长篇分析文：VITA的触摸屏困境是索尼的自作自受！

Toyger

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原文：
While the PlayStation Vita has the traditional d-pad, buttons and two dual analog sticks, the handheld also has a touchscreen and a rear touchpad, leading to an unrivaled level of interactivity. But Sony is letting the Vita down by forcing you to unnecessarily use just one way to interact – the touchscreen.

Ok, I get it, for Sony it’s a big deal that the Vita has a touchscreen – it’s the first time a PlayStation device has such a screen and means the handheld can play all kinds of games suited to that interface. But for the average tech-savvy consumer? Touchscreens aren’t anything new – the iPhone, the most successful touchscreen handheld released in 2007, with Android out a year later. Now, there are hundreds of millions of touchscreen devices that have been in the hands of potential Vita owners for years.

So there’s no reason to limit control options to the touchscreen to try to get people acclimatized to the Vita’s new input method. The touchscreen isn’t the Vita’s main selling point – it’s something that every portable device has to have because every other portable device has it. The buttons and the dual analog sticks are far more unique for a portable product, allowing for proper first person shooters, proper platformers and proper fighters. They are an important differentiator for the Vita over competing products. Sure, the Vita may be able to portray more technically impressive games than the iPhone 4S, but over its 5-6 year lifespan it’ll have to compete with increasingly more powerful smartphones with the latest chips and the best screens. Luckily for Sony, however, it’s highly unlikely that Apple will add a gamepad to the iPhone, or that it’ll become a popular feature in Android phones.

Physical buttons and sticks make the Vita unique, yet strangely have been marginalized by the Vita UI and game interface. The buttons and sticks don’t work on the main homepage at all – but that’s fine, it’s been designed fully for touchscreens, and wouldn’t be as slick with buttons. But the web browser? Why can’t I scroll down with the d-pad or analog sticks? Why is the PlayStation Store, which looks perfectly suited for buttons, touchscreen only? This same question can be asked for a number of Vita apps, including the trophy viewer, content manager, Flickr and Twitter.

This problem can be even more frustrating in games, where you can happily punch, kick and race people using nothing but the face buttons, as well as change certain options in the pause menu, only for you to suddenly be greeted with the screen saying “press here to start” – something that is particularly baffling considering the handheld has a start button. This isn’t a problem with the Vita, it’s simply a problem with the game design, but one that can be annoying and take you out of the game.

Then, there’s the problem with the placement of touch options. Last year, designer Dustin Curtis explained why he thought the iPhone had a 3.5″ screen, using green circles to show how the average thumb could reach all of the screen when using one hand, without having to stretch or change position:

We’ve mocked up a similar image with the Vita (at the top of the article),
with the extra width of the buttons taken into account. As you can see, the middle of the Vita is hard to reach without stretching uncomfortably or changing hand position. Simply put, touching the middle of the Vita can be annoying. If you’re playing a game where all you do is touch the screen, then changing hand position is fine, so that’s not a concern. But when touch-based menu options are put into the middle of the screen when you’re using the physical controls it can be infuriating:

Luckily, not all menu options suffer from being stuck in the middle:

But it is still a prevalent problem and, importantly, an unnecessary problem. The Vita can use buttons, the screen can display menu options on the side, yet, for some reason, Sony has decided against making that a standard.

The Vita is still a fantastic device, that plays incredible games, let’s just hope that Sony realizes the problem of pushing the touchscreen in favor of buttons, and remembers what makes the Vita special.

Toyger

翻译：

PSvita拥有传统的按键和两个双模拟摇杆，手持设备方面也有触摸屏和背面的触摸板，可以产生从来没有过的超强互动性 。但是索尼公司却愚蠢的又让VITA变得不那么近乎人意，迫使你只使用其中一个交互方式-触摸屏 ！

好了，我明白了，索尼应该是这样考虑的，VITA有触摸屏 —— 这是首次在PlayStation平台有这样的设备，意味着现在vita可以使用目前一切可以使用的方式进行操控。但对于那些平时用惯了高科技电子产品的消费者呢？触摸屏并不是什么新的东西 ——iPhone，最成功的触摸屏掌上设备，在2007年就已经发布了触摸屏，以及稍后遍布全球的Android手机都拥有。现在，有数以亿计的触摸屏设备，一直在可能拥有VITA的人的手中。

所以索尼公司没有理由限制控制方式——只通过触摸屏——试图强迫让人们使用这种Vita的新的操控方式。触摸屏不是Vita的主要卖点，这种东西几乎每一个便携设备都会拥有 。按钮和双模拟摇杆才是，它可以更方便的用来进行第一人称射击，更好的进行动作游戏 ，它们是VITA相比同类产品最重要区别 。当然，VITA可以玩到比iPhone 4S在技术上更令人印象深刻的游戏，但其5-6年的寿命意味着它必须与将来那些CPU和屏幕都在加强的越来越强大的智能手机相竞争。但对于索尼这是很幸运的，因为对于苹果公司增加一个手柄的iPhone或增加一个手柄的Android手机来说这是极不可能出现的，虽然它会成为一个受欢迎的功能。

物理按键和模拟摇杆是VITA的独有设备，但奇怪的是，这些设备却在VITA的用户界面和游戏界面中被边缘化了。在所有主要的界面中，按钮和摇杆均不能使用 ，我们可以说一切操控已经完全为触摸屏设计，所以按钮看起来是多余的，这样也是可以理解的。但是，Web浏览器又是因为什么？为什么我不能用方向键或模拟摇杆向下滚动？为什么在PlayStation Store上，一切的操控看起来完全适合按钮，但是却只能使用触摸屏呢？同样的问题也产生在vita应用程序上，包括奖杯浏览器，内容管理器，Flickr和Twitter。

这个问题对于游戏来说更为恐怖，在游戏里您可以马上对对手愉快地来上一拳，或踢上一脚的时候，已经出现了选项菜单的时候，突然屏幕上出现了“请点击这里”之类的话语，这真是令人十分莫名其妙。这并不是VITA的问题，它只是一个游戏设计的问题，我认为这真是一些非常恼人的游戏。

然后，有关触摸选项的位置的问题。去年，设计师达斯汀柯蒂斯建立了一个模型，绿色区域代表大拇指可以操控的区域，通过这个模型他解释为什么他认为iPhone的3.5寸屏幕可以用用一只手操控，而无需拉伸或改变位置

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我们模拟一个与VITA类似的形象， 下载 (31.43 KB)
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并且考虑到额外的按钮宽度。正如你看到的那样，VITA中间的区域很难达到，除非我们用很不舒服的姿势拉伸或改变手的位置。简而言之，触摸VITA中间是十分烦人的事情。如果你正在玩一个只需要操控触摸屏游戏，改变手的位置，好吧，我认为这还可以忍受，所以这不是一个问题。但是，当你正在用物理方式操控时，突然出现只能用触摸屏进行操控的方式，而且你必须改变手的位置才能触控到中间的界面时，这真是令人恼怒啊：
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幸运的是，并不是所有的菜单选项都在中间：

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但它仍然是一个普遍的问题，更重要的是，这会造成一些不必要的问题。VITA可以使用的按钮操控，而屏幕可以显示菜单选项，但出于某种原因，索尼公司已决定抛弃这一切了。

VITA仍然是一个梦幻般的装备，上面将会有一些令人难​​以置信的游戏，我们只希望索尼实现按钮和触摸屏的协调问题，并记住到底是什么让vita与众不同。