Signs Of Life As Vita Updates To Firmware 2.00

Whilst the PS Vita hasn’t been the subject of a great deal of positive chatter over the last few months, the recent announcement of PlayStation Plus for the platform was met with considerable enthusiasm. That won’t necessarily translate into sales for the console – that will be down to how Sony market the subscription service – but it does placate those already invested, albeit temporarily.

In the meantime, as part of Plus, the PS Vita has been updated to version 2.00. Back on the PSP, 2.00 was a major refresh, bringing the web browser to the PS Vita’s older brother. This time around it’s a similar story with the Vita getting a massive overhaul of that particular bit of software. A quick test suggests that the HTML5 rendering is a big step in the right direction, getting a score of 243 on html5test. It was previously 58.

That’s nowhere near perfect (it’s out of 500, and Chrome easily gets around 450) but it’s better, much better. And crucially, it’s faster too, and as we said yesterday it’s now able to run alongside a game, meaning you don’t need to quit out of WipEout to browse the web.

[drop2]The official changelog for firmware 2.00 is actually quite extensive – alongside Plus support is a new email application (more on that here) which is automatically added to the homepage. It supports Gmail, so it’s worth a look.

You can also transfer content between a Vita and PC over Wi-fi, rather than having to use the cable – you’ll need a new version of the Content Manager Assistant for that, though, it won’t just work. Folders can be transferred too, not just individual files.

Other tweaks to existing applications include a boost to Maps, which can now display weather information. There’s some nice system-level stuff too – you can now use the Vita’s buttons in more applications (if you’re averse to the touchscreen interface) and you can configure the alert notifications a bit more too.

However, it’s – as usual – away from the official lists that things become more interesting. For example, you can now freely stretch and move the screen for PSOne games, meaning custom sizes and aspect ratios, a nice feature, although you can’t yet run a PSP game in 1:1 pixel ration, which seems like an easy change to make but one that continually gets overlooked.

Other things picked up elsewhere this morning include the fact that the LiveArea for the Friends app now shows what your friends are up to, the screenshot function is now instant, friend requests now have the ability to add a message, the Video app has been altered a little with new features like slow motion replays, games can be updated without having the card in and a few little tweaks to how Trophies are displayed.

It’s a great update, that’s for sure. I’d personally still like to see folders implemented, so I can organise my apps and games away from the still slightly clunky scrolly bubble menu, but this is definitely a step in the right direction.

PS Vita firmware 2.00 is available now.

40 Comments

  1. Full button mapping on PS1 games is greatness. You can map to the touch screen and backscreen. And the right analog stick can be mapped too just like the PSP’s PS1 emulator. This makes things so much better now.

  2. Email is easy to setup and use. Browser has improved loads too. Look forward to next updates,hopefully regular. Well done Sony!

  3. Can anyone of you guys help? On the email app when putting in details i pressed other for hotmail,in the spaces provided for info is that for all my details?.Ingoing and out going?

    • Check out the PS forums, a guy has offered the solution there. Well actually its a link to hotmail/MSN where by it gives u info on email receive and send clients. Its just a few simple details.

  4. the browser is brilliant now so fast.

  5. I’ve just spotted they added native Twitter support under the Settings > Playstation Network menu as well. Overall this is quite a decent update.

  6. The best bit is the changes to the notifications- we can now control exactly which appear. Sick of seeing a bubble take up a large part of the screen and distracting me every time somebody comes online, but didn’t want to disable notifications totally after I missed messages, and of course trophy pop-ups.

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