Cognition Dissemination: Vita and 3DS, Not so Different

It was a
huge, exciting spectacle when Nintendo revealed the 3DS at E3 2010. Nintendo
had one of the best public unveils in their history, as evinced by the
expansive developer and publisher support and fan reaction. But everything
cooled down in a quick fashion when Nintendo announced the price in
late-September of last year. Following that, a steady cacophony of unfortunate
news began to trickle, which included the system’s lackluster battery life, the
fact that the most intriguing titles weren’t coming out anywhere near the
launch window (P.S. they’re still not
available), and that most of its games are region locked. Nintendo recently discussed that they
learned a hard lesson at their meeting with investors, and plan on not
making this mistake with the Wii U.

 

Enter the
3DS’ main competition: Playstation Vita. The hardware itself exists to prove
two things (among others): (1) that Sony make a new piece of hardware without
former engineer Ken Kutaragi at the helm, and (2) whether Sony has learned anything
from the PS3 launch fiasco. It initially seemed like they did, with a piece of
hardware made from off-the-shelf parts (a contrast to their previous hardware
construction guidelines, which consisted the very expensive plan of manufacturing
the parts themselves). The very reasonable price was also a nice announcement,
along with a display of nice first and third-party support at E3. There was
news of the proprietary memory cards, sure, but it didn’t seem like the Vita
would have the same news downturn the 3DS had.

 

Fear not! Because
it is. Since Tokyo Game Show last month, a good amount news about Vita since then
has not been pleasurable to hear. The biggest piece of positive news was the system being region
free, but that wasn’t enough to offset the negatives.

 

Despite the
Vita having a nice lineup, a good portion of it consisted of ports and remakes.
This was a common observation before TGS, as fans expected the gloves to really come off for its showing there in
preparation for the Japanese launch on December 17th. Needless to say, the
gloves remained on.

 

For instance,
compare it to the output some publishers announced before the 3DS launched.
Square Enix, Capcom, and Level 5 had already announced major games for the system;
heck Level 5 had six 3DS games to
present at their Vision 2010 conference, though one of them (Time Travelers) is no longer exclusive.
Not a single one of those publishers has announced anything close to those for
Vita, and no one has announced anything in their stead.

 

In fact,
none of the games in the launch window and the period following shortly
thereafter are going to sell that much in Japan. The only games announced thus
far that stand a chance of selling well are Hot Shots Golf: World Invitational and Persona 4: The Golden. Predictions for western territories are
completely up in the air.

 

Initially,
the proprietary memory card fiasco was ignorable because of the software
format, which allows for game saves and DLC to be saved to the game’s card. The
problem? That’s not for every game. Some
games will require a memory card to
even boot. And these aren’t some niche games that the majority of the
public isn’t aware of; the list includes first-party games like Uncharted: Golden Abyss and the aforementioned
Hot Shots Golf game. This is the first time in history that a system requires memory cards to even boot up games. And you can bet that this is going to be a nightmare for anyone who works at retail.

 

Since the
Vita SKUs don’t come with a memory card, and since the system doesn’t have any
internal flash memory, you’ll have to buy one yourself. Again, these are
proprietary memory cards, and the prices will probably be ridiculous. Keep in
mind this doesn’t include the newly announced — and, as of this writing,
America only — $350
First Edition Bundle that comes with the 3G-enabled Vita, along with The Little Deviants and a 4GB card.
This bundle will also release on 2/15, one week before the proper launch.

 

Also note
that the Canadian version of that bundle swaps out the 3G version for the Wi-fi
version and costs $299. How often is it that Canada gets the better deal?

 

The prices
for memory cards in the west have yet
to be announced, but they are known for
Japan. Apparently Sony got a little jealous of Microsoft profiting from
their overpriced 360 proprietary hard drive. There’s a pretty good reason why a
handheld that uses state-of-the-art technology only costs $250. A lot of the fury over this would be mitigated if Sony threw the 4GB card into every package, but apparently they couldn’t afford that.

 

In another
piece of recent news, it was reported that the Vita won’t play Game Archives titles
out of the box. Yes, that includes PSOne games, despite
SCEA’s FAQ saying it would play them.
This dashed the hopes of anyone who planned on playing dual analog PSOne games
on a handheld.

 

Well, least
for now. Note the words “out of the box” in the last paragraph. It’s a hint
that this function could come in a firmware upgrade, meaning said previous
reports weren’t entirely lies. This could be a good hint that certain parts of
the Vita are being rushed for launch, to not give the 3DS too much of a head
start. That’s unfortunate, but that’s what launches are for.

 

Usually
launch periods are for test dummies, and it’s looking like the Vita’s situation
is no different. Some of us are more than willing to fill that role, though (me
included, though thankfully I won’t have the money to jump in early) but will
there be enough hardware and software sales to sustain the platform for a
while? There likely will be in Japan, but it will be anyone’s guess in the
west. We’ll see in the months following after its February 22nd launch date.