osed125 said:
People forget the Vita's memory cards, unless those prices also decrease you will still be paying $200+ (for more than 8GB that is). Sure it will cheaper, but it's still not a very "attractive" price for most people imo. Or Sony could simple included at least a 8GB card in every handheld, that would definitely help.
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First off, let me say that I agree with you, memory card prices are ridiculous.
That said, at the moment, Sony seem unwilling to take a loss on the system. For whatever reason. In my opinion, I think their price gouging on the memory cards is a way to introduce choice to people buying the system to keep costs lower for people who want the option.
They could just tack another $30 onto the cost of the Vita to keep it breaking even if they wanted. But of course, that would hurt sales even further, and it would be a mandatory cost for anyone buying. Alternatively, they could do what they appear to be doing which is adding that $30 onto the price of bigger memory cards and giving people a choice. Are you going to be playing mostly physical and can you juggle with a PS3 hard drive? 4GB and 8GB are for you then, and you'll save a bit of money. Do you have lots of digital PSP games and do you want your Vita games to be digital too? 16GB and 32GB, but you'll have to pay for it.
If Sony are convinced that they cannot sell the system at a loss at the moment (which I'm not saying is the right decision), then I'd rather the extra price was on memory cards than the system itself, because like I mentioned, that gives you options about how you want to handle your content. A mandatory extra cost on the system itself would damage sales further and there would be no way to avoid it. So if there's no other way around the cost issue, then I think this is the best way to do things. At least in my opinion.
@ OP, interesting, but I don't think any more needs to be said other than "Vita needs a permanent price drop to keep it alive".