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Portable post-Black Friday deals take off from Nintendo, PlayStation and Evercade

 While there's no sign of a discount on the PlayStation Portal or Xbox Ally, portable gamers can still get in on the Black Friday action. From handheld PC gaming devices to Nintendo, there's plenty on offer.  Update: Valve has jumped in with 20% off the Steam Deck LCD 256GB model (down to £279 in the UK) Update: PlayStation Portal has £20 off the range, bringing the white and black models down to £179, and 30th Anniversary Edition to £189. (Look out for another 5% off at checkout!)  First up is  Evercade offering a clutch of offers on hardware and games on Amazon and across other stores in Europe and US markets.  Not all deals have kicked in yet, but the official list is:  Up to 30% off all cartridges released before September 2025 20% off all hardware released before September 2025 US and Canada to receive 20% off all lines released before Sep 2025 Big names, including Evercade Alpha Street Fighter and Mega Man bartop arcade, Tomb Raider, all Super Pocke...

Why aren't Vita developers learning from smartphone freemium games?

The Vita is getting off to a rather shaky start with this whole freemium or extra content idea. A few weeks ago it was the lack of information and short play time that led to a lot of reviewers and gamers feeling rather conned by Treasures of Montezuma: Blitz and now StarDrone Extreme has had a run in with a pay to escape the level offer.

The tens of thousands of smartphone games out there mean developers have had a couple of years to experiment with pretty much all methods of monetization. Their experiences should lead to some clear rules for Vita developers.



1. Put the rules up front: Don't say a game is free when there is paid content required to keep playing. Call it freemium or "free to download, payment may be required" but don't call it "free." Explain what the costs options are before users end up in the PSN store.

2. Allow a fair minimum play time per day: It is easy to end up getting just two or three games out of Montezuma Blitz a day, that's three minutes of gaming for those who rightfully don't want to pay for a game they were told was free. Any game like this should have a practice, trial or similar mode allow at least 30 minutes to an hours play.

3. Reward player success: If there is something that gamers can pay for cheaply, they should also be able to get it as an in-game reward for success. If StarDrone rewarded great play with level-skip tokens, gamers probably wouldn't be so up in arms.

4. Update, update, update: Angry Birds and others have demonstrated that continued updates keep people coming back. The limited Vita games so far seem to have dumped the players the minute they get the game. I've seen a massive drop off in friend activity on Montezuma as people just aren't interested any more.

5. Payments should offer more than just extra play: Many smartphone game payments actually extend the game with new features, options or extensions, adding these to games makes it a genuine investment for the player, rather than just more play time.

I know its early days for the Vita yet, and a lot of console gamers might not be used to the world of freemium, but there are ways to mitigate user confusion and anger, and Sony could mandate at least some of these methods in its approvals process to ensure that the handheld doesn't get a bad reputation. Anything else you can think of that would help?

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Currently playing on my Vita/PS3/PS4/PS5


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