So, the Vita’s been out for a couple of months, and I still don’t have one. I just can’t seem to get enthusiastic about Sony’s new toy. Sure, it’s got a lot of power. Sure, it’s got a nice screen, and lots of other bells and whistles. And … it’s the successor to the PSP, and I love the PSP. So why don’t I have a Vita yet?
It’s current maximum storage of 32GB isn’t even an upgrade from the PSP. The PSPs I use routinely are all fitted out with 32GB of storage. In addition to games, that’s a lot of space for music/podcasts and movies. And I spend at least as much time with my PSP as a media machine as I do with it as a game machine. Sure, the Vita can support 32GB – but 32GB will not get you nearly as far on a Vita as it will on a PSP. The Vita’s screen is both larger and higher-resolution than the PSP’s. While normally that would be considered an advantage, that requires larger movie files for an acceptable quality on the Vita’s screen. Vita games are also larger than PSP games, so that’ll mean that if you choose to purchase anything digitally, your stick will fill up that much faster. Once we start seeing larger cards, this will be less of a problem.
No video out, I’m guessing this might come out in a later hardware revision, but if Sony wants this to be a real multimedia handheld, they’d better figure out how to let users display this media on a larger screen. To be fair, the initial release of the PSP didn’t have this either.
Sony’s terror of pirates aggravates those of us who want to use our portables for media. With the PSP, all I have to do to swap out my movies or music is to connect to any computer in the house. Or, I can just take out the PSP’s memory card and stick it into my laptop. The Vita uses some new proprietary memory card, and the only current way to read this card is in the Vita itself. While this is only a minor annoyance, Sony also requires you to install crapware called Content Manager Assistant to be able to copy media to and from the Vita. If this weren’t annoying enough, the crapware has to phone home to Sony for you to be allowed to move your files. If Sony were giving Vitas away for free, I might put up with this – but not otherwise.
And then there’s the price. Frankly, $200’s about my maximum price point for a handheld gaming system. True, there are some deals out now that come close to $200 for the base wifi model (some retailers are offering a gift card with purchase), but there’s also the memory card issue – for 32 GB, you’ll get soaked for about $80 – about five times the price of a comparable MicroSD. (A MicroSD can go into a PSP with an adapter that only costs a few dollars…) Were the Vita more compelling in other areas, I might overlook the price, but …
What about the games? I look at the Vita’s current and announced software lineup, and I see a wasteland of titles, littered with uninteresting games and games which might be interesting if I hadn’t already played them on some other system. About the only thing that seems fresh that’s here in the US is Gravity Rush, and frankly that’s not enough to make me overlook the rest of Vita’s flaws. I mainly play RPGs on portables – right now there’s Disgaea 3 (which I have on PS3) and – coming soon – Persona 4 (which I have on PS2). If I already had a Vita, I might go for Persona 4, but there doesn’t seem to be enough added to it to make it a system-seller. With time, hopefully the lineup of games will improve.