PS Vita: Is it Worth it?

I originally bought a pink PSP way back in early 2008, just because I felt like I had to. Three months later I ended up flogging it on Ebay, because funds were tight and to be honest, at the time, there weren't really that many interesting games for it. Then, just over 12 months later, I started seeing adverts on the TV for this....

And so I ended up buying this Limited Edition PSP with the game. I love my PSP more than anything, and would never dream of selling it, because I have some pretty awesome games on it, including Crisis Core, Dissidia and Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep.

A few years later, Sony released the PSP Go and over the past few months, this has repeatedly been drawn to my attention:

Source: hmv.com via Kat on Pinterest

What makes the PS Vita Different?


Actually, the whole concept of the PS Vita is very cool, and is Sony's way of getting up to speed with the technological side of gaming. We've had touch screen consoles for a while (Nintendo DS) and Sony has already brought us touch screen Android phones, so it was a natural progression to head in this direction. And I do think that is was a smart move.

• It comes with a touch screen. No surprise there, but it'll be interesting to see how it plays in comparison to the DS and Android phones. There's a lot more scope graphically, than any other hand held, but will touch screen work for them? I think it could.
• With 3G, you are always connected to the big wide world. In an age when we're obsessed with social media, and sharing just about every aspect of our lives, this is another good move for the console. The good thing is that they appear to have used their noggins, by introducing ones that can be used with Mobile Broadband, as well as ones with Wi-Fi.
• Social Gaming. This of course connect with the previous point, but with social gaming it's not just about sharing everything, it's also about playing and competing against friends. That is also a factor that a lot of people seem to be interested in these days.
• Brilliant graphics and performance, but from Sony you wouldn't expect anything less, since it's what they and Playstation are renowned for.
• Built-in cameras and stuff offer what Sony describe as "augmented reality and location-based experiences", not 100% certain what that means, but sounds intriguing enough

Okay, that sounds great but....

On paper, I honestly do think that the PS Vita sounds incredible, but will I be buying one? No. And not just because they are practically extortionate at £279.99, but because I'm not 100% convinced that there is a market for it over here. Well, the shops certainly don't seem to think so anyway.

I've blogged before about my annoyance at how little shelf-space the PSP gets right across entertainment-based shops, from the specialists of HMV down to the less specialist supermarkets. In fact, in most shops you're lucky to find any space at all. I've also come to the conclusion that a lot of games companies seem to be snubbing the console too, and other than Dissidia, I can't think of that many games that have been released for the PSP over the past year or so.

Another gripe that I've had with PSP recently, is the fact that everything seems to be going "download only", which is great in the sense that it's given us some real classic Playstaion One games such as Final Fantasy VII and VIII, as well as earlier Persona's, but they tend to cost a fair amount, and are very often quite large in size, meaning that unless you have a really huge memory card, it's not always convenient.

Nevertheless, I got the impression that there will be hard copies of games available for the PS Vita, which for me is a step in the right direction.

I honestly hope that the launch of the PS Vita will bring a little oomph back to the portable Sony console genre, but I'm not entirely convinced.