New PS Vita Apps This Spring: Friend Network and Imaginstruments

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New PS Vita Apps This Spring: Friend Network and Imaginstruments

Friend Network for PS Vita

We’ve had a slew of exceptional new applications hit PS Vita recently, like the otherworldly simulator Ecolibrium, Wake-up Club, and plenty of others. Today, we wanted to unveil two great new applications you’ll soon be enjoying on PS Vita.

Friend Network, already a huge hit in Japan and other territories in Asia, is a unique social application for PS Vita that allows you to interact with friends and meet new people in a whole new way. Guided by PlayStation mascot mainstay Toro, the app lets PS Vita owners visualize their network of friends and gaming buddies through the use of avatars in a colorful environment, and through growing their friends list, players can grow their own unique town space within Friend Network. With the ultimate goal of reaching 100 friends within Friend Network, lobbies are available where players can meet new friends and exchange virtual “business cards.” These cards contain information that players can use to get to know others within Friend Network.

Friend Network for PS VitaFriend Network for PS Vita

Friend Network for PS VitaFriend Network for PS Vita

Additionally, Friend Network comes fully integrated with your favorite social networks. Players can connect to their Twitter and Facebook accounts to see which friends are also participating in Friend Network and add them immediately. Players can also request tasks from their friends, like planting crops in their garden, to expand their town yard space. As you can see, Friend Network is a great way to maintain and grow your PSN friends list!

Imaginstruments for PS Vita

Next up we’re bringing you a one-of-a-kind music application called Imaginstruments. The application offers a slew of musical composition tools to potential PS Vita song smiths to create and manipulate a bevy of sounds and instruments. Our neighbors in Europe have already had a chance to begin crafting songs in Imaginstruments, but we’re now bringing this musical experience to North America.

Players can create whole songs from scratch and save them to on PS Vita memory cards. Using three distinct song creation tools, players can compose a virtually endless amount of unique music. Players can edit drum tracks in the “Passive” mode to create complex rhythms for their tracks, then switch over to “Active” mode to create melodies using instruments like the guitar or violin. The interface has been laid out to allow non-musicians an easy point of entry to create and craft songs without the need of a Ph.D in musical composition. We’ve also included a Sequencer mode, that takes parts of your drum and rhythm sequences to help you construct the song, and then record it. There are plenty of interesting ways Imaginstruments can enable you to begin crafting your very own songs on the PS Vita, and we recommend you try it out for yourself!

Imaginstruments for PS VitaImaginstruments for PS Vita

Both of these apps will be coming your way this Spring for PS Vita. We look forward to hearing what you think of new applications, and know that we’re always looking for new ways to expand your experience on PS Vita. Also, stay tuned to the PS Blog as much exciting PS Vita digital content is soon to come!

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112 Comments

5 Author Replies

  • This made my day! Serioulsy, I played the PS3 one from the Japanese store allllllll the time. I even imported the Toro mini game collection game for PS3. Thanks goes out to the people who are bringing this over.

  • Always good to see more vita stuff. Both look interesting, I look forward to trying them both out.

    By the looks of the screenshots, Friend Network looks like it’ll be filled with quite a few activities. Though is anyone else a little reluctant to step into “Toro’s Friend Dungeon”? And what’s happening in the second pic? Apparently lemon sorceresses have high defense lol

  • @Lisatsunami Well whatever the problem is (whether it be based on your area or what) something needs to be fixed. I’ve troubleshooted everything I can. I set my alarm for what I consider to be a pretty normal 8 O’Clock. I usually see mostly real PSN names in my group, and I’m always first place. I think the real evidence that there is a problem is that I’m always first place, but everyone else is always already awake (So I spend barely 1 second on the group screen where you can send friend requests) and I’ve never seen another PSN user still asleep.

    honestly I don’t know if you’re supposed to hear people trying to wake you up on the “do you want to launch wake-up club” screen or not. But I’ve never heard anything other than my alarm sound. I do think it needs to skip the prompt to launch wake-up club and go straight to the alarm mini-game automatically.

  • This is really nice but i want to see new game announcements, how about a proper motorstorm game? god of war? gran turismo? new IPs? how about porting over Fat Princess, Dead Nation and Warhawk?

  • Thanks a lot for bringing over Friend Network! Could you possibly bring over Samurai and Dragons as well?

  • Awesome!! Hope Spring means really soon!!

  • Please update Wake-up Club to allow for custom music.

  • I’m really pleased with this! It sounds sooooooooo awesome. It reminds me of Nintendo’s Animal Crossing and Mii Plaza. I am certainly excited for PlayStation Friend Network and it’s awesome to see Toro getting the love here in the United States. This is far better than PlayStation Room which was supposed to be for the PSP. I’m guessing that Friend Network might launch in late Martch or early April? I sure hope this new Friend Network will have apps and support Google Plus.

  • Finally bringing Toro to NA. Why not bring his News game/app on PS3 (that is in Japan) to NA too?

  • Sony has got to raise the cap on the friends list. Now that we’re incorporating friends from both PS3 and Vita, a limit of 100 friends is too small.

  • @Don Mesa

    Any word on when the next Ps vita firmware update is coming because its been a while since any new features have been added to the Vita.

  • Squiggle55, I leave the game on all night, press the power button briefly to put Vita in sleep mode. If you see the prompt, then you turned the game off. I only see that on Sunday nights because I turn Wake Up off on Friday nights, then have to re-launch so it will wake me Monday morning, like today. Try leaving the Wake Up screen fully functioning, then just put your Vita in sleep mode by briefly pressing top button.

    I have the Nyko power grip which essentially doubles the battery life of the Vita, so no battery worries for me.

  • @ Squiggle55 same thing happens to me. Just this morning I woke up within 16 secs and when I got into the room, the other 10 “real people” were already awake and the 1 computer was still asleep. After I tapped the computer a few times to wake him up it said I was 1st place anyway. And I agree about getting rid of the prompt asking would you like to start the app.

    Also can it be changed where the vita system’s actual volume doesn’t affect the alarm’s volume? I have my alarm set to “loud”, but if I forget to turn up my vita’s actual volume at night i can barely hear it.

    @lisatsunmai are you saying it’s possible to set an alarm and turn your game off, or am I misunderstanding you?

  • Blue blizzard, no I think I’m saying the opposite. I leave the game running but turn the Vita off. In sleep mode, not a hard shut down. Wake up club has to be fully running, not left at the launch screen (the one that insults me with how often I oversleep). For example, I use the analog Journey screen. So you have to leave the game so you can watch that red-cloaked traveller going around the clock face. Then hit the power button off. Do not step back to the previous screen.

  • both of these apps look cool, will definitely be checking them out.

  • Sounds cool except we’re limited by Sony’s vastly overpriced memory costs

  • come now please, these sound great. Will be a great addition to beats trellis

  • I’m excited to check this out!

  • Woohoo, finally!! This Sprong I will enjoy some Toro!! I have been digging them on my PS3 and Jap PSVita so this is an awesome thing to finally have overseas!!

  • @lisatsunami ok that’s what I thought. But when my alarm goes off, it still says “Time is up, do you want to launch Wake Up club?” I’m wondering why does it have to ask that if I set an alarm in the place? It seems unnecessary

  • Ha! My nephew just asked me today if any Toro games were available in America and I said no!

  • i loved the ecolibrium app. a little tricky but fun. i m just worried about the space issue for apps on my 8 gb card. Not a big fan of having to get a 32 GB one.

  • @lisatsunami I’m in the same boat as Bluebl1zzard. I’m very confident I am doing everything the way it is intended. I leave it on the clock screen when going to sleep. Sometimes I hit the power button to put it to sleep, sometimes I don’t touch anything and let it go to sleep on its own. When my alarm goes off at 8 it says “time is up, do you want to launch wake up club?” After you click yes you are taken to the actual alarm mini-game.

    Thanks for being so helpful. Have you ever seen a real user still asleep that isn’t a bot? Oh, and I just thought of something else since you mentioned that you are using the nyko battery pack that doubles your battery life. Does that mean that you don’t plug your vita in at night when you’re using wake-up club? I always plug mine into the charging cradle. Trying wake-up club without plugging it in is one experiment I have yet to try. I’ll do it tonight.

  • Also, has anyone else had problems with the leaderboards on Ecolibrium? I know that there are psn friends playing ecolibrium that simply aren’t showing up on my friends leaderboard.

  • @ Squiggle55 Not that i know of. Play it everyday, but if anything i’ll inform in some sort. Sorry you guys are having issues.

  • @Zage Thanks for checking. My LiveArea for ecolibrium tells me that 4 of my friends are playing the game, but only 1 of them shows up on my friends leaderboard, and his score never changes.

  • I keep seeing comments about Wake-Up Club not working, but mine works fine. I wake up to a farm practically every morning.. Just set the alarm(make sure its set to wake-up club type), go to the clock face, put on standby mode, and when the time is reached, it wakes up the vita with a your icon scrambling around on the screen.
    If you’re not on the clock, it just does a little beep and asks if you want to launch wake-up club.

  • @Squiggle55 man I swear we are having like the same problems lol. In ecolibrium only one of my friends shows up on the leaderboard when I have two other people on my friends list who play the game.

    By the way what exactly is the ‘My Country’ leaderboard for? It only has like 10 or so people. Maybe it’s the closest people to your score in your county?

  • Toro needs hit up beat him up action adventure game already…I would love to see him travel to various game worlds and universes…

  • It’s cool that there will be 2 new apps for the ps vita

  • @Bluebl1zzard, well at least since we have the same issues I know I’m not crazy. Perhaps the strangest part of all is that some people claim it works as intended. I know I’m not doing anything wrong. There has to be an answer. Hopefully it isn’t like a hardware issue or something that has to do with our vitas sleep mode. I believe the problem is that our vita asks us to launch wake up club every morning from standby, while others claim it goes straight to the avatar mini-game.

  • I was hoping we’d get Friend Network when I was browsing the Japanese PS Store for Vita content a long time ago. Yay.

    Never heard of the other one, but I’m glad we’re getting it regardless.

  • When are we getting Crunchyroll on the Vita? It’s been a long time since it was announced that it would be on the platform.

  • Love Toro Aswell!, my problem is that I am already on my friend limit, so pleace expand the 100 limit to atleast 200!

  • i kate_cleer i need a app that can play the radio that free to download i realy love the radio on psp 1000.2000.3000 sirres and i like to have it on my vita so can you pleas make it to work on vitas

  • I’m all for new Apps, but why not just give us a Vita version of Home? I’m excited for PS4 integration…since buying my Vita, I’ve pretty much played Lumines and MK. And that’s all. Near is kind of a neat function, but people in my area never seem to want to be friends or try any multi player stuff hahah. Skype has been fun to play with, but the rest of the functionality is kind of out the window. I have my phone & tablet for email, netflix, etc. And has anyone actually paid for a 3G plan? internet browsing is a bit clumsy for the device, i can’t justify paying a monthly fee for it.

  • oh snap…just saw the article showing we get Plants vs Zombies this week. A reason to charge up my battery.

  • hey i have a lil suggestion CAN U PLS UPDATE SKYPE ITS DRIVING ME THROU THE ROOF,and what i need u guys to do is put a MESSAGING UPDATE TO SKYPE id really like that also a notifacation everytime i get a message via fb app,now back on skype so just add a message thing and an update change like the computer so at least ill know if someone js talking to me and for fb well just the notifacation is good enough other then that fb is cool the way it is and same with youtube and well wake up club stoped working for me so pls for the love of the vita MAKE IT HAPPEN AS SOON AS POSSIBLE ok thank u

  • Text Plus and NHL Game Center on the Vita!

  • Thanks you so much! I actually requested Imaginsturments in PlayStation Share some time ago, so it’s happening and I’m pumped!

  • Seems interesting, we’ll see

  • Unfortunately leaving my vita unplugged made no difference. I left it on the clock screen and just set it on my table to go to sleep itself. in the morning It still asked me to launch wake-up club first, then it took me to the Avatar game where I’ve never seen another person’s Avatar try cover mine like what’s supposed to happen. I watched my avatar for a couple minutes. Then I was taken to the group screen where everyone was awake (real users) except for 1 bot. And I was given first place.

  • Thank you for bringing us Toro and friends. It’s a real treat to see them out this way since they’re usually neglected. Fans were quite upset to see him removed from Wake-up Club.

  • I’m realling looking forward to the Friends Network.
    I have been itching for a Playstation Home like experience on the Playstation Vita, so this is a welcome addition.

    I loved the announcements and news of all the new features of the Playstation 4, and I willl be trying hard to pick one up on launch day.
    I especially loved the fact that Sony is trying to bring all of the Playstation 4 games to remote play with the Playstation Vita.

    This is the most excited I’ve been about Playstation since I booted up my first Playstation in 1995.

  • a radio app would be nice too!

  • @93: I made some experiments with the wake up club app. Will only work in my case (people cheering on me and such) if my ps vita is active (no sleep mode) but what I do at night is this: I open the wake up club app and leave it open showing the clock, then I sleep it (i dont turn it off, just sleep) Next day it will ask me if I want to open the app and then no one cheers,everyone is up and I get the 1st place. . Also tried leaving the ps vita on without even sleeping but it will go to sleep anyway at some point and the next day the same happens, no one cheers,everyone is up and I get the 1st place.
    So apparently only works if the vita is active so its useless as an alarm basically, anyway this is my case and apparently the case of a lot of people (look at the forums)

    • Thanks everyone for bringing your Wake-up Club issues to my attention. I’ll relay this all to the team and see what I can find out.

  • @su43berkut17
    Yep that’s the case exactly. What’s really confusing to me is that some people are claiming that it is working properly for them launching from standby. DJML9 even seems to be suggesting that his Vita skips the “Do you want to launch wake-up club” prompt entirely when launching from standby.

  • can you please give us more free ps vita games instead of apps

  • Awesome! Can’t wait for Imaginstrument!

    Please contact Reactable Sony, let them make Reactable for the Vita! It needs more musical applications like this, it is perfect for making music.

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