The PlayStation 3 has never been the most user-friendly system. The hardware requires mandatory installations of many games, frequent firmware updates, and features a user interface that often has you staring at a black screen while all installations and updates are taking place. Shuhei Yoshida, president of Sony Computer Entertainment’s worldwide studios, addressed these issues in a recent interview, and claimed that the PlayStation Vita would provide a more pleasant gaming experience.

When asked about the firmware updates, the executive admitted it was an issue that needed to be fixed in the PlayStation Vita. "I agree, it’s very annoying when you only have one hour in your busy life to play a game, and when you have to spend 30 minutes out of that one hour to update the hardware," Yoshida told Game Informer. "So it’s not necessarily the frequency of how we update, it’s like you said—intrusiveness—of the current processes that we have on PS3 and PSP."

He declined to comment on specifics, but he did say the company is well aware of the issue and has plans to address it.

It's interesting that Yoshida doesn't think the frequency of updates is the problem, as he's only discussing how they are applied to the hardware. The good news is Sony's awareness of its own usability problems: the PSP Go was a nightmare to use, and the PlayStation 3 often requires a lengthy warm-up period of updates and installations before you can play a recently purchased game. That's a problem on a console, but it could be death for a portable.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2011/09/sony-executive-vita-will-offer-better-firmware-update-experience-than-ps3.ars

Posted: Sep 22, 2011 8:16 am