Slashdot Mirror
Discouraging Playstation Vita Details
itwbennett writes "Sony's new handheld gaming system, the Playstation Vita, launches in Japan in two weeks, and the latest report from Andriasang has some interesting details, including Sony's decision to go with proprietary memory cards. Sony says this is both for security reasons and to ensure a consistent experience for all users, but that 'doesn't explain why they're charging such enormous sums for these cards,' says blogger Peter Smith. 'The caveat here is that we haven't seen official pricing for the cards, but game retailer Gamestop lists them at $120 (!!) for a 32 GB card, $70 for a 16GB, $45 for 8 GB and $30 for a 4 GB.'"
which is why I don't buy Sony anymore...
So, um, does it take phone calls and run millions of apps? Or is it just some kind of limited gaming platform?
"Security" = trying hard to make sure consumers can't jailbreak their own devices.
Sony loves proprietary formats and the market is awash in cheap storage. This is a way to make memory valuable again, but I won't be surprised if someone is demoing a way to use SD cards on the thing within a year of launch.
Let's hope they'll invest some of that excess money into administrators who won't just leave the default passwords in place.
Good thing competitors like Nintendo use standard media for everyth...oh, wait.
Playstation Vita: Do not want.
Not much I want from Sony/Playstation nowadays.
Someone's surprised that SONY is overcharging for new toys? It's a SONY. You'll be able to get the genuine SORNY accessories a few weeks later.
... of our bonuses.
If anyone is surprised by this, they don't know Sony.
sudo eat my shorts
Because they can.
This just means that someone in China will be making money off selling an adapter for microSD cards.
Apple does exactly the same thing with iPad and iPhone prices, but doesnt let you swap the mysteriously expensive memory "cards". Clearly it's all about the value to the consumer, not the cost of manufacture.
The reason they're doing this is because fuck you.
Has Sony ever abstained from trying to establish their own proprietary format? Have they ever succeeded? Nothing to see here, move along.
...binary digits, featuring 4-digits of precision.
This is four times as precise as previous bits and easily justifies the increase cost.
whats so hard to understand about that...
At least Microsoft will actually tell you that they're trying to rip you off. Sony pretends like they're doing you a favor.
Invent cheap microSD to proprietary adapter
Sell adapter bundled with SD cards for half Sony's price
Profit
???
Get sued by Sony
Last year I bought a really nice little Sony camera because it was finally made to support standard SD cards. So one division takes a step forward, and the others leap back. Go figure.
Don't Buy it.
It is only a Video Game System. No one is forcing you to get one.
I'm sorry I feel little pity for people who cry Foul because their Video Games cost too much.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
SSDD, or more like, SS, different new model.
New oddball cards? Check. Looks like memory sticks, then MagicGate memory sticks are not enough. Sony could easily have gone with SD cards which have DRM built on that has yet to be cracked in 10+ years. It would be trivial for Sony to use existing stuff in the field as a standard.
Specialized software? Check. One reason Sony lost the MP3 player market was due to OpenMG, and only that could transfer files. One could compare iTunes to that, but there are ways other than Apple's software to get music on and off an iPod, even if it might require a retag of MP3s.
Lackluster specs, heavy DRM... Sony is setting themselves up just like they did when they put out the first network walkmans that required people to "check in" and "check out" music. After the third checkout, no more copies to players allowed. People got tired of that, and moved to the iPod which had no DRM for a few years, then the DRM it had was easy to deal with.
If they do, I want them to know that there were a couple of times I wanted to buy a Sony digital camera, based on some feature or other it had.
But then I realized the camera only worked with a more expensive Sony-proprietary memory card, so I bought another camera from a competitor that used industry standard memory cards that cost less money.
Guess what I won't be buying?
The only difference between the iPhone 4s 32Gb and 64 Gb is 32Gb of memory. The difference in price is $100. Are you all going to vilify Apple the same way for not including the ability to insert SD cards?
Brought to you by: "Al"toids - the curiously weird mint.
...since I quit buying ANYTHING with a Sony label on it when they got caught installing rootkits on users computers.
Anyone who still buys Sony products after that little episode does not deserve any sympathy whatsoever.
Hey proprietary memory card, Betamax and Minidisc just called and want to know when you'll be joining them in the kingdom of failed data storage devices.
Listen, guys... of course they use proprietary memory for security. Remember when someone used an unauthorized HDD in their PlayStation last year, and took down the PSN? We don't want that again. So, to ward off the memory card threat, Sony will require you to purchase proprietary cards.
On a more serious note, Sony seems to always have considered accessing your device's hardware a security problem, and have moved to revoke the times they granted that power.
Sony, in spite of all the negativity continues to be successful. I'm just saying, not everyone complains about the way they do business. Another thing is that just because Gamestop (where I shop as little as possible) has set prices extremely high doesn't mean that's market price. Gamestop is notorious for overcharging for everything in their store in the first place, so that's not much of an accurate picture. On the point of someone mentioning Jailbreaking, not everyone wants to do this for every gadget and device they own. In fact I'd say that most consumers don't. This microcosm of consumers on slashdot is unique in that way. Just my thoughts. :)
Unless this console is truly compelling and/or groundbreaking, my vote for D.O.A.
This is the company that at every model change and other opportunity, changes the power connector, power supply voltage, input connectors, output connectors, memory physical design and if possible, internal architecture and media formats, all in a completely transparent grab to wall in the consumer to their products. Look at their cameras, computer products.. A/V devices.. They're even worse than Apple, because they have the hubris to think that consumers care about their products enough to buy the accessories! Hah! At least Apple is successful at indoctrinating the user base into putting up with this crap. A pox on all of their houses!
Had the included SD cards, I would have considered buying one.
I'm not paying Apple prices on memory cards.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
Vita will not be recognized as a mass storage device on your computer. You'll need to use a separate utility device.
All for security, and giving dirty pirates no direct access to the device.
I always get the impression with Sony that a dept carefully gestates their baby - and then the moment it pops out, every dept gets a crack at abusing it.
I presume this all started as somebody designed the thing to be media free, after the wonderful UMD on the PSP (I presume the minidisc dept has been canned, by now). So, it's going to be flash only, like the PSP-Go.
You remember, it was like a PSP without the god-awful drive inflicted, but then you for forced to pay more for your device as the memory dept couldn't give a toss about loss-leaders. Oh and the retail dept couldn't lower the price of the games, as then that would piss off the retailer relations division. So punters pay more for the device AND more for the games AND can't sell them 2nd hand.
Not going to fall for that one again are we?
Ahah - but this time we'll sell you the games for LESS as digital downloads. But won't that piss of the retailers? Noooo as we'll make you go into the shop to buy the card, to then digitally download onto it. B.b.but, doesn't this mean I have to download AND go to a shop? Well yes, but the more you use the card, the more you'll save! Oh, so the more money I give you, the less I get screwed? Precisely.
OK, so if it's a success, and you notice your revenues dropping after screwing us upfront, what's to stop you just raising the price of the digital games? Nooo, we wouldn't do that. OK, maybe not so directly. What's to stop you just doubling the RRP, allowing the retailers to advertise massive discounts and then you insisting that we're still reducing the cost? Erm, next question!
On the bright side, this is clearly going to bomb, so I assume that within months, the thing will get heavily discounted. Ah, you might think that, but what we'll do is just advertise a $100+++ saving, by chucking the memory card that costs us naff all in the box. Yes, sorry, no, sorry, can I just jot this idea down? And then you'll just rack up the digital prices again, won't you to compensate? *sound of crayon on business-plan*
Sony's previous successes have been when one department made one thing and sold it. They have never managed to make a success out of anything due to their depts, just sometimes managed to sneak something out despite them.
This is hardly news. Sony has always gone the proprietary memory format and they have always been much more expensive than the generic equivalent. Is Sony even all that relevant anymore ? I could barely give away my PSP (slim) and don't get me started on the current PS3 with it's ridiculous looking motion controllers is utterly lame next to playing Kinect games on the Xbox. ... and it's a day away from getting even more integrated with my Xbox.
If the Vita also doubled as a decent phone, gps, and camera, I might take a look at it, but who really needs another web enabled device to lug around. My Windows Phone already ties in with my Xbox and has some entertaining away from the PC/Xbox games
http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/05/xbox-companion-app-for-wp7-will-launch-alongside-the-new-dashboa/
- tensions in our lives that are attacking our minds, unite themselves together to make our consciousness blind - op'ivy
This was on Kotaku yesterday: http://kotaku.com/5864910/digital-download-discount-for-vita-may-explain-sonys-memory-stick-plans
The info is unconfirmed, but it says they're charging 40% less for downloads than games at retail and that's why the memory cards are more expensive. In other words, please pay up front so they can hold your money for you, and very probably the developers don't get a cut.
Although I'm wondering what kind of specs are they going to see out of these things. I'm guessing the MemoryStick Duo experience might have taught Sony a lesson about relying on fungible media. Both MSD and SD Cards have the massive downside of being a nice range of crap to awesome. By restricting the kinds of memory cards the Vita can take, I'm guessing they're trying to make the experience consistent. Like the Mini Disc. The specs of current generation discs were pretty consistent. So, say what you will about MiniDisc, atleast it was consistently awful.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Remember the Sony Memory Stick? How did that work out?
I stuck with the shitty default 20GB HDD because they charged such ridiculous amounts. As soon as they dropped the prices to something reasonable after banning all the 3rd party drives I and a few people I know immediately went out and bought 250GB drives.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
Seriously, who cares what they do anymore.
Sony has been losing money. Not just making less profit or something, but plain straight losing money for four years in a row and you call this a success?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
All I can think of is Step Brothers. "Dad, I'm doing this because I love you: Fuck you!"
They got away with it in the '80s and '90s because they actually made good hardware and the concept of interoperability barely existed.
Not quite, remember Betamax? That was a fairly large case of interoperability- or at least support- being an issue, and Sony *not* getting away with it.
The only time they've had any real success with it was Blu-Ray
AFAIK, that isn't proprietary to the same extent, at least not in the sense that Sony almost unilaterally own and are pushing it. (Though I appreciate that they have one of the largest stakes in that business).
Today the reverse is true - their products tend to be sub-par and we increasingly expect stuff to work across our devices, but they're still stuck in the past.
Sony squandered what could have been a major lead in what became the MP3 audio market, and ended up being left behind.
In theory, MiniDisc could have been something akin to a proto-MP3 player almost a decade before (worthwhile versions of) the latter became commonplace. Some sort of very basic filesystem- just enough to let music files be copied to and from the device- would probably have been doable without increasing the technological complexity of the MiniDisc that much. Given that most people didn't have computers with enough storage to benefit from that back then, perhaps that was an understandable omission.
However, their tying it down beyond what people would have seen was technologically possible and desirable even then- i.e. forcing real-time dubbing, restricting what could be done digitally with copying, etc.- blatantly crippled the potential of the system for their own reasons, making it a slightly improved digital version of the standard cassette, but little more. The Japanese went for it, but its success was limited elsewhere.
Then when MP3 came along, they dragged their feet for ages- maybe because they saw this as a paradigm-shift threat to their existing portable players, not realising that the *real* threat was that the market was going that way anyway, and that they could join it ASAP or lose their lead. Of course, they *did* lose their market-leading position, to Apple. "iPod" was the success story of the first decade of this millennium, not some next-generation solid-state "Walkman".
Even after all this, they joined in in a half-baked cynical manner, trying to play things the old way while looking like they were embracing the new. Remember those stupid pseudo-MP3 players that required you to convert all your files to ATRAC via their crappy software before they'd support them? (No, I don't care whether that version of ATRAC was better than MP3 or not- by that point everyone had settled on MP3, Sony had *already* lost their opportunity to dictate what the market would use, and this move was just a mixture of NIH and arrogance).
So, Sony lost the portable audio market through their own arrogance, short-termist self interest, NIHism and generally blinkered short-sightedness... and they really, *really* have no-one to blame but themselves.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
...how many of you bashing this and vowing never to buy it because of how oh-so-anti-consumer this is own an Xbox 360? Because guess where they got the idea that consumers don't give a shit about things like taking a regular hard drive and sticking a proprietary connector then charging ass for it from...
If you translate the JPY prices to USD then these cards obviously seem very expensive with the current status of the Japanese Yen. Wait until it's released in the US and Europe, then we'll see.
The entire damned business does this.
In fact, almost every damn business in existence does this. It is a very basic practice.
Where in gods name have you been since the past forever?
Even Nintendo, the so-called "saviour" of gaming, done it recently with 3DS since everyone ever hated it.
They could afford to take such a huge loss to force something on people because they done yet another cheap thing and released a console entirely aimed at the casual market and basically telling everyone else to basically beat it. (including many developers)
Their memory cards, their discs, their rumble, their everything, all of it is proprietary.
They are worse than Sony when it comes to proprietary hardware actually. Funny how nobody bitches at Nintendo for all this locked-down stuff, and the constant re-releases of hardware and peripherals. I mean, come on, AN ADD-ON TO ADD A 2ND STICK, and then I think there was even mention of a new 3DS version with the 2nd stick included. Now all those initial 3DS buyers are getting a big "FUCK YOU" thrown at them.
Microsoft are equally as bad. Admittedly in software, but it is still the same, force locked-down proprietary code or extensions to code on people through the monopoly they created and eliminate everything else, or at least make it really hard to work with their OS from a developer perspective.
At least until they got their asses handed to them in several rulings.
It is called making things affordable. Not all hobbies are cheap, you should be grateful they even bothered making things cheap for you in the first place.
I'm not going to deny it, the memory card thing is an absolute joke, probably the worst thing they have done, but stop making it out like the rest of the industry are honest and caring, THEY AREN'T.
Business is business. It doesn't care about your feelings, it doesn't care about ethics. It is a monster that feels not feelings, only gains and losses.
This has been the Sony mantra since forever. Proprietary, proprietary, proprietary.... That's also why we are seeing zero involvement of Sony in the open source field.
Sorry, wasn't really gunning for Sony, and I give it 50/50 that after I've had my strop I'll pick one up (Yes, you are typing to a Nintendo VIP/schmuck, who spent too long with a credit card and a delayed flight departure).
Didn't help that I found a 4Gig M2 card in a drawer during my weekend clearout, for a phone that broke many years ago. I remember being annoyed when I bought it and just felt slightly haunted by it.
I guess I'm maybe just old, cranky self-hating gamer - PSP Ridge Racer did make me go oooh and once the novelty wore off, Lumines with the sound up kept me very happy (This was the slightly pre-release PSP I picked up under the counter in some Kuwaiti electronics bazaar - I think I've mentally blocked how much that cost me).
Just need to make sure I'm not near a airport when Vita comes out.
OH actually, that does remind me of what I REALLY hated - Getting GTA, getting on the plane, popping it in and it telling me it refused to play, until I updated the firmware, which required it to be plugged in..(2 fully charged batteries in my bag - *weeps*)
Cause there were more hardware revisions than decent games to play on the stupid thing, and I am not going to repay you for a console and ALL NEW ACCESSORIES cause you turned up the saturation on one model or doubled the ram that no one could (commercially) use in another.
Never mind that go bullshit where you expected me to pay you for the same console, all new accessories and re-buy all my games a second time based on YOUR schedule.
When I was a kid I wouldn't have cared about anything Sony did. I was only interested in playing video games. In all honesty, their products are fairly decent at that task. As an adult, I don't spend a single dollar with Sony. No hardware, no software, no entertainment (movies, music).
It seems like as we progress they are alienating the people with the money that can actually afford their products.
Sony used have a habit of selecting cryptic names like "Memory Stick" or "Memory Stick Pro," and "Home Theater in a Box" sticks in my mind. but they're cutting the crap this time so it is perfectly clear exactly what the products are. There calling it the Profit Card, with the future second generation to be named Pure Profit Card, though Box Of Ripoff is reportedly still in the running.
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
Why high priced proprietary memory? Never underestimate the greed of a corporation that cares nothing about its customers. In fact they are part of an entire industry that blatantly accuses its entire customer base of being thieves on a regular basis. Read the warning on every Sony movie or music cd. Why on earth would ANYONE be surprised that Sony went the low road and did what's best for them instead of the customers? Better question, why in hell do people keep supporting these business practices by purchasing Sony products? It just tells them we would rather be treated like dung than go without call of duty. Pathetic but true.
"Computers are a lot like Air Conditioners" "They both work great until you start opening Windows"
I agree. I used to buy Sony because they had good products. They have become so entrenched in their own formats and have fallen behind, technology wise in electronics. I was sad to see when the Sony format Bluray won the video format wars. Of course, this all started when Sony expanded into the entertainment industry and became Sony Pictures. Now, they are doing everything they can to screw over the customer in an effort to protect their entertainment profits. They really need to spin off their electronics division as an independent organization. Otherwise it is just going to die a slow death.
The PSP was the last Sony product I bought - there are simply too many alternative manufacturers that make better products and there's nothing that's convincing me that their gaming system will be worthwhile. I'd sooner purchase a third-party input device for my phone to give it a real directional pad and proportional joystick.
I used to quite like the PS3, but Sony's mismanagement of their product and outright contempt for their customers has soured me even on that. It's not much more now than a decent blu-ray player. If they could at least make it a decent media hub that could play anything you throw at it, that would be fine, however the list of unsupported formats has made cheap solid state players like Boxee and Patriot that much more appealing.
Sorry Sony, I'm done playing your game.
"Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence." - Charles de Gaulle
Digital content on Playstation Vita is region locked. http://www.reghardware.com/2011/12/05/sony_region_locks_digital_content_on_ps_vita/
I won't buy from Sony a new hand held or PS4 ever again this is dirty money from Sony! I've gone through well with repairing the stupid outdated console 6 times now and yes its the 60 gig!- But PS3 is a over heating piece of junk made in Japan? Don't count on it China!! I wish the United States Of America stopped trading with foreign countries such as China! I mean haven't you noticed as to how many products come from Asia and China? That is ridiculous! I rather buy goods from Japan and Europe then China! To me China is a evil corrupted Country! Read up on there black marketing with illegal product's etc. Shame on you America!
"Ensuring a consistent experience for all users."
I don't get this. If the card system used the universal SD card system (which everyone already uses in their phone/camera), then the experience would still be consistent. The only difference is that now everyone is getting consistently pissed off at SONY for being forced to use a proprietary card system that's very expensive and useless with anything else.
~Syberz
handhelds is because of the Memory Stick BS.
I had some interest in the Vita. That interest is gone now.
Sigh.
Thanks to whatever manager thought this would be a good idea.
I am not devoid of humor.
Yup.
Had a lot of Sony products over the years. Walkman, Vaio laptops, Wega TVs, a MiniDisc player, one of the first noise canceling earbuds back in 1997, etc. Camped out in front of a Best Buy in rural West Virginia to buy a PS2.
My PSP (fat) was the last Sony product I ever bought. I refuse to buy another Sony product.
Not only that, I go out of my way to discourage all of my friends and family from buying Sony products. Since I'm the guy everyone listens to - they have to, because I'm not going to install OR fix their Sony gear - no one around me buys Sony stuff.
Yes, I know, that's not 100% rational. It's really quite irrational. In fact, my irrational hatred is approaching religious amounts of fervor.
Don't care, because that's how I feel about Sony.
It's your most loyal customers that become your zealous enemies.