Suddenly everyone is beginning to throw out their opinion about the PS Vita, so I decided to join in the chorus with what I believe is the sole problem with the PS Vita.  Every other problem, complaint, or frustration can be boiled down to this simple conclusion.  What is this wonderous thought you ask, storage space.

The complaints typically center on games being short or having low resolution (compared to what the PS Vita is capable of).  These are issues related to the size of the game, not the competencey of the developer.  The problem is that Sony didn't include any storage on the Vita for developers to work with and the assumption developers have going into development is that gamers will only have a base of 4GB available for their game.  You see this in the physical size of the games (downloadable or on Vita cards), which range from just over 500MB to just under 3GB. (1)  Developers have two concerns, the ablity to deliver the game digitially to the widest range of consumers and the cost of distributing the game via the Vita cards.  The Vita cards the games ship on need to provide games with some space for patches, etc, and while they can ship a game on a larger Vita card, it increases the cost of the game as well as limits the customers they can reach via digital download.  While larger Vita memory cards are available, the base assumption a developer has to operate with is that customers only have 4GB Vita memory cards to work with.    

Which is why you're seeing games that aren't as long as their console brethern, and are featuring graphic resolutions less than what the Vita is capable of.  Developers are having to make compromises due to the constraints of the Vita cards.

 UMD wasn't going to be the answer either.  At best UMD can only hold about 1.8GB, so I think Sony made the right choice of using Flash memory, but they should have included a based amount.  Something along the lines of 16GB or 32GB.  This would allow gamers to be able to store a game, as well as their profile on the system.  Then allow them to use multiple Vita memory cards to store games on as their collection grew.  It would have also given developers the option of using the entire 4GB of the Vita card the games are shipped on, rather than reserve some for game updates and patches, and developers could develop larger games beyond the standard 4GB format. 

Developers are not going to be able to provide the PS3 experience of a full-fledged console game on the Vita with less than 4GB of space to store the game in.  Games will either need to become more expensive to accomodate the larger storage space of an 8Gb or 16GB Vita card, or Sony is going to have to eat that cost if they hope to resolve the issues PS Vita owners are complaining about.  In addtion, the Vita needs to be redesigned with a base amount of memory added.  At least 16GB but preferably 32GB. 

If not Sony is asking gamers to accept small phone gaming experiences on a dedicated gaming system.  I don't think that's a fair thing to ask and I believe in the long run it'll be the death knell of the Vita.  What are your thoughts?

*Awaits Rol's post*

I think the problem boils down to the fact that it isn't attractive to children. It was marketed at a handheld audience that simply doesn't exists in large enough numbers to sustain it. Targetting only one domographic just doesn't work. You need the angry teenage boys and man children as well as the soccer moms and kids to create a large enough audience.

you're crazy.. Sony is perfect and did nothing wrong.. it's all the third party developers fault... repeat after me: Sony is perfect.. Sony is perfect.. Sony is perfect..

I lol'd

You're thinking too far into the future. Right now almost all games don't even come close to the 4 gb. If the Vita can pull through another few years then I'd expect 8 gb game cards.

Would you like me to post some major game sizes?

They should have just had it compatible with SD cards then everyone could get a 16-32 GB SDHC cards with ease. 32 GB SDHC cards are under 20 dollars now while 32 GB Vita memory is around $80 on Amazon. So it is now 4X as expensive for a memory upgrade. 

I hope this is a masterful troll thread.

Technical reasons are about the last reason why Vita is struggling.  What takes space in games is, overwhemingly, cutscenes. Textures and music are small, and game code is tiny.

The reason for the symptoms listed is all developers lacking a) money and b) talent to do a full Vita production because, at $50, handheld games don't sell enough to justify console-scale development and those resources are therefore devoted to console productions.

Development priority for third party games right now looks like: 360>PS3>Future MS/Sony>3DS>Wii U>PSV>DS>Wii. And for good reason. On purely economic grounds, if a spinoff Vita version is coming out at the same time as a major IP release on other platforms, it's going to be lacklustre.

It's an infinite loop: The Vita is not selling due to lack of high quality games, and the lack of high quality games is due to the Vita not selling.


Not to mention that handheld consoles are casual by default while the Vita is trying to attract the "hardcore" audience.

I agree somewhat we will never get a fully capable WRPG because of this. Uncharted won't be able to reach its potential, any open world game will be constrained. And this was the reason we didn't get Peace Walker in the HD collection. A full scale GTA, and GT won't come to fruition like we would hope (Without significant constraints). I mean look at some of the file sizes of PS3 games uncharted 3 and Killzone 3 40-45GB! Infamous 2 is even 15gb.