Sony's Yoshida 'very aware' of how much we hate firmware updates

"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." Shuhei Yoshida gets it.

Speaking to Game Informer, the president of Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios concurs that both the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable have made an intrusive habit out of firmware updates. And though the upcoming Vita "will be fortified" with regards to security, Yoshida hopes that updates will be reduced in footprint, if not in frequency.

"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," says Yoshida. "I cannot talk about specific plans, but we are very aware of the issues, and we'd like to address those issues on PS Vita going forward."

In the same interview, Yoshida elaborates on other lessons learned from the PSP's lifespan. Consistent, post-launch software support is crucial, he says, as is more distinct separation between portable games with console-level production values, and regular PlayStation 3 titles. "We had many products on PSP, but most of these games like God of War [Chains of Olympus and Ghost of Sparta] came from the console. Basically, you can play a bigger, better version of these titles on PS3."

Yoshida says Vita games must leverage traits unique to the portable system, so as not to simply reproduce franchises (including Uncharted and Resistance) that can be found in superior format on console. So, are touchscreen and tilt controls really enough to distinguish a game like Golden Abyss? Sony knows this is the kind of game you like to play; it just needs to convince you that it's the kind you also want to play on the Vita.