I love my PS Vita for the games it allows me to play. But I, like many, look at my Vita with an optimistic view, and I see so much more of what it could and should be. That's why I love apps! I own an iphone, and the greatest part of the whole experience, isn't the "games",(sorry mobile games...) but all of the apps it let's you choose from. While the Vita's app selection wasn't even close to that, there were quite a few being released for awhile, and even more shocking, some of them were quite useful.
The mobile section of the Playstation Store did a great job of providing us with apps that Sony just didn't seem to care about, even the simple ones that are included in even the cheapest of throw-away phones. Calendars(way before Sony released theirs), chat rooms, comic book readers, QR readers, memo pads, schedulers, calculators, alarm clocks, the list goes on. Most at a reasonable price too!Each week I could not wait to see what new feature my Vita could do thanks to the mobile section of the store. Will I ever need a QR reader? Probably not. Will I ever need a language translator or currency converter? Maybe... The point is that it was offered, something Sony didn't bother to provide. Weather apps, RSS readers, these are basic features, yet they are nowhere to be found on the Vita without the help of Playstation Mobile. It gave me hope. I never believed it would be as huge as the selection for ios devices, but knowing I didn't have to wait for "big" announcements from Sony to allow my Vita to accomplish the most simple of features from a "new" app being released that should have been included in the hardware to begin with.
All that has changed though. In the last few months, checking the mobile section of the store has just been a waste of time. I give all the props I can to mobile game developers, but in the end, I could care less. So many of those games are exactly what's wrong with gaming today. At least the Vita offers actual controls for them, but still, I have no real interest, at all, for mobile phone games. That's why I own a Vita, I want real games, if I didn't, I'd just use my iphone.
I want my apps back! I want apps that make me want to take my Vita with me and use it again for all the other things it offers besides gaming. I want something to make me want to use that shoddy camera and video. I want to take a pic and post it directly to Tumblr, or some other photo sharing service. I want to be able to use my instagram, I want to be able to carry my Vita and no other device most times. How about a text service? Or even an app to let me make playlists right on my Vita's screen. There are so many ideas left to explore, but maybe these developers see how the company that created the device ignores it, so what hope do they have in saving it?
All I know is, that for a while, Playstation Mobile was the best part of Tuesday's store update, and I would love to see that again, if Sony won't support it, somebody has to. Even if it is just a memory now, never to resurface, I just want to thank all those developers out there, particularly Zhang Bo and Sun Pengfei, who seemingly read my mind each week and provided several necessities for the Vita. I don't know what happened, but I appreciate everything you all have done. Thank you, and hopefully this slow down isn't permanent.
