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Editorial: The Lotus Eaters | PSNStores

Editorial: The Lotus Eaters

Posted by on December 8th, 2011 | 4 Comments | Tags:

When Sony unveiled the PSVita months ago, let’s say I was stoked.  We’re talking about the most powerful handheld we’ve ever seen.  I was already excited to start busting Chris’s balls about him wanting to import early.  Now?  Slowly but surely, Sony has been steadily removing the excitement from the release of this supposedly fine piece of hardware.  First we find out the price point: approximately USD 250.  After seeing its capabilities, I was willing to shell out that much on day one.  Hey, how much memory does this baby have by the way?  In classic Sony fashion, we learn that we get to deal with proprietary memory cards again.  Something I thought we as a gaming society had finally outgrown has returned yet again to nickel and dime us just to save a game.  Let’s not forget that the average size of a PSN title is usually close to a GB.  The 4 GB card simply won’t do for someone like me, so forget that extra money in my pocket TAKE ALL MY MONEY.

At least the device isn’t region-locked, right?  Something I’ve grown accustomed to is signing into my NA, JP, and EU accounts weekly to investigate the various store updates.  Then I learn today that Sony wasn’t lying, you can indeed have as many accounts as you’d like; just as long as you’re willing to shell out for as many memory cards as it takes.  That’s right, not only are they going to nickel dime you for proprietary memory cards, if you want to have multiple region accounts you either have to format the whole fucking card or buy extra ones.

Slowly but surely I get more jaded about things like this.  Punish a rabid fan-base’s paycheck for features that they should be getting with their first purchase.  It’s so obvious I find it insulting, especially to my brand loyalty.  Sony thinks that little of you to tax you like this?  How does that make you feel gamer, hell, how does that make you feel as a human?  What gets me the worst however, is when I look elsewhere for information about this.  Why is it that all I see from other gaming media outlets is apologetically written sonnets for Sony?  APOLOGETIC!  How much of a fool do you take me for?  “At least we can still have multiple accounts; I’ll just buy the extra memory cards.”  Every outlet takes this as just par for the course.  They’re content to sit back and keep eating their lotuses because they don’t care about you.  They just want to keep eating up your hits.  I call it as I see it, and this is bullshit.  You won’t see me standing outside of Best Buy at midnight.