PS Vita memory card type, price and necessity

There was a huge fear the price of the PlayStation Vita memory cards were going to affect sales for the new handheld, and it wasn’t hard to see why. The thought of using yet another memory card format seems like a silly move on Sony’s part, but they recently announced during CES the price will be lower than expected.

Okay, so it’s good news in part, but still having to use this card is mandatory, but wouldn’t it have been better to stick to a mainstream type instead? There were all kinds of prices going around at first, and this was one reason why those wishes to purchase the PS Vita were initially put off. However, we hope the official price list will now alleviate those fears?

As you know, the prices for these cards are as follows; $19.99, $29.99, $59.99 and $99.99 for the 4GB, 8GB, 16GB and 32GB respectively. It’s clear to see you will be paying $10 less than what we had presumed for the 4GB card, but will this change your thoughts on the cost?

Consumers love an option, but this has been taken away from them. While it’s not as expensive as first feared, it’s still an extra cost, and that will never sit right with the consumer. The use of these memory cards is not required for all games, but we are reminded here that you will need the use of memory for game saves and downloadable games and content.

One would have assumed Sony would have bundled a PlayStation Vita Card in the box with the handled, but for certain reasons (cost) they have decided against this. Sony has made games available as a downloadable purchase, as a way to save money on all the packaging cost. However, you need to beware of this, as you could end up paying more in the long run.

Take the Uncharted: Golden Abyss download, an article here explains how the size for the game weighs in at 3.38GB, so not only do you have to pay for the price of the game but also and extra $20 for the memory card to store it on as well. Let’s say you would save yourself around $10 for the download version, this would mean you will still be ten bucks out of pocket – seems like Sony never thought this one through.

There’s something else to consider as well, the length of time it will take to download these games. While this will not be an issue for most of us, there are still those with a bandwidth limit; download a few games and your monthly broadband costs could spiral out of control.

Could this oversight be the reason why many of our readers have said the PS Vita is doomed to fail? Now, we are not saying for one moment that it will, but there are a few things going against the handheld, which cannot be undone, the card type being one of them.

This article seems to be all in support for the PSP, and suggest we should forget about the Vita – he could be right you know. The reason we say this is because we expect to see some huge deals in the coming weeks and months on the PlayStation Portable. The PS Vita is still a great device – one that many gamers will want – but the high price of the console and memory cards has to affect sales. However, we could be wrong – what are your thoughts?

Sales have been a little slow for the PS Vita in Japan, and there are fears this could be mirrored in the US, UK and other parts of the world. However, we already discussed how this was also the case with the PSP and PS3 when they first launched; the potential will be reached, it just takes time.