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[Ouren]

Oh, my bad. I forgot to say this was a mockup.
The shader might not make it in.

We have other screens to show, but this is one I had on hand in the dropbox. 

[Serapth]

'bit of a necro, but I wrote a book on programming for PlayStation Mobile.

It was a rather enjoyable experience, I think I'll write more.

[InfiniteStateMachine]

wow that's really cool. Congrats on publishing. 

[Serapth]

wow that's really cool. Congrats on publishing. 

Thanks man!  Knocked one item off the bucket list.


My bucket list is a bit interesting though, as things get added to it right before they are removed...  that way, it's always empty!

[InfiniteStateMachine]

wow that's really cool. Congrats on publishing. 

Thanks man!  Knocked one item off the bucket list.


My bucket list is a bit interesting though, as things get added to it right before they are removed...  that way, it's always empty!

Man I gotta adopt that strategy :D

[InfiniteStateMachine]

Just finished writing a new tutorial on improving rendering performance.

http://levelism.com/tutorial-3-improving-psm-rendering-performance/

[J-Snake]

I am considering to port my current game to the ps-vita rather than smartphones since it is a perfect fit. I am not sure one can compare it to xblig. It rather seems sony is more selective. I am just asking myself what if I am providing a good game but they are not satisfied with my snes-level of graphics. In case you know some indie games with ok pixel-art made and accepted by this new service I would be glad to know.

[InfiniteStateMachine]

It will be no problem. If you register with PSM you can publish with next to no approval process besides filling technical requirements. For instance you can't take more than a certain amount of time to load a game. I believe it was something like 15 seconds with a few loading screens that alternate.

Since you are making your game on XNA you might look into Monogame because they have a compile target for PSM.

There is also rumor that PSM will be adding PS4 support in the future so that's an option as well.

The cost to publish for a year is 100$.

[J-Snake]

Is there a spec on how much ram I am allowed to use at the same time. I am loading the whole game at the beginning into ram and gpu-ram. For smaller games this approach seems more elegant to me than constantly loading/unloading stuff.

[InfiniteStateMachine]

92MB is the max allowance currently.

Also texture compression is not supported although the development team says they are working on it

[J-Snake]

Hmm, given how resource hungry xna is that's not much. Is it the restriction for vram or system-ram?

[InfiniteStateMachine]

I will have to check but I think it's a unified restriction. So essentially all your textures, sounds, code etc in system ram will have to take 92MB.

[J-Snake]

Man, that's a fat restriction given that there is 512 mb of ram. What is the limit for the whole game-file size?

[InfiniteStateMachine]

The reason is that PSM has to target all PSM devices. The worst device is an old xperia phone which has 92mb ram. I'm really hoping they change this in the future because I'm really only interested in the Vita and any devices with a tactile Dpad.

Filesize of the game I can't remember but I remember looking at it and thinking it wouldnt be an issue at all. I don't think it will be an issue for trapthem.

[Ouren]

Yup! What he said about the Xperia Play is indeed true!

[J-Snake]

Is Monogame already ready for psm. Any examples?

[J-Snake]

Does my game have to offer additional controls in order to be compatible with touch-only devices. Or can I focus on Vita right away, also taking its resolution and screen refresh rate (60hz?) into account?

[Serapth]

No, your game needs to be playable on all devices, but you can develop targeting the PS Vita and get most of the rest for free.  There is a built in on screen controller that will be made available by default.

As to the memory restrictions, I believe it's actually 96mb off the top of my head.  As to how that is split up, you decide via your applications configuration file ( one will be created for you automatically ).  You can split the (admittedly limited) RAM up however you want.  So if you code only needs about 10mb of RAM to run, that can leave you 86MB for assets ( images, sounds, etc. ).


Coincidentally that memory limitation isn't due to the Xperia Play, it actually had 512MB of ram ( http://www.gsmarena.com/sony_ericsson_xperia_play-3608.php ).  It's more a limitation of RAM available after hosting the mono runtime, although frankly, I think they could ( and should ) easily bump it.

[J-Snake]

No, your game needs to be playable on all devices, but you can develop targeting the PS Vita and get most of the rest for free.  There is a built in on screen controller that will be made available by default.

God this is awful. My game would suck on smaller phone-screens, and then there is the less responsive touch-input blocking some of the sight in addition. The player needs the whole overview at once (and better hardware-buttons) and Vita is optimal for that. Sony is killing potential games on it with this business practice. It should strictly separate.

I am requiring snes-like input: 6 buttons and a digital-pad. Does it mean I don't have to put effort in understanding all those touch-gestures, I can simply assign hardware-buttons to already existing touch-templates and it works. Because otherwise I can invest the same effort in android/ios which have a far larger user-base. What I hope to achieve with Vita is that there are not many games on there, so my game will be better noticed. It is also the appropriate device for the game.

[Serapth]

I think you misunderstand.

You have to put no effort in.  You just use the joystick API.

If the actual device doesn't physically support what you want, it is emulated on screen.  If the user experience sucks on an old Xperia phone, so be it.