Pre-installed with every Vita system - Uses Wi-Fi or 3G connectivity
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So, what is near, and what does it do exactly? Here's a good description by the PS Blog:
Let's take a quick overview of the three main features of near: Out and About, Friends and Discoveries.
Out and About
Out and About lets you see how many people are playing in a several mile radius, and what games they're playing. It's a great way to add more Vita friends to your friends list, what games are currently hot, discover new games you aren't playing and invite people to games and chat rooms. You can also see player ratings for games that are being played by everyone near you, and the current "buzz" for certain games that are played by the majority of users.
The Radar allows you to see the ten closest people to you, and lets you bring up their profiles and Game Goods they've uploaded. If they have a Game Good that you don't have uploaded, you'll be able to receive it!
A Game Good varies from game to game, but is a 100kb key that unlocks content across games, such as a new music track in Super Stardust Delta, a treasure in Uncharted, new parts for Modnation Racers, and tons more. Certain Game Goods can be extremely rare, so always be on the lookout for players who've uploaded gifts to their location!
Most Game Goods allow you to upload to either friends or near players.
Friends
This basically compiles all Live Areas you have installed on the Vita into one compilation. It's a fast way to see what all your friends are doing at any given time. You can also comment on their achievements and posts.
Discoveries
Here's where you can view all the gifts you've discovered, download them, see how far you've traveled, how many games and people you've discovered and more.
By going to new locations and either tapping into a wi-fi hotspot or using 3G, you'll discover new gifts and people. near will keep track of how far you've traveled and even sync to any wi-fi hotspot that's around (public or private) to position itself geographically (if 3G is not available), and will download all the areas you've been to once you're connected to a wi-fi area you can use.
So how do you use near in games? Most can simply be local leaderboards, scores and multiplayer invites. Each game varies on how you can interact with near players, but here's just a few examples of the more varied near applications:
The Uncharted Black Market
One of the collectible types in UNCHARTED: Golden Abyss are the Bounties. These drop randomly from fallen enemies throughout the game and represent things that might have been found in the area you’re fighting in: old Spanish playing cards, gold and silver coins, and so forth. Many of these items are scarce, and some are really rare. You’re not going to collect all these on a single playthrough!
To make it a little easier to collect all the Bounties, we created The Black Market. This is a near application that allows you select a Bounty type from your collection and send a request out to the Black Market. If any other PS Vita players out there (in the area where you made the request) have a Bounty that you’re missing, the Black Market will send you a copy of their Bounty, even the rarest collectibles. We even created a sixth Bounty type that you can obtain only through near: if you send a request to the Black Market and no one has what you need, the Black Market will send you a carved Fetish for you troubles. While the five bounties are tied to Trophies, the Fetishes are not… so you don’t have to use near to achieve Platinum. But for those of you who want to try a little Black Market trading, take your PS Vita with you!
Lumines
You can upload unlocked tracks, avatars and more by either sending it to friends or leaving it as a gift for any available near players.
Unit 13
Utilising Vita's Near functionality, your score (accumulated from completing mission objectives) will be broadcasted to nearby Vitas and friends, challenging them them to tackle the mission themselves - which in turn can unlock later stages for players who haven't progressed as far - and beat your score. Across each of these of these thirty-six self-contained missions, daily challenges - such as disabling computer terminals and killing a certain number of enemies - will keep the fires of competion burning long after the standard game completion, with global leaderboards feeding the habitual demands of veteran score hunters.
There's lots more to be sure, but that gives you the idea of near. It's literally like your own local community.
Games the Support Near
This is a bit difficult to populate as games don't specifically advertise near functionality, so please let me know which ones I've missed and what specifically the game can do with near. I'm sure there's more but here are some that I know for sure:
Super Stardust Delta
Modnation Racers
Little Deviants
Uncharted: Golden Abyss
Unit 13
Lumines
Wipeout 2048
Rayman: Origins
Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom 3
Touch my Katamari
Shinobido 2
I'll try to update these games with the kind of functionality they have, as well as update the OP as we get through the layers of confusion that near can sometimes have, hah. So, let's get...uh...near-ing!
