the PS3...it has to do with the memory footprint and how much you'd need to do something like that, which on the PS3 is already nearly full. So it won't be possible to do it (I'm really paraphrasing here).

[whitehawk]

4. Give us the option to keep WiFi on when we start playing a game.

5. Let us browse the web (even with a limit of 1 tab) without having to close our game.

6. Make pausing music universal. If I start Netflix while playing music, the music will continue to play while my Netflix video plays.

7. Let us change the colour of the background when you swipe the lock screen. It's always blue behind that 'page' you have to swipe. It looks out of place unless your custom background also has a blue theme.

[KalBalboa]

Yoshida already commented on the fact that you cant see Vita statuses on the PS3...it has to do with the memory footprint and how much you'd need to do something like that, which on the PS3 is already nearly full. So it won't be possible to do it (I'm really paraphrasing here).

I remember hearing that vaguely somewhere too, but doesn't the Vita broadcast the same information as the PS3 when it comes to online statuses? It's even on the same network.

[KalBalboa]

4. Give us the option to keep WiFi on when we start playing a game.

That and cross-game chat with PSP emulation. A simple request that would go a long way in boosting an already robust console OS.

[Carl]

1) Vita Online Status Visibility On PlayStation 3s This is not only a simple change but something that seems fairly easy to implement.

Not according to Yoshida

[Hero_of_the_Day]

Folders.

[KalBalboa]

Not according to Yoshida

Yeah, but I honestly question his explanation. If you follow my posts here it's obvious I'm a huge Sony cheerleader, but it's really odd how the PS3 can't seem to read the same information when it's broadcasted on the same network by another system.

[Pazuzu9]

Whatever number we're at... this should be 1. Put Party, Friends, Messaging and Trophies in one app. Hell, put them all together with Near while you're at it. Why do I have 5 separate apps for things that are all accessing PSN in the same way?

[gketter]

I'd like a better way to organize my icons in the future. It works ok for now, but I can see it getting out of control soon. Maybe folders?

But for a console and new "OS" man does the Vita do a lot right out of the gate. It gives me a lot of hope of what we'll see in the future for not only the Vita but the PS4

[famousmortimer]

August.

[Andrefpvs]

cross-game chat with PSP emulation.

This is already possible.

[Takao]

4. Give us the option to keep WiFi on when we start playing a game. 5. Let us browse the web (even with a limit of 1 tab) without having to close our game. 6. Make pausing music universal. If I start Netflix while playing music, the music will continue to play while my Netflix video plays. 7. Let us change the colour of the background when you swipe the lock screen. It's always blue behind that 'page' you have to swipe. It looks out of place unless your custom background also has a blue theme.

Open Twitter while in game, click a link, and voilla you now have in-game browsing :)

[Raine]

August.

You actually think some of these ideas will be implemented in the update?

BTW, what's the latest on the Psone emulator. I have Final Fantasy VII right here but I'm kinda tired of using remote play to play it :(

Whatever number we're at... this should be 1. Put Party, Friends, Messaging and Trophies in one app. Hell, put them all together with Near while you're at it. Why do I have 5 separate apps for things that are all accessing PSN in the same way?

Eh Near is totally different from all those things. I think it needs to stay separate.

[KalBalboa]

This is already possible.

I tried with Pixeljunk Monsters to no avail last week. Does it work with online PSP games?

[theBishop]

All the cool shit that Near does, rip that shit out and just make it part of the messaging/friends/notification system.

When a friend sends me a challenge time to beat in Wipeout, I want to get that the same way I'd get a party invite, I don't want to have to stumble on it in Near.

[darkside31337]

Some others not mentioned yet that I'd like to see:

Folders.

A way to turn off the damn blue light. I could have swore that the thing stayed off before and only turned blue on notifications until Sony decided to make it be on all the time a system feature.

Every game should have in-game screenshot functionality. I don't know if the limitation in place right now is Sony giving the option to developers to opt-out or if its some issue system side but if its the latter it really shouldn't exist.

Fix Near. Honestly it's just really clunky, I'm not sure how it could be fixed without one hell of a major overhaul.

Not really a Vita issue persay, but how about actually implementing PS+ into the system. For starters some free / heavily discounted PSP games would be a way to get people more interested in playing older games on the device.

[whitehawk]

Open Twitter while in game, click a link, and voilla you now have in-game browsing :)

:O

[Andrefpvs]

I tried with Pixeljunk Monsters to no avail last week. Does it work with online PSP games?

To be honest I never tried it, but I saw a video where it worked with Peace Walker.

[Hero_of_the_Day]

Open Twitter while in game, click a link, and voilla you now have in-game browsing :)

Well that makes it even goofier that you can't just launch the browser.

[Raine]

Oh and please add an option to check the Messages every minute. I still don't understand how I get invites as soon as they're sent but I can't get Messages on time.

[Carl]

Every game should have in-game screenshot functionality. I don't know if the limitation in place right now is Sony giving the option to developers to opt-out or if its some issue system side but if its the latter it really shouldn't exist. Not really a Vita issue persay, but how about actually implementing PS+ into the system. For starters some free / heavily discounted PSP games would be a way to get people more interested in playing older games on the device.

Devs have the option to opt out. It is universal OS feature, though

PS+ is on Vita in Europe. Some Vita games discounted atm

[Andrefpvs]

Open Twitter while in game, click a link, and voilla you now have in-game browsing :)

If you do this, sometimes you even get a notification asking you to try closing the game to free more memory for the page you're trying to load, so this indicates that at some point they were thinking about enabling in-game browing or will enable it in the future.

[Totobeni]

option to remove the text under the bubbles.

[Takao]

Well that makes it even goofier that you can't just launch the browser.

The Twitter browser launch is generally unstable if you're running a game in the background. It could slow down, or even crash.

[8byte]

Not according to Yoshida

Sony is so incompetent. They seriously don't have the memory to distinguish one system from another? I find that VERY hard to believe.

[Nerfgun]

Good post OP. I agree for the most part. They need to expose some more of what they already have in the social hooks department.

Changes I'd like to see:

Change up the user feedback when connecting or re-connecting to the PSN, within a game, so you don't see constant flashing modal panes... no reason for that.

Also, for apps that don't really need the Live Area (like trophies), just have those apps autolaunch without the intermediate step of clicking Start. it's silly. It's ok for something like Photos where you can opt for the album or camera but not for Trophies or Settings.

Make the update icon glow or pulse in the Live Update area so I know there's a patch before I launch the game. (I will say the Vita behaves MUCH MUCH better than the PS3 when it comes to patching and being obtrusive about it).

Add an option to back up a big encrypted tarball of all the Vita saved games, and not the entire game(s) itself. Add an extra warning when deleting a bubble that makes sure the user knows it will nuke saved data.

Finally add playlist support to the Music app so I can organize my custom soundtracks by game at least. sheesh.

[sajj316]

Folder structure seems the most sense to me

[Jinfash]

4. Give us the option to keep WiFi on when we start playing a game.

Yes. For a system that was boasted as ushering a social revolution, it rarely is technically online.

For every single OS online operation it has to reconnect, and every time you launch apps such Friends, Trophies, etc it has to "connect to PSN." That screen happens to be also preceded by 3 "please wait" screens. And as far as I know, but I could be wrong on this, messages aren't pushed instantly unless it happens to be sent during the few times the system is doing an actual online operation, otherwise they're received every xx set of minutes (adjusted in the setting menu).

And don't get me started on the whole "disabled network features" during some games.

Things are the way they are to conserve battery life as much as possible obviously, but I wish more options were offered in the barren "power saving" menu. The user should be given more control.

[Shining Sunshine]

This is not only a simple change but something that seems fairly easy to implement.

The things gamers always say.

[John Harker]

I disagree (to the first part. It needs a lot of tweeks). I have a Vita. I was playing it last night. I have no idea how any of it's social functions work. Granted, I didn't read any manuals, but it's not very intuitive at all.

I'm not saying it isn't advanced, but Sony has always had UI trouble in my experience... they are terrible at simply explaining the minutia of some of the more technical aspects of their hardware.

[Jinfash]

Open Twitter while in game, click a link, and voilla you now have in-game browsing :)

Haha, if I suddenly start tweeting random links don't be alarmed people, I'm just posting them in order to browse been in-game.

[magawolaz]

The problem with Friend List activity is that you can't know when a Vita user is offline, since is not the same thing as PS3's PSN.
On the Vita, you are not continuously online (in fact you see notifications of friends logging in, but not logging out); sure, after you use the firend list or message app you are connected, but after that? A PS3-like implementation of the PSN would drain battery faster.

I concur about the rest of the OP: being able to see Vita Trophies on the PS3 shouldn't be hard at all, and notifications for LiveArea feeds would be welcome.

Actually, there are a few other things I like to see in a firmware update, like folders and PS+ features. Imagine: you put the console in sleep mode at night while recharging, early in the morning the Vita wakes up, checks if there are updates to download and install, then loads save data into the cloud, synchronizes Trophies...

Also:

7. Let us change the colour of the background when you swipe the lock screen. It's always blue behind that 'page' you have to swipe. It looks out of place unless your custom background also has a blue theme.

This! This is driving me crazy!!! :lol

[Raine]

Granted, I didn't read any manuals

Yeah you may wanna start there.

And they should make the background of the lockscreen black at least.

[spats]

The Twitter browser launch is generally unstable if you're running a game in the background. It could slow down, or even crash.

I've never had it crash and I use it all the time, while playing all sorts of games. YMMV maybe.

[MiniBossBattle]

Fantastic suggestions OP.

[Tailer]

:O

Be warned tho my Vita almost crashed(froze for 20~ sec) from doing that I mean there is a reason why can't do it, mind you I did have music on in the background so yerg.

[CorrisD]

Besides the obvious ones mention in this thread that we have all been saying since the Vita arrived, the Activity Feed definitely needs sorting out.

It would be a great addition but Sony have barely let us utilise it, I remember the rumours some time ago that something like it was apparently going to happen on PS3 that was like what we have now but also kinda of like twitter iirc.
It is a shame they don't develop this more.

[B.O.O.M]

I'll add one more (Hopefully I didn't miss you talking about this). Mark messages I read on my ps3, as 'read' on my vita as well. I don't like having to reopen them on vita

[KAL2006]

1. Browse the web while a game is running
2. Make playlists for Music
3. Have savedata separated from game data for digital games

These are my main 3 complaints. But all in all, Vita OS is great, and a huge improvement from PS3.

[KAL2006]

Whatever number we're at... this should be 1. Put Party, Friends, Messaging and Trophies in one app. Hell, put them all together with Near while you're at it. Why do I have 5 separate apps for things that are all accessing PSN in the same way?

This
hell it shouldn't even be a App, it should be part of the homescreen and start having apps (icons) from the 2nd screen. But leave the 1st screen as a friendslist to send messages, start chats, compare trophies and etc.

[JakkuFurosu]

Folders
Browse while playing game
Integrate all that PSN stuff into 1 app like everyone else said
instant messaging
some sorta notification for replies to live area notifications
some AA on the icons
flash support or html 5....its 2012 i dont wanna launch a youtube app specially considering theres no porn there
lock screen backdrop color...kinda tired of that blue since it dont match anything else going on
Playlists
separate save data


seems like a big list but it is mostly nickel dime stuff to me and im still happy with the OS despite these nags

[test_account]

Several of good ideas here :) Personally i'd like to see some folder stuff, so i can sort my PSP, Minis and Vita games.

Sony is so incompetent. They seriously don't have the memory to distinguish one system from another? I find that VERY hard to believe.

Why wouldnt they do it if is so easy? Honest question. It has been requested numerous of times, and if it is so easy, then there is no reason not to do it. The Vita shows it, so it hasnt anything to do with PSN. That leaves the PS3 itself, so i'm pretty sure there is some technical reason there.

[JakkuFurosu]

Good ideas here :) Personally i'd like to see some folder stuff, so i can sort my PSP, Minis and Vita games. Why wouldnt they do it if is so easy? Honest question. It has been requested numerous of times, and if it is so easy, then there is no reason not to do it.

idk why wouldnt they fix the ps3 clock for 2 years?

[lastinline]

Yoshida already commented on the fact that you cant see Vita statuses on the PS3...it has to do with the memory footprint and how much you'd need to do something like that, which on the PS3 is already nearly full. So it won't be possible to do it (I'm really paraphrasing here).

Okay, that seriously sucks. I was hoping that they would fix that.

[test_account]

idk why wouldnt they fix the ps3 clock for 2 years?

No idea. Did they give any reason for this though? If not, that is a different situation because here Yoshida says that it isnt possible. Otherwise i'd imagine that a "we'll look into it" answer would be more likely. Then they could just keep delaying it for whatever reason, such as the battery/clock icon overlapping stuff.

[Lyphen]

None of this is going to happen until Sony moves all of their software development to the west. I simply don't believe they have the expertise to put out quality of live software improvements in a timely matter.

[amrod]

FIX Save Games!

when you delete a digital downloaded title it deletes your save game too... freakin lame!

[krae_man]

-The ability to move non copy protected content to and from the Vita without needing an internet connection

-The ability to add multiple items to your cart while browsing the store on the Vita