I'm a Sony fanboy, but should I buy a 3DS?

[nuckles87]

The main issue with the Vita's line up is that it's mostly ports. Uncharted: Golden Abyss is a so-so entry into the franchise, and the only truly great, Vita exclusive game I've played thus far is Gravity Rush. It's an open world action game that lets you manipulate gravity, and it is a true joy to play. The issue that the Vita has, it that it doesn't have more of these games.

Looking at the future of the system, most of the games still seem to be mostly ports. Assassin's Creed 3 looks GREAT for the system. But aside from this game, the only notable games coming for the rest of the year are PS3 ports and LittleBigPlanet.

The cross play games available at the moment are also fairly disappointing, mostly PSN games and nothing that I'd exactly call a killer app. I think the best cross play games currently available are Wipeout 2048 and StarDrone.

The apps are also kind of useless. While it's true the system has Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, etc the most interesting thing I've found myself using them for so far is sending the occasional screenshot over Twitter. You can take screenshots of games and post them on the internet via Twitter, which is pretty cool ;).

Then finally, we have the PSN titles. The PSone titles available are great. You got stuff like FF7, Klonoa, and Tomba available, though currently the actual line up is still limited. The PSP selection is also somewhat limited and expensive, though if you don't mind paying $10-15-$20 for digital games, the PSP line up is easily the best thing about the console right now. You got games like:

Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City/Vice City Stories
Dissidia
Megaman X
Valkyria Chronicles 2
CRUSH

And numerous other superb titles. My personal issue with the service is that I hesitate to purchase such expensive games digitally without demos available, and the few titles I'd really like to buy, like Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep and Soul Calibur Broken Destiny, are either not on the service or cost $40.

Having not played a PSP before, the biggest reason to pick up a Vita is probably the PSP library at the moment.

By and large, I haven't played my Vita very much this year. I played it when I got it, played it when I went to E3, and I played it when I got Gravity Rush a few weeks later. I expect I'll be playing it again soon, with Assassin's Creed 3 Liberation coming to the system. I might also pick up Call of Duty for it, which I believe is also supposed to be an exclusive version.

But so far, from owning it since last December to seeing it's line up at E3, the most intriguing part of the Vita's line up is how it can play OTHER system's games, whether it be PSone/PSP backwards compatibility, to the fact that it's holiday line up is made up of PS3 ports, Playstation All-Stars and Sly Cooper. Both of these games PS3 versions will come with the Vita version for free, by the way, so that is a plus. Though keep in mind, for most games that support cross platform play, you must buy the game on both systems.

I personally think owning a PSP would not only be cheaper, but a much better proposition then a Vita right now. Either way I would suggest holding off on the Vita for at least another year, unless cross platform play and using social apps whenever you have Wifi available seems worth it to you.

When I wasn't playing my Vita, though, I WAS playing my 3DS. And I've used my 3DS far more then my Vita or my DS before it.