People 2 People Customer Service

I often hear many people say : “Customers are harsh and demanding nowadays. They expect too much!” My answer to them is "I believe that IN the Wake of ROIs,  customer service has taken a back seat and its one of the first things which companies overlook and bielive that most customers expect nothing, and even a nice smile or sincere hello is a delightful surprise.


But Guys its time to wake up and take services to new heights, today's consumer is probably the most enlightened ones till times. They have access to all the possible things you can think of and if you don't give them the service they require they will show you off.


In this article i would like to talk about a Niche Field in gaming and how a few companies are trying to change things.


I personally bielive that Indian Gamers are the most underrated customers ever witnessed by any industry, people think of them as really casual people who are worried about nothing at all and that is why i guess most of the better gaming companies have chose to stay away from India and let Indian players play on foreign servers without any local support.


The result this particular customer segment is distorted, disintegrated, not united.


Now I personally bielive that there is one particular company which is trying to change this.


Changyou India started their operations in India a few months back and they have launched a descent MMORPG for Indian Market Dragon Oath, according to whatever information i have the game is doing good and already has some millions playing it in India.


They have just started one of its kind initiative in the Industry, they have launched a Cash on Delivery Facility for their online tokens. The insight was clear from the very first moment that Many of the Indian consumers do not have Debit, Credit Cards and pay pals to the world so to make the serious gaming more reachable they had to do something out of the box. Now they are covering a large chunk of Indian geography and all you have to do is apply for the coupon on their website and their associate will come and collect the amount from you. I guess they have just started a Facebook offer and if you search for Changyou India of Facebook you should be lead to their page.


I prefer to see many such initiatives in the coming days and will keep you tunes on whats happening where.


Saonara till then. Bid adieus.

10 Social Media Campaigns that Rock! Learn How to do the Same!

What defines an exemplary social media campaign? What are the elements necessary to capture consumers’ attention and bring about interest and participation in any given social media campaign? What are the best recent social media campaigns online? How can we measure the success of a social media campaign?

A Brief Intro

It is definite that things in life are never just black or white; they usually come in different colors and shades which naturally applies to everything we do, see, touch, feel and so on.

Recently, one of the main focuses of companies with online presence and dedicated communities is creating and designing original, top-of-the-line, creative and motivating campaigns using social media.

Here is where the colors come in play! If we assume that colors are the intensity of a social media campaign’s success, brighter colors being most accomplished and so on, it can be quite difficult to determine which campaign was executed perfectly! Yet, after conducting some research, I have been able to highlight 10 brands that were able to pass the test with flying colors!

10 Social Media Campaigns that Rock:

1. “Give Me My Chuck” campaign – using social media to pressure the NBC to continue to broadcast the third season of Chuck!
[ See this campaign's Social Media by Example review on Thoughtpick ]

Save Chuck Campaign

2. Sea World’s Whale social media campaign – a unique integrated campaign that “serves as a bit of a reminder about some of the clever social media marketing that can be done beyond the typical diet of Facebook Pages, Twitter and YouTube.”
[ See this campaign's Social Media by Example review on Thoughtpick ]

3. Threadless building “brand love” – a great message and a comprehensive coverage on the most suitable social media channels.

4. Dunkin Donut’s new product Facebook campaign- using the Coolatta fan page, Dunkin gave out free beverages as a twitter avatar contest!
[ See this campaign's Social Media by Example review on Thoughtpick ]

Dunkin Donut's Cooletta

5. Ford using social media to promote the new Fiesta – Ford was able to find the right target audience for its Fiesta and market to them in an intriguing manner.

6. Sony Ericsson‘s viral approach - here, Sony used a mysterious character named Johnny X and YouTube to create an element of curiosity to promote Xperia X1.

7. Burger King‘s Facebook application (in addition to other social media uses) - the Whopper Sacrifice application on Facebook.

8. Dell‘s effective mix of social media tools – namely Direct2Dell Blog.

9. Target‘s Facebook campaign – “Bullseye Gives” campaign on Facebook: a voting application connected to the brand’s existing Facebook page.

Target's Bullseye gives

10. Comparethemeerkat.com‘s inclusive campaign - utilizing humor and a blend of social media channels to promote car insurance.

Elements of Success (how can it work for YOU?)

The success of social media campaigns, and utilization in general, does not, in any way, rely on some magical formula or any secret ingredients we might need to acquire from the belated witches of Salem! Yet, it is a careful mixture of simple and valuable elements which need to be present before, through and after the implementation of any social media campaign. Some elements could be very obvious, while others need some research and attention to be achieved.

• Make sure that you apply smart integration with the “right” social media channels that suit your brand image, the product/service you are trying to promote and its value. Not every social media channel will bring about the positive feedback you are waiting for!
• Take time to choose the team who will be in charge of executing your social media plan. It is not about the quantity, it is about the quality, remember that! Experience and already established online PR agents or staff members will be of a higher value to your campaign in comparison with anyone with a lot of free time to waste!
• Again, content is king! It is a must to make sure that your social media campaign’s content is not offensive, biased or easily misinterpreted. This could be easily used against you!
• Just as it is important to know your target market online, learning more about your online target audience is very important! This will not only help you know where to find them, it will also guide you in designing the campaign that will intrigue them and lead them to take actions!
• You are under the microscope; play nice! Always be aware that once your social media campaign has hit the hot topics’ list, you are now being watched. Try to be continuously involved in any conversations, posts, chats and/or forums taking place regarding your product, service or campaign.
• Be innovative and try not to imitate whenever possible. You might use the same social media channels others are utilizing but try making your benefit and reward systems varied. Your audience is not always looking to get a free coffee!
• Constantly measure the depth of your social media campaign’s fulfillment of goals and returns. The ROI should always be bigger, or at least equal to, the invested money, time, effort and resources that you are putting in the project.
• Put effort into making the overall social media campaign’s experience fun, engaging and proactive. Adding games, puzzles and teasers can be very addictive!

In a nut shell, though it might be tricky to implement each of the above steps within the right time frame, remember something: impossible is nothing!

And finally, allow me to leave you with the following question to think about: What can be done when your campaign takes a wrong turn? Is there a kill switch for social media campaigns?

If there’s one thing that every single brand asks when they run a social media campaign, it’s ‘how can I generate ROI?’  While in the earlier days of social media, users were very closed off to the idea of being sold to, this is beginning to change. At the start we were busy getting our own heads around how social networks could benefit us, without brands interfering and trying to sell to us. Now however, the brands have grown up and know how to use social media to entertain their customers, and users are becoming accustomed to the fact that there are advantages to following brands online, directly linked to commerce. With this shift in behaviour from both parties, there are some huge opportunities for brands to monetize their social media efforts, beyond simply adding a shopping cart to their Facebook Page.

Referral-Based Social Commerce

While Groupon has successfully introduced the idea of group buying, the referral system currently only works for promotions and discounts, which remain ‘locked’ until enough people have registered. But the next stage for this is in referral-based commerce, where the user is directly rewarded for referring people through to the purchase points. BE Broadband In the UK experimented with this earlier in the year with their ‘spread the Love campaign’. Here they introduced a one-off Twitter promotion that allowed people to get discounts off their broadband based on how many people they referred to the site through Twitter :

This isn’t really something that brands are introducing on a wider scale yet, but it’s an exciting opportunity that will begin to be utilized, that more importantly can be integrated into your website or Facebook Page. At either of these points, the user is just one click away from accessing their entire online community that could be important potential customers that are even more valuable as they can be driven by trusted user recommendations.  Brands can capitalize on this by integrating the option to refer products to friends, building up a social currency on the site that can be redeemed against offers.

Just as social media has lead to everyone becoming mini-publishers in their own right, constantly creating and sharing content, the same can apply for commerce with the idea of everyone becoming ‘social sellers’. The difficulty comes of course in how this impacts on the social experience for users, and this is where I believe the brand has a level of responsibility in how the social referral system can be run. For example this could only allow the user to share the product with friends that have certain interests, so they know the content will be relevant, or it can be limited to a certain number of friends per product, to reduce spamming.

Mobile Apps

Now while mobile apps may not sound that revolutionary when it comes to monetizing social media activity, this is an area that many brands continue to ignore, in spite of the significant user demand. Smartphone usage is on the up, and this means more people spending time on their phones while in queues, on the train, and passing the time when you would have had nothing to do otherwise. Essentially this means that brands have a chance to use what would previously have been ‘dead’ time – a point at which you had no contact with your consumers and the only chance you had to sell to them may have been through one of a hundred generic posters.

But now people want to use this time on their mobiles, and more importantly, they want to use it to buy things. A recent report from Demandware shows that while 23% of consumers have downloaded a shopping app, with 50% planning on downloading one, only 12% of retailers are actually offering this. This is a huge gap in the supply and demand of mobile-based commerce that brands should be taking advantage of. But as well as simply offering a mobile app in the same vein as the experience of buying on your site, there are ways that brands can begin to change the mobile shopping experience overall, in reflection of the fact that while a transaction may be completed within a mobile app, that might not necessarily be the place that the user journey started. Often you will find that the user first saw the product in store, but might complete the purchase within an app.

Brands can start to make this really clever, by introducing scanning of products in store that can make up your mobile shopping cart in a new way. Imagine if you could go around scanning everything you saw in a store that you liked, and then access this information retrospectively to see the latest prices and availability, and also products that are similar to this. Here brands can extend the store experience even after you’ve left the store itself and use this as a continual point of engagement with the consumer, to encourage them back or to complete the purchase through the app. When looking at how to maximise mobile, or app-based commerce, brands should look at ways to utilise the actual device itself to make the experience more social and use new functionality within the device to transform the consumer experience.

If you’re looking for inspiration in this are, Best Buy is a great example of a company utisiling mobile commerce apps, beyond simple catalogue models. The recent rollout of the shopkick app , which includes Best Buy as a retailer, integrates location features including rewards for consumers for entering into stores. Best Buy are getting in on this earlier, but it represents a much wider opportunity for businesses, as Shopkick are currently looking for 1,000 business across 10 cities to take part in the initiative :

The Gamification of Commerce

Gamification is one of the next big things in social media, as brands find ways to introduce points, levels, badges and more to entertain their followers and create more time spent with the brand itself. But at the moment, this concept is being misunderstood by many brands, who introduce gamification into their site or social profiles, with no real consideration as to what motivates the user to play in the first place. To really engage with gaming concepts, the user has to have something to strive for, there has to be a reason for playing, beyond just putting a badge there for the sake of it. And this is where commerce can come in. I’d like to see brands start using gaming concepts, where relevant, to unlock certain products on the site that can’t be attained anywhere else.

This has to be carried out carefully of course. Bring people to a site where they have to play a game or complete a challenge to buy any of your products and you’ll probably find they’ll leave pretty quickly. But this can be made part of the wider social experience. Say for example you’re announcing a new t-shirt design to the fans on your Facebook Page. Instead of making this available to all, this can be made into a limited edition that can only be accessed by completing a task that actually relates to the product itself. For example you can add a treasure hunt element. Suddenly the user has something to obtain and strive for. You’re engaging your existing fans so you know you’re talking to the right audience and not putting off first-time visitors to your site and you’re also creating an additional level of engagement with your brand, all within the context of playing a game and a positive user experience.

And the good news for brands is that the demand for gamification is there. A recent study has just been released  that shows half of the online population in the U.S. are already playing social games during the working day, with discounts being cited as the most compelling reason for completing a social challenge. This shows gamification moving in the same direction as social media overall. While it initially may not have been a space for brands, people are opening up to corporate presence in social gaming and social challenges, provided there is a very real reason for doing this. This is exciting news for those interested in monetising their activity in social media and using new social technologies to turn a fan into a customer.

Of course one of the biggest barriers to gamification for brands, is the technology needed to implement it on your site. This is where services such as Badgeville come in handy. They offer a gamification service for sites, and an endorsement of the future of gamification comes perhaps in the form of a recent round of funding Badgeville completed, to the tune of $2.5 million

Socialise the Customer Experience

It won’t be long until the idea of the same homepage being displayed for everyone seems completely archaic. While brands can certainly choose to show the same products to all of their users, they risk ignoring the huge amount of information and data available on their customers that will enable them to personalise the experience and increase the likelihood of a site visit turning into a sale. It’s all about socializing the experience someone has with your brand, whether this is on your site or your social profile.

At the moment the biggest opportunity here is Facebook Connect, which many brands are already using on their site to change the information that’s shown, for example showing you products that friends have Liked, or those that are relevant to you based on the information within your profile. The most impressive use of Facebook Connect within a retail site surely comes from Levis, who have developed a sophisticated shopping experience that allows you to bring friends into the purchasing journey in an impressive way, for example showing products that they also Like :

But there is a huge opportunity for brands to take this to another level.  Our entire social activity isn’t contained within a Facebook profile alone, and there’s an entire social make-up of consumers that can be used to change the way you do business. In any given day I will check out my Facebook profile, tweet, blog, share photos on Instagram and probably check in on Facebook. All of this information is invaluable to brands and can be used to tell me about products I didn’t even know I wanted. Imagine if I can land on a site and see a suggestion of tickets I should buy to a concert near me because I checked into a certain location and shared a link to a similar song on Twitter. This completely personalises the experience in a whole new way.

The opportunity for brands here is to take the information I’m sharing it and present it back to me in a way that actually saves me a job. I obviously don’t want to hear about a concert before it’s too late, or spend time endlessly searching for the exact thing I want or need. So if a brand can tell me what I want before I know it myself, I’m more likely to convert and become a loyal follower of them online. Now of course this may be a long way off because it relies on users giving access to that information, but the technology can begin to be introduced by brands on an opt-in basis. ‘Do you want to shop with us the normal way, or the really, really cool way?’

How to Pay for College by Playing Games

College students can now turn hours spent playing social games into tuition grants and philanthropic giving with recently launched startup Grantoo.

The online gaming platform hosts brand-sponsored tournaments, giving companies the chance to earn recognition for their charitable giving. College students play games for free, with the hopes of winning money toward their education. Before they begin playing, students designate between 10% and 100% of their potential winnings to any charity of their choice.

“Students are playing social games a lot so we want to make it useful to them by turning something that’s a distraction or a waste of time into something that’s positive,” says Mikhael Naayem, co-founder of Grantoo. “We want to promote philanthropy at an early age, introducing students at no cost.”

Grantoo launched with three original games: a crossword, Wordy Bird; a poker game, Grantoo Hold’em and a trivia game, Quiz Night.

Naayim noticed that companies receive very little recognition for the money they donate to academic scholarships, among other causes. Grantoo provides sponsors ample branding opportunities of tournaments, making the platform an attractive donation model.

All of the money companies donate goes toward the combination of philanthropy and college grants for students, according to the ration determined by the game winners. Grantoo generates its own operating cost through on-site advertising.

“This is a great opportunity for brands because students associate their image with something that’s charitable,” co-founder Dimitri Sillam says. “It’s time right now for small companies to step in and solve big problems in an innovative way.”

Who do you think wins with Grantoo — companies, students or both? Let us know in the comments if you’d be interested in Grantoo as a student or sponsor.

http://youtu.be/9KKxL3Rr32E

Nielsen, ComScore Battle for Online Audience Ratings

As viewers increasingly turn to Facebook and Twitter to talk about television, advertisers have been looking for a way to translate online engagement into ratings. According to AdAge, ComScore is ready with a new standard for measuring online audiences that could rival Nielsen’s.

ComScore’s new Validated Campaign Essentials (VCE) would make sure people see at least 50 percent of the pixels of every online ad for at least one second.  This would create “viewable impressions” that would only be counted when viewed, as outlined in the Making Measurement Make Sense initiative (3MS) to standardize digital measurement.

The Media Rating Council (MRC) that governs audience measurement will formally audit VCE in mid-April before voting on its accreditation. A pre-audit of the system yielded favorable results, according to ComScore chief research officer Josh Chasin.

Nielsen, which currently has the monopoly on television ratings, is working on a similar metric that will be tested this month. The company has already secured MRC accreditation for its Online Campaign Ratings (OCR) system. Similar to television, OCR provides age and sex demographics through anonymous Facebook data, as well as online gross rating points (GRPs) that measure what percentage of the target audience an ad has reached multiplied by how often the audience has seen it during a particular campaign.

The 3MS group, a collaboration between the ANA, IAB, and 4A’s advertising organizations, has been looking for ways to translate online advertisements into identifiable units akin to 30-second commercials and then measure their effectiveness not just by the number of impressions served, but how often they are viewed and whether they’ve reached the target audience.  It seems that ComScore and Nielsen are each closing in on a solution. 3MS will be sending out public-service announcements from the Ad Council to test out both systems this month.

AdAge has a thorough analysis of what this means for the advertising industry here.

Apple and Facebook Should Be Terrified Of Google-Tinted Glasses

Google's Augmented Reality Eye wear is  coming to disrupt your face and your business model. If you don’t even have to pull your phone out to take a photo, get directions, or message with friends, why would you need to buy the latest iPhone or spend so much time on Facebook?

It could be a year before Google eye wear reaches stores, but that’s why these and other tech companies need to strategize now. If they wait to see if the device is a hit, the world could be seeing through Google-tinted glasses by the time they adapt. Apple and Facebook’s bet might be to team up…

If you haven’t heard, Googe Announced it is beginning public tests of augmented reality glasses with the codename Project Glass. A mouthwatering mock-up video of what the device might eventually be capable of shows someone using voice commands to send messages, take photos, share to Google+, see the locations of friends, view maps, get directions, set calendar reminders, and more.

Cramming all the functionality into a sleek set of glasses is going to take time and effort, but the Google(x) skunklabs is on it. There’s a dozen ways the product could flop, most obviously if the glasses are awkward and unstylish, but also if they’re too heavy, expensive, fragile, or the world is just not quite ready. Let’s forget those for a second. Say Google figures it out and the retail version of Project Glass (which may end up being called Google Eye) becomes wildly popular. How will this disrupt Apple and Facebook, and what should they do to defend themselves?

Here’s what I see as their best courses of action:

Apple Should Compete

Project Glass takes a ton of the things you use your iPhone and iPod for and puts them into your glasses. The glasses will likely run a version of Android and since they’re voice controlled, they could turn into Google’s competitor to Siri. People might buy Google glasses rather than snapping up the latest Apple device.

But Apple is the world’s greatest hardware company. Hopefully somewhere deep inside its headquarters there are some scientists figuring out how to turn an iPhone into glasses, not just a wristwatch.

Apple should seek to capitalize on Google’s lack of hardware experience, and spend some of its cash reserves to lock up critical component manufacturers. Even if Project Glass ends up an ugly mess, Apple could still make eyeglass computing beautiful. This technology sure seems like the future, so Apple needs to be ready to pounce. But the problem remains that it has no social network or other key services to power its own version…”

Facebook Should Team Up With Apple

Facebook is no hardware company and isn’t big enough to become one. Not having its own mobile OS or device is hurting Facebook, and eyeglass computing could turn into round 2. The video already showed Google+ as the preferred sharing method. Unlike an Android phone where you could just open the Facebook app, Project Glass won’t necessarily allow third-party apps, at least at first, and could make them harder to access than Google+ which will be baked in.

Though Facebook and Apple have been on strained terms so far, and Facebook hasn’t even gotten directly integrated into iOS like Twitter, the two companies could bond over the common threat of Project Glass. Apple needs somewhere to share the content you’d create with its glasses, or why create it in the first place? Facebook needs to make sure Apple lets it get deeply embedded, with or without Twitter alongside it. (Though, Facebook, should probably start with today’s iOS).

Postscript: If Apple or Facebook consider eyeglass computing as marketable to mainstream in the next few years, today should give them a jolt. It’s early though, so they’ll only need to be scared if they don’t plan.

But here’s the kicker…

Despite its lack of hardware experience, Google is the best positioned company to make, or at least provide the software for eyeglass computers. It has Android, Google+, Maps, Gmail, Gcal, Latitude, and more. Glass might go belly up, but if not it could breathe life into some of these sluggish services. That’s why it’s ridiculous when people call Project Glass a diversion or waste of resources. Seems to me like Google’s vision is 20/20.

PS Vita - Reviewed

Verdict

This is fitting of the original PSP2 tag that it earned early on in its life.

It improves on the PSP in almost every way, adding the dual sticks that developers can't do without, as well as the touchscreens and motion controls of other gaming systems. Still, it does feel like a reaction, rather than an innovation.

There's nothing new or revolutionary, simply another means to play games and watch movies.

Thumbs UP:

As a portable console this is about as good as it gets. This really is a portable PlayStation and lets you ditch Temple Run in favor of full sized, big budget games.

Both the graphical capabilities and the screen make for a luxury mobile experience while the controls combine the best of traditional and more creative inputs, enhancing but never detracting from the gameplay.

The price, too, is fair. Other high-end mobile devices cost far more, and while £230 isn't exactly pocket money, it's still a heavily subsidised console.

Thumbs Down:

The web browser really is awful. Blank sections of screen, juddery loading and lacking features, it might as well not be there for all the use you'll get out of it.

The size of the machine also makes it a little unwieldy to use the way it's meant to be held: if your thumbs fall naturally on the sticks then reaching the middle of the screen is uncomfortable and vice versa.

Verdict:

Before you decide to 'go Vita' you need to be sure about what hole you're hoping to fill. If it's mainly games on the go then knock yourself out. It mixes the best of everything out there with games that are PS3/Xbox quality right down to shitty Angry Birds level bits of fluff.

The controls, both traditional sticks and the motion and touch stuff, are all great.

It's also a capable media player with the various social apps also looking promising. But this is really a games machine and should be viewed for purchase as such. It won't worry more versatile i-Things, tablets or media players anytime soon but if you want fun first, and a few other features second then it's worth investigating.

Overview:-

Sony's latest attempt to lift a slice of the handheld pie so ably scoffed by Nintendo is the PS Vita: a chunky black slab of portable PlayStation. So here we have my full-blown PlayStation Vita review.

It's a substantial revamp of the company's handheld legacy that started with the PSP and has evolved, until now, through five largely identical models since its 2004 debut.

Each step saw minor revisions - three of which, the PSP-1000, 2000 and 3000, were basically size revising updates - and attempts to chase a rapidly changing market.

The PSP Go added a sliding-case design further shrinking the device, and ditched Sony's original proprietary UMD disk format in favor of download only software.

Even now the original device lives on with the latest PSP, the E1000, undergoing a budget focused strip down with a cheaper build and removing all but the most basic features to squeeze the last out of it as a piece of (almost) throw away fun.

ps vita

In many ways, despite the new name, the PS Vita is another revision of the PSP legacy but one with plenty of much needed evolution. The same basic form returns and it's still a dedicated games machine. If you want a PlayStation Phone then you'll need the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play, an Android based device that can play Android games and PS1 titles.

The PlayStation Vita does have wireless options, with one of the models sporting a 3G connection but it's for updates and online gaming rather than communication.

The lesser model uses WiFi for the same functionality, and at a cheaper price: the 3G PS Vita will set you back £279 while the WiFi one will cost £229 when the console is released on February the 22nd. Shop around though as there are plenty of deals and trade ins to be had.

ps vita

The PSP sold well but suffered from a lack of star software and focus. There were no essential games, and it's multimedia abilities, by SCEE's own president and CEO Jim Ryan's admission, "confused consumers".

This time the PS Vita is aimed squarely at gaming. The multimedia functionality is still there (and with a 5-inch OLED screen it has the potential to rival most smart phones and even dedicated media players) but the marketing and message is clear: this is a games machine.

ps vita

It's even got a certified killer app with Uncharted: Golden Abyss proving that this is a full fat gaming experience, capable of providing PS3 quality fun on the go.

The real revolution however comes through the control options. First up there are dual analogue sticks that let you play exactly the same games, and in exactly the same way, as you would on your PS3 or Xbox 360. Something that now seems essential for gaming on whatever platform and demonstrated clearly by the persistence of dual stick controls on iOS games, and the slightly embarrassing admission/compromise of the Circle Pad for 3DS.

ps vita

Then there are the extras: the twin front and back touchscreens, the motion control (using a three-axis gyroscope and three-axis accelerometer sensors) a microphone and dual cameras. There are uses for all of them with high profile touchy, wavy and visual gameplay mechanics across the launch line up.

Initial impressions are that this is what PSP wanted to be: a real portable PlayStation. Neither a phone nor a tablet but a fully formed, uncompressed gaming console you can throw in your bag.

Features:-
Features

There's no denying that there's some impressive grunt inside the PS Vita's black plastic case.

The combination of the Quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore CPU and PowerVR Series5XT SGXMP+ quad core graphics chip mean that this is running near PS3 quality games, helped along by the 512 MB RAM and a separate 128 MB of VRAM.

A game like Uncharted: Golden Abyss is a clear system seller largely because it looks ostensibly like the original game on PS3.

ps vita review

There is no sense of any lowering of aesthetic standards that you might get on 3DS or iPhone. Visually this is competing on a PS3/Xbox 360 level with the same advanced rendering capabilities and dynamic lighting. Although frame rates can dip when a lots happening it's still and impressive leap forwards for handheld gaming.

The standout feature is its 960 × 540 qHD resolution OLED screen. At 5-inches it's a bright and sharp joy to watch, despite its being a touch down the resolution and pixel density ladder from an iPhone 4S' 640×960 screen which rocks 326ppi over the Vita's 220ppi.

ps vita review

It's also a capacitive touchscreen which is used in games and navigation, while there's a second touch pad on the rear of the machine, used almost exclusively for gaming inputs.

The other control mechanisms are an arrangement of buttons and sticks familiar to anyone who's ever picked up a PS3 Dualshock (there's no haptic feedback, mind). The triangle, square, cross and circle buttons sit on the right of the machine, the D-pad on the left. There's also a home button to navigate between open apps, and separate start and selection buttons.

You've also got three-axis accelerometer and gyroscope, meaning you can control your games simply by moving the device in your hand.

This enables you to aim simply by moving the device around - great for games like Uncharted though if you're sitting down you might need a swivel chair!

ps vita

On the top of the machine are the triggers, a power and volume control as well as two ports. One for game cards, the other is an accessory port. The Vita SD storage card slots in at bottom and a standard sized sim used by the 3G model pops in the left hand side.

One odd form factor is that the machine is slightly too wide for easy typing. The on-screen keyboard is a good size and responsive but the width of the machine means that in a natural holding position your thumbs can't reach the middle. As a result you either have to use a slightly stretched grip or resort to single digit stabbing.

ps vita

As well as capable stereo speakers there's a headphone jack and microphone for use both in game and with applications like Party, a cross game chat system that lets you communicate with others on your PSN friends list.

There are also front and rear cameras. They're both 640x480, 0.3MP VGA level devices so while classy photography isn't really an option they're serviceable enough for communication and use in games. The AR Reality Fighters uses them to put your face on a characters and to project that character in to the real world, for example.

ps vita

One criminal drawback is the lack of internal memory. You'll have to fork out for Sony's proprietary Vita memory cards, essentially a tweaked SD card. Games come on their own cartridge-style cards with storage space for saves and update so if you're only gaming it's less of a concern. However, if you want to take music, picture or videos with you you'll have to pay extra for the Vita specific cards. There are a range of sizes planned from 2-16GB.

Connection-wise both models come with standard Bluetooth and WiFi connections while the 3G model also includes, well a 3G connection.

In the EU that's provided by Vodaphone, and the £279 price tag includes a free 4GB memory card, a PAYG SIM card which when topped up with £5 will get you a free downloadable game - WipEout 2048 - and 250 MB of data lasting up to 30 days with full Vodafone 3G connectivity.

The PlayStation Vita 3G will also be available at other high street and online retailers with the option to top up £5 and get the WipEout 2048 game free of charge.

Gaming

As previously mentioned gaming on the Vita looks incredible. After all the talk of CPUs and GPUs, the key thing is that games look every bit as good as their larger console counterparts.

Uncharted: Golden Abyss really does look as good as any launch PS3 game and better, even, than a handful of more recent console games. Visually it blows the iPad/Phone and Nintendo 3DS out of the water.

Because these are more akin to full size console games there are also equivalent full size loading times. You can get back into any game you've left running in the background almost instantly but firing up something like Uncharted from scratch can take a couple minutes.

uncharted ps vita

Battery life

Gaming also takes it out of the machine's battery, though it's actually not too bad considering the processors and screen. Play something constantly with a sensible screen brightness and you'll get about four and half to five hours out of it. So, okay for short trips but best to keep the charger in your bag, a habit i-devices have ingrained into most of us by now anyway.

Loading and battery concerns aside the quality of the entertainment on offer is strong.

Wipeout 2048's futuristic racing looks beautiful with sharp, detailed environments blasting past as you compete. It's also one of the games to utilise cross play, letting you play against PS3 opponents on certain Wipeout tracks.

Then there's something like Escape Plan. It has a dark children's cartoon feel as you guide little claymation flavoured characters past a series of slicing, electrocuting death traps. What stops it becoming a simple 2.5D platform puzzler is its lovely, characterful animation and touch controls that have you jabbing and swiping at the screen. You can even 'pinch' the little heroes using the front and rear pad together to make them run.

PS vita little devients

Nearly all the games on offer make intelligent use of the varied controls options. Uncharted uses motion controlled sniping and gesture-based QTE's in combat. It's also got by far the best use of touch controls to show off your new toy. When Nate's climbing rock faces you can 'draw' over the available handholds and ledges. He'll then scramble across the path.

Trying to hit an entire route in one sweep actually becomes a satisfying meta-game in it's own right. There's also the ability to scale ropes by stroking your fingers in a climbing motion on the rear touchpad; something that always makes an onlooker smile.

unit 13 ps vita

Then there are the games built around the new controls. Little Deviants is a series of party games - variants on Whac-a-mole games, ball rolling challenges, motions controlled shooters and more - that has you stabbing at the screen and waving the entire machine around you.

Similarly Frobisher Says is a Bishi Bashi Special style assortment of madness as you race through challenges that last seconds - counting the number of cats that appear on screen for a fraction of a second, say. It's numerous instructions are yelled out by a manic Kevin Eldon creating a genuinely funny if short lived experience.

There are also more traditional offerings. Games like Unit 13 is a fairly traditional third person military shooter, and as such has little use for the extra control methods. Instead it makes logical use of them by letting you tap on screen to select options and change weapons.

PS vita little devients

There's a good number of titles as well. At launch 25 games will be available with another ten in the 'launch window', basically the week or two after the Vita goes on sale on February 22nd.

It's a wide range as well with everything from more 'hardcore offerings like Unit 13, Uncharted: Golden Abyss and Ninja Gaiden, though to more casual offerings like Plants vs Zombies and Motorstorm RC. Sports fans get things like FIFA, Hot Shots Golf and F1. Plus there are kid friendly titles like Ben Ten and Lego Harry Potter.

The PS Vita also carries a full-blown PSP emulator so you'll be able to fire up almost any PSP titles without a problem.

In Japan, Sony operates a UMD Passport scheme, allowing Vita gamers to download digital copies of any PSP title they already own without any extra fee. However, it is unclear whether this service will be available in the UK. If it's not, it would mean that PSP titles would need to be re-purchased - but we'll bring you an update on this as soon as we know more.

Functionality

The PS Vita is a simple device to use. You swipe up and down through pages of apps and games that appear as little floating Smartie like buttons. Anything you have open, Apps, games and media, stack up on a series of pages you can scroll through left to right, or shut down by 'tearing' the page off.

It's an intuitive and tactile system with buttons wobbling and the screen stretching and warping gently as you interact with it. It's easy to see why Sony chose to forgo the PlayStation XMB they'd previously rolled out across various TVs, cameras and other areas of their electronics division.

ps vita

In terms of apps on the console there are currently things like Near, a location-based service much like Nintendo's Street Pass system. It collects information from the area, people and games around you. Party is the previously mentioned chat system and there's also a Group Messaging app.

The Vita specific PlayStation Store isn't yet up so there's no way yet of knowing what the full range of additional applications will be in Europe. Things like Facebook, Flickr, Skype, Twitter and foursquare are on the way, though, through Social Essentials - Vita's take on social networking.

ps vita facebook

While the media side of things have been played down, the PS Vita does do it all. Whatever you want to use can be transferred to and from the machine directly on the PS3. Through PC you can easily use Sony's propitiatory Content Manager Assistant which lets you set folders for images, music and video as well as back up your device. Or you can just use the device like a portable harddrive.

The apps that let you view or use your media are all easy to use, although browsing could be better - when you've got a lot of content it's a slow old slog to scroll though it all and the scroll bar is more for decoration than any practical use.

ps vita

These are the currently supported media formats. The Vita focuses on the more commonly used ones but it's worth bearing in mind that PS3 added extra formats to it's original line up though post release firmware updates

Music: MP3 MPEG-1/2 Audio Layer 3, MPEG-4 AAC, WAVE (Linear PCM)

Video: MPEG-4 Simple Profile (AAC), H.264/MPEG-4 AVC Hi/Main/Baseline Profile (AAC)

Photo: JPEG (Exif 2.2.1), TIFF, BMP, GIF, PNG

One area that does need serious attention is the almost unusable browser. There's currently no support for Flash or HTML5 with the machine only getting friendly with the bare minimum of Javascript and cookies. There are serious and basic functionality issues eitherway, however.

ps vita

There's no ability to re-orientate the screen, leaving you with a letterbox view that only loads what is visible. Attempts to scroll through sites simply reveals a blank screen as you wait for the Vita to catch up.

There's also a remote play feature, which allows you to use the Vita to take control of your PS3. In theory this means you can play PS3 games on the PS Vita over a network. Some titles work already though many don't, and Sony is keeping its cards close to its chest about how functional the Remote Play feature will be moving forward.