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The Vita is 4 years old in NA

Petrae

Petrae

Member
Poor Vita. A great piece of portable hardware whose potential success was undermined by bad timing, poor decision-making within Sony, laughably exorbitant memory card prices, and more.

I remember how excited for Vita I was after Sony unveiled it at E3 in 2011. It looked like the portable that could pose a serious challenge to Ninten-dominance. 3DS and Vita were slated to be the same price. The games looked pretty good. Significant third-party publishers were on board.

Then the bottom fell out.

Nintendo slashed the price of the 3DS, making Sony's unit suddenly seem expensive by comparison... and Sony was in no position to make a pricing move. Proprietary memory cards were required, and they were stupidly-expensive. While Uncharted and Call of Duty games would come to the Vita, they were helmed by lesser development teams and wound up being lesser quality experiences.

Retailers never gave Vita a ton of space, and what little space it did get gradually eroded. They didn't seem to have much confidence in the Vita-- and Sony's poor marketing and messaging leading up to the platform's release certainly didn't help. "Vita? What's that?" was the "WiiU? What's that?" of the first half of 2012.

I finally got a Vita as a gift for Christmas last year. I want to love it more than I do, but memory card space is super-tight and the device's shitty Internet connectivity makes downloading a chore when I do feel the urge to buy anything. Buying physical cards is a bit tough since many retailers locally don't carry much more than 3-4 games, while GameStop seems to have either new (and expensive) games or the same dozen used games at every location. It sits on my nightstand less than two months later, serving as a dust collector. I don't have the heart to sell it because it was a gift... so it just kind of exists.

I do think that Vita deserved a better fate. It's great that it has a ravenous (though tiny) fanbase that does its best to support what games do still come out for it. I just wonder what might have been if Sony made better decisions and if AAA publishers had a bit more confidence in it.
 
nemisis0

nemisis0

Member
Still love my vita since release day. Wish star ocean 2 remake was translated so I can play it on the vita. :(
 
E

EGM1966

Member
BY2K said:
https://twitter.com/KazHiraiCEO/status/699359536172417025

rTxGgI6.png
Click to expand...

Damn that guy's priceless.

Also happy birthday I guess. Been a while since I gave my Vita a whirl, should fire it up to celebrate.
 
T

THEAnderson21

Member
Will always remember how excited I was to pick up my early adopter bundle at a GS midnight opening. There were two of us and that was it. Great system though.
 
R

RecRoulette

Member
Bought one at launch and then gave it to my brother and bought a Sapphire Blue one.

Great Puyopuyo machine, shame that Sony never really got behind it. King of ports though.
 
M

MrHoot

Member
Still one of my fav handheld. Cruelly mishandled by it's company.

But seeing as i've been playing cyber sleuth on it lately like a mad man, i'm okay
 
A

Alucrid

Banned
in the past month i bought an aqua blue vita and 64 gb memory card. i'm doubling down and i don't even know why
 
J

JamesJoyce1882

Member
Love my OLED vita as well. The only thing annoying me these days are all these crudely ported unity titles with horrible loading times. Native games run great, but waiting a minute for something as primitive as "Race to the sun" to load is really infuriating to me. Bastion also had very disappointing load times. I'm thrilled to see Darkest Dungeon coming, I just hope it will be a good port.

I'm fine with the price of the memory cards and would even get a 128GB one if it existed. The high price is balanced by the digital sales and PS plus, I have spend much more on my average 3DS game than my average vita title.

Happy Birthday vita!
 
H

hamchan

Member
I feel that Vita has actually had a pretty good run considering the sales for the thing was never good. I never have a problem finding a new game to play and I play the thing every couple of days. Plenty of games seem to come out for it, albeit targeted towards a certain audience. Buying a 64gb card was the best decision I've made.

So happy birthday Vita. Keep on going longer and longer. Easily consider it the best designed handheld so far.
 
K

Kresnik258

Member
Still my most played console for the past year.

While I'm frustrated about so many of the decisions that've been made about Vita, it's still my preferred way to play; and I think it has a fantastic library if you're willing to give it a chance (though you have to have a tolerance for Japanese games).

While I don't hold out much hope for it to last a further 4 years, 2016 has some great stuff that I'm looking forward to and the past 4 years have been hugely enjoyable and I still have a massive backlog. Plus, it's opened me up to new game experiences I never really thought I'd enjoy.

Happy birthday Vita.
 
C

Clive

Member
Happy birthday, sweet prince!

I still use mine all the time. It's a shame it couldn't get more mainstream games but I've been happy with mine since I bought it. Both the console and its library are underrated.
 
TheMan

TheMan

Member
hard to believe it's only 4 years old...feels like it should be 6 or more. Never did get proper support. What a fucking waste.
 
V

Valkerionseven

Member
Every time I see these at the store I want one but damn the memory cards are killer. Might jump in a few months though. The amount of games here in Japan is tempting despite my shit language skills.
 
Y

yophlow

Banned
I would have played it 10x as much if the memory cards weren't so expensive.

I got it, bought P4G, FFVII, Gravity Rush then BAM memory gone. No problem, I'll get a card FUCK YOU $50

Then I just stopped playing. Simple as that.
 
K

Kenclops

Banned
Love my Vita, playing Breath of Fire 3 currently on it. Been nice for my last 2 games as well sjust nice they both had cross save function ( Trails or Cold Steel and Final Fantasy X HD). Vita is so awesome for all those moments when I just don't feel like playing on my TV.

Happy Birthday, wish more would ha e given you a chance, especially Sony :(
 
J

jbueno

Member
Bought a PSTV last year, want to get a PSV unit now, but shit´s out of stock for the past couple of months here in Mexico; guess stores won`t carry it anymore.
 
A

awilliams213

Member
Played some Persona Dancing with some new headphones over the weekend. It's still amazing how gorgeous the Vita still looks after all these years.
 
stuminus3

stuminus3

Member
I just bought one last Christmas (though I already had a PSTV to play TxK). I love it. The library is pretty great.
 
A

AniHawk

Member
Tohsaka said:
Still getting localization announcements fairly regularly, I have a handful of pre-orders.
Click to expand...

thanks to ps4, it should see support through 2016. i think that in 2017, there might still be games, but they'll be digital only aside from a select few.
 
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