As our Vitas slowly crawl their way over from Japan, real evidence of everything that was purely rumour and mistranslations is starting to emerge. Like the inability for a Vita game card to be used by more than one person without some inconvenience.
[drop2]As you’ll see from the photo, the Vita unhelpfully tells you that you can’t earn trophies on this particular game, but doesn’t really explain why.The truth is that if another Vita has played your game, it’s then locked to that machine and account, and you’ll have to do a factory reset on the card, deleting all saves, to open it up.
Of course, if you don’t care about trophies then sure – you can hop into the game and start playing without any more fuss, but given that the games store some data on them it’s obvious that something like this would have to happen to ensure people don’t get easy trophies just by loading a save game.
The message, of course, could be a little more user friendly.
I don’t like the way the Vita locks off the console to just one account – I think it’s hugely backwards after the openness of the PS3 – but I can see why this happens with the trophies.
Credit: Twitter.
TSBonyman
Hang on, have i misread this article? Can you reset a retail Vita game card? If you can then it’s not a problem for me.
Now i’m a bit confused though as to what exactly this means .. :?
kivi95
I think it means that so I don’t see a problem?
colossalblue
if you put a Vita game cart, brand new out of the box, in your Vita and start playing it you’ll earn trophies. If you then put it in your mate’s Vita, you (he) won’t be able to earn trophies unless you reset the cart and erase all of your data.
Basically, this is something Sony has implemented to try to make it more difficult for private users to swap, lend and sell their game carts.
kjkg
Lend and borrow, yes. Sell, no. It makes no difference in selling as the original owner has no longer got any intention of playing “that” physical game again. So all it does is add an extra 5 minutes work of deleting.
This will not affect the second hand market. It will only affect a pal borrowing my game for a week.
cc_star
@kjkg
Exactly, so it solves nothing & is just a barrier to legitimate household use
kjkg
That is true. But I think some people are getting the wrong end of the stick here and think it’s going to affect people buying second hand. That is all.
Also, do you know if it’s only for the games that save onto the actual gamecartridge itself?
cc_star
It’s annoying, at a price where a family won’t be able to afford more than one Vita, simple things like thus just make it more & more unattractive & turn it into a device for hardcore gamers which is quite a niche demographic. This is weird because it is at odds with Vita’s amazing strategy so far which ensures it’s supposedly a device for everyone with the touchscreen & touch-panel ensuring family friendly games are possible on the system & the PS Suite inclusion ensuring there is a mass-market budget ecosystem.
But all these niggles make it seem like the living room gaming revolution never happened & this is a device solely for the stereotypical sad lonely bedroom gamer.
MayContainEvil
What a pain in the ass. I don’t want a Vita anymore, between the locked user account and this it’s just not worth my time.
R4U Eldave0
This definately sounds annoying and makes me feel like I made the right choice opting for the 3DS.
I think Sony are forgetting that handheld consoles are mainly popular among younger gamers. My in-laws for example have 3 Nintendo DS’ in their house, as well as a collection of games that their kids play on. I would imagine they wouldn’t be best pleased if they had to buy multiple copies of the same game so all three of their kids could play said game.
Couple this with the fact you can only have one account on each Vita and this all feels like money grabbing, pure and simple.
kivi95
Does the 3DS even have trophies/achivments? And the online sytem is pretty broken.
kjkg
plus 3DS has games that you can’t actually do a factory reset on at all. Much, much worse than this. At least you can play the game from scratch if you choose. RE (mercenaries?) doesn’t even let you do that.
R4U Eldave0
They are bringing this in by the looks of things in the form of Accomplishments.
The online system seems ok to me. I have pretty much lived on Mario Kart 7 for the past two weeks without a hint of lag and the matchmaking only takes a few seconds. It probably had its faults initially (and from what I hear the online on Wii isn’t terrific) but I definately wouldn’t call it broken.
I get the feeling I misunderstood this article. Isn’t it effectively saying that (if you want to collect trophies) you have to have one copy of the game per user? As Nofi pointed out, pretty much all 3DS games (and indeed Wii and DS games) support multiple saves, plus the option to play rounds of Mario Kart, etc with up to 7 mates using a single cartridge seems much more generous :)
R4U Eldave0
@kjkg – I believe that is only present in a couple of games, it proved highly unpopular so they said they wouldn’t go down that route again
kjkg
No and yes. If you play say half the game and earn a few trophies, then lend it to a mate, he will have to delete any gamesaves on it to earn trophies for himself.
Not sure if this is only for games that save on the card itself. If Nofi knows, he might be able to clear that up. Are all games like this or just the select ones that save direct on the game card?
kjkg
Was a stupid idea in all honesty. Where would that have been a good idea, I don’t know.
djhsecondnature
Most kids don’t care about trophies/online persona’s, so the account issue shouldn’t affect them.
R4U Eldave0
I agree about the trophies statement (well, except my 9 year old brother in law, he’s more of a trophy hunter than me lol) but I would imagine most kids will want their own profile/saves
NOSAJ19
Does this mean that you cannot earn trophies on pre-owned PlayStation Vita games, unless you reset to factory settings?
kjkg
Unless you reset the game to factory setting, yeh.
So basically, unless you delete someone elses game save on it.
NOSAJ19
Oh, so its asking for a factory reset of the game, not the Vita itself?
kjkg
Yeh just on the game, not the Vita.
kivi95
correct.
Yahavage
Sooo… my partner and I buy uncharted for vita. He plays it first, then I go to play. Does this mean I don’t get trophies? Or will it be ok if we use the same vita? I am so confused lol xD but seriously if that’s the case I think I may not bother buying. I enjoy trophy collecting but not enough to warrant paying twice over for stuff.
Sympozium
Well I only play the PSP on my own, no ones allowed to touch because its a dying breed, yes it is! *holds tightly* but yeah the account lockdown hardly affects me and the save/trophies thing doesn’t seem to be so bad. meh just announce Monster Hunter and I’m all set because nothing else is that good or would have the feeling of great achievement on the Vita.
fattyuk
as a buy new only person and a trophy whore if this sort of thing can help prevent trophy hacking then its all good imo but it doesnt really sound anything different to if you use someone elses save data on the console that you Cant earn
fattyuk
is always good reading for me when people complain and are unhappy with there sort of things yet have no interest in the vita. And its kinda of sad knowing some gamers wont enjoy some potentially great games because this sort of “wont actually effect me” issues pop up.
Forrest_01
If you are referring to me (which you may very well be as i don’t recall seeing anyone else saying they weren’t getting it), i think i explained what i was unhappy with pretty well.
fattyuk
nah werent aiming my comment at anyone personally I think I explained my comment pretty well.
fattyuk
nah werent aiming my comment at anyone personally, I think I explained my comment pretty well.
edit : missed the ,
.