Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Review: Sony PlayStation Vita (Wi-Fi)




The good: The PlayStation Vita delivers amazing visuals on its 5-inch OLED touch screen that look almost as good as PS3 graphics. The system’s launch lineup is very impressive and allows for downloading of some games (including all first-party titles) over the PlayStation Network. The Vita’s operating system is smartly designed, easy to use, and ultraresponsive. The unit feels great to hold and has excellent standby battery life.

The bad: The Vita uses proprietary media and connections across the board, and even requires the purchase of a separate memory card to play most games and use most apps, which results in a hidden cost. Battery life could be better, and there’s no way it can be replaced by the user. There’s also no video out. Also, some antipiracy implementations are a bit cumbersome to deal with (for example, mounting the Vita to a PC/Mac for file transfer). It’s also unclear how much storage the Vita has onboard, and it’ll cost you more money for larger Vita Memory Cards.

The bottom line: Overall, the PlayStation Vita is the most advanced portable gaming system ever made. While the price is deceiving because of a hidden cost, gamers are getting an impressively complete package right out of the gate. A healthy launch lineup is sure to provide something for every kind of gamer, and a large selection of digital downloads is available right now.