Other Vita Things

Before I start with anything, I just wanted to show the above which is apparently the look Sony is going with for the Vita Cases and Carts.  Basically like a PS3/Blu-Ray Case except notably smaller (comparison pictures are out there, I believe it's only about as wide as a 3DS case, if that) and the cart is....well, it's what it is.  I actually really like the case design for them, but I'm not too sure on the Blue of them since that might cause a bit of 'confusion' in non-gaming people.  (Seeing the blue case which before now has been only for Blu-Ray movies and thinking it's a movie despite being a much smaller case)  We'll see how it works out with that.  I should say that I like the blue of the cases, of course, but my mentioned misgivings took priority in mention.

Now, the other day when I was mentioning a good variety of the Vita news coming from TGS, I did in fact neglect to mention the battery life which has a lot of people disappointed and even more people going to absurd lengths to mock it which....well, I guess I get it.  Back when the 3DS came out and the battery life was mentioned at being what it was, a lot of people were (rightfully) disappointed at it, so to be on the same level as that would, in theory, generate the same amount of disappointment.  Of course, the problem here, well problems, is that it doesn't; if anything, people seem to be more disappointed that a device in dev at the same time as the 3DS with more power can't get more battery life than the 3DS if only because the 3DS was announced and specced first.

This is basically a compound effect and as we know, compound effects are usually bullshit since they only end up being used by Fanboys/Girls to further the ever-constant 'warz' over whose favorite thing is the best thing.  And 'best thing' generally begins to translate into 'only thing' when it comes to mobile gaming it seems, which is something I'm frankly tired of seeing.  So when I see shit like "The Hidden Costs of Playstation Vita: 3DS-esque Battery Life and Mandatory Memory Cards" I get a little annoyed that this stuff is -already- happening.  While I'm not saying the Vita having a 3-5 Hour (gaming) battery is a good thing, what I am saying is that it's fair to expect that whereas it would have also been fair to expect something better for the 3DS given the previous entries into the DS line.  The two things are not one in the same, is the point and using a device that inherently does less to anchor your argument that the battery sucks to the point of being value-less or to decrease the overall value of something (to the point of suggesting you need to spend that much more for it) is a little bit frustrating.

Basically, I'm just having a real problem here with Joystiq, as they wrote the above-linked article that portrays Sony as exploiting every facet of anyone looking to buy one (especially with the "Mandatory Memory Cards" part) in a way not unlike the famous GameCube argument, and -then- wrote another article about the Vita's external battery accessory that was quite sparse in information, but they were quite quick to link to the article about the 'hidden costs' twice which uses fairly shaky information to begin with, given that the prices are just straight conversions which, as we all know, are -never- used.  (If we did, the Vita would cost $324.80/$389 which is much much higher than the price of $250 which, at one point, everyone agreed it was quite reasonable.)  Granted, I know Joystiq isn't a single entity, and is several people writing, etc. etc, but let me be angry at hack-writing.

I'm just saying that since the prices haven't been announced outside of Japan (much less the accessories themselves, some of which likely won't see American shores like some of the PSP's) it's quite early to be dooming and glooming about all the 'additional costs' to a system that won't be out for quite a while.  Unless you're looking to import, since the Vita is totally region-free much like its predecessor and its grown-up relative of some sort, the PS3.  (Big brother?  I don't know, I was going somewhere with that, I think.)  While I may be am definitely biased on this, I don't appreciate people trying to pre-emptively harsh anyone's buzz about the Vita so far ahead of its release when most other things don't receive the same treatment.

This seemed to work out more like the "bad news" from TGS post aside from the "Good news" post I did last time, or more like the "Whinge endlessly about minor things" post, but it was just something on my mind, and something I wanted to really get out there since, well, it's the Vita.  And we know I love to talk about the Vita, no matter what the light.