It tends to happen with new hardware. Maybe it's good news for North American gamers; by the time the PlayStation Vita gets here, the issues will have been completely resolved…?
Not long after a great many stood in line to grab Sony's new portable unit, the complaints began to hit communities, forums and Twitter.
As reported by Engadget , annoyed consumers reported unresponsive touchscreens, software bugs, and total system freezes. You can see an example of one such freeze in the video below. We assume other videos are floating around, too.
Sony quickly issued a public apology and a software update to deal with the problems, which will hopefully erase the backlash. There's little doubt that new high-tech gadgets frequently encounter issues during their first few weeks at market, but we can still understand a gamer's frustration.
It's why many consumers like to wait a while for a new piece of hardware to stabilize, so-to-speak. …or am I the only one who does that?
No ur not the only one I do that with every system I get I waited three years before I got a ps3
That's not the same the thing as waiting to see if there's any bugs, that's waiting for a 360 to rrod about 3 times and then getting one.
Issue I have is technology companies know this will happen. It has happened often now, and the PS3 has been affected by bad software and glitches too. These machines are complex, but hell, what do their quality control departments do.
If you are an engineer with the machine in front of you, surely surely, you would see the same problems consumers are facing.
My mind buffles, I still cannot understand why this happens when you consider the fine products Sony builds.
I was right to stay away from a d1p. I have learnt to often now so never again. I will wait and wait a year if I have to until I get a product I know is mature, works well and, most importantly, is purchasable at a sane price…
Q!
"play.experience.enjoy"
"If you are an engineer with the machine in front of you, surely surely, you would see the same problems consumers are facing." Exactly. Sorry, I have little sympathy for issues like these. Day 1 consumers should not be punished for buying a product or even a game for that matter. Quality control should have ironed out any issues. It's critical that Sony has a clean launch of a product this time. We all know what the PS3 went through becuase of an awful launch. As seen during the PS3's launch it does not take much generate a huge amount of consumer backlash. Once it gets started it is very tough to knock down.
One thing I learned from the PS3's launch is just how fickle gamers are. It does not matter how much success a console maker has had the pervious gen…if they show up with what consumers feel is an over priced product with no games they will just flat out walk away from that company and never look back. The PS3 went through that for awhile and so did the 3DS to some exttent. I give Nintendo a lot of credit for responding quickly to a bad launch. Sony was a little slow to respond that first year and I think they lost a lot of gamers during that period. We had a $600 machine that could not even run Madden NFL at 60 fps and somehow multiplat games looked worse on the more expensive PS3. Sorry, that was just a disaster in the waiting. I have no idea where Sony's Quality Control Deptartment was during that period, but I do know Ken Kutargi was kicked upstairs…he won't be designing any more Sony products in the future or telling us to get two jobs either. Maybe that's a good thing.
The point is console makerrs need to have a reasonably clean launch, and make sure they respond QUICKLY to any negativity around a system. Knock that stuff down quickly. If a console maker has a more expensive system that has no games or can't even run a simple multiplat title correctly…stuff like that can explode in a console makers face pretty quickly. I think those bad multiplat titles did a lot of damage to the Sony brand that first couple of years. The effects of that can still be felt to this very day. I don't know why Sony did not notice the multiplat titles being submitted to them during that period did not run or look as good as their 360 counterparts. I'm sure they did notice but were slow to respond. I would have sent out my best programmers and engineers to get that Sh!T sorted out quickly, and I would have cut the price more quickly in an attempt to restore confidence in the brand. Hey, that's just me. I guess we will find out how many lessons Sony really learned from the PS3's launch when the PS4 rolls around. I'm just hoping for a system that can run a Bethesda game correctly. 🙂
Last edited by Excelsior1 on 12/20/2011 1:28:20 AM
(Gasp) my lord, Qubex, how dare you say the vita has an insane price?
also Excelsior, I fail to see how having crappy ported games at the ps3 launch is sony's QC fault rather than the developer's.
Yeah crappy ports are developers fault. I have a lot of mixed feelings about that. Either flat out reject those crappy ports or reach out to developers to find out what the hell was going on. Maybe beter tools or something would have helped. Many developers went on the record so to speak and were complaining about memory consrtaints, poor tools, weak RSX, etc..So what I am really getting at is make a system that is a little easier to handle from a developers point of view. I think if Sony had given developers a little more ram, and a better RSX things would have went more smoothly. I have heard that Sony reached out to developers when designing the Vita so that is encouraging news.
Anyways, you are correct. The blame ultimately falls on the developers themselves. We now know the PS3 is a very capable system when it is in the right hands. The problem was that we did not really know that back then. A game that looked as good as MGS4 would have helped a lot I think at the start. I give that game a lot of credit for shutting up a gamer's complaints. Uncharted 2 helped a lot as well. UC2 got a huge positive reaction at E3 and went on to get a lot of awards as well.
So yeah, when those great looking exclusives started to come out that's when I began to notice gamers starting to blame the multiplat developers themselves instead of Sony which is exactly what they should do. Anyways, Sony has a lot of great first party developers they can now tap when designing the PS4. If I were Sony I would ask Guerilla Games what they would like to see in a next gen console. I think KZ3 looks absolutely stunning. The graphics are so crisp and detailed. It puts a lot of games to shame. Those Germans really now how to get the most out of the PS3. 🙂 I would defintely have GG working on a PS4 launch game since they have shown how capable they are at coding for the PS3.
Last edited by Excelsior1 on 12/20/2011 5:05:17 AM
Nah, you're all forgetting something. However large and thorough the pre-launch testing was, did that testing include handing out 300,000+ units to ordinary users using the unit under 300,000+ different sets of conditions? Obviously you can do a lot of testing, and there are things that should not make it past the quality checks, but at the same time there will be bugs and other such soft defects that are only found after launch by virtue of the much harsher testing performed by consumer use.
But Highlander… the software and hardware are standardised… you can't build your own Vita; therefore software issues should have been minimised at launch!
Q!
"play.experience.enjoy"
Obvious this will happen when a company rushes to get a head start on the competition *cough*360*cough* Hopefully its not as serious.
Maybe I should hold off for the 2nd generation of the Vita aka Vita Slim.
Last edited by cLoudou on 12/19/2011 11:36:41 PM
That word is prime… "rushes"…
Q!
"play.experience.enjoy"
but who is vita trying to beat a year ahead?
Its trying to beat the "market"… Vita actually has competition out there 🙂 – primarily tablets and very capable phones out there that will 2 to 4 times more powerful next year than they are today… that changes the game for the Vita again to some extent, eventhough, as a stand alone portable, it does have its advantageous!
Q!
"play.experience.enjoy"
As long as it's just a software bug, and not a hardware glitch. *That* would suck.
Last edited by Beamboom on 12/20/2011 1:51:01 AM
thats what really pisses me off about companies these days.
they just dont give a flying f*ck if their product works or not!
not only games, everythig really!
i bought a new HP laptop last week and when i unboxed it and turned it on i noticed there was a massive gash in the screen.
what the?
how the ^%$# did that get past QA!?
i took it back to the store and the guy tells me ah yeah we have had about 50 of those returned within the past month with that problem.
50!?
within a month!?
what the?
doesnt HP have a QA department?
Yes, because computers with slashes on the monitors relates directly to a couple fixable Vita software bugs.
QA only checks one every hundred or thousand products.
Is it just me or does PSXE copy article ideas from IGN?
It's called news, bro… Pull the plagiarism flag out of your rear end when it comes to the editorials if you feel there is an issue.
Just an observation…. Go F&#@ yourself if you got a problem
Why so hostile? I was just illuminating a home truth when it comes to journalism in all forms…
I never visit IGN. Never. Not unless they're the original source for something, and that's rare for some reason.
And you might notice that just about every major news source runs the same articles; see, they report on the same news on a daily basis.
Newspapers do it. All news sources of all kinds do it. That's what NEWS is. …coulda sworn that was logically obvious. Although I should probably add that the exhibited hostility is certainly plain at IGN. So maybe you should just go there.
Last edited by Ben Dutka PSXE on 12/20/2011 9:21:26 AM
Naksy, how many TV stations do you have? Let's say you have 4 local affiliates. OK, tape the local news and national news broadcasts each day for a week on each network. Watch all of them, and note down the stories covered by each. Now compare your lists. If there is more than a 10% difference in the stories covered as news between any of the channels I will be shocked. That same simple truth is valid for gaming news, just as it is with politics, world events, sports, local crime reports, local politics or economics.
Hmm… sucks to be an early adopter, but at least the rest of us aren't likely to be affected by these same problems due to a two month delay between launches. Eh, we'll get a raft of our own, for sure.
Disappointing start for the Vita. If this is a common issue, it should have been noted by Sony during quality testing and assurance.
I think hardware and software should only be released to the public when it's completely polished, no real issues. Even if they have to postpone the launch date. Updates should only fix minor bugs and glitches and not complete system freezes, this is huge in my eyes.
I hope this doesn't damage future sales for them.
You're not the only one Ben.
Got my PS3 in April 2008. Plan on getting the 2nd generation of Vitas in either late 2012 or early 2013.
I very rarely pick up hardware the day it comes out. Software, on the other hand….
Not that it's bad enough to cause a panic but does Sony intend to get crowned as "King of Mess-up-the-launch-of-something-big"?
I don't mean this as a negative way but really Sony?
PSP owners are so pumped up for the Vita everywhere I see.
QA don't test every unit, so give Sony a break.
what if it would've been MS, the news ptobly would'nt make a ripple.
Oh geez, these kind of posts are so lame. Do you *really* want to live in a world where only good news are distributed? Then move to China!
After seeing this I am not so crazy about it anymore.
I never really liked the way the system looks physcially because of its edges mainly, but the software is what makes me want to get this!!!
These'll be fixed by the time the rest of the world gets it, so I don't see it as a massive problem tbh.
U know what it happens but at least they are addressing it asap, not like M$ who just ignored the red ring of death for how many years and forced gamers to spend more on a working console. I applause Sony for this move