Quote:
Originally Posted by DrNefario
The vita's proprietary memory card format symbolises all that is wrong with Sony, I think.
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I originally covered that in the aside about homebrew (how Sony's failed attempt to circumvent piracy in the original PSP only made their stubborn redesign more user-alienating). I edited out that bit in the name of brevity, which I won't concern myself with in this post.
The argument I left in, and the examples I gave, were clearly about the excellence of the Vita as hardware
apart from its proprietary limitations.
Besides which, at least Sony made the device upgradable. If Apple had made it, the Vita would have no controls but the touch screen and you couldn't insert a memory card at all.
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For some gamers, simplicity is a matter of control surface transparency, but for others, complexity and subtlety are what intensify the feeling of existing in an entirely different world. So far, Sony is the only surviving company to honor that approach in a handheld, and the Vita is the most perfect expression of that concept so far.
One of the reasons we like their cameras, TVs, e-readers and radios (the thing they once did best) is because Sony doesn't have a stake in crippling those products.
Their laptops can be cutting-edge as well, some of which presaged the Air and ultralights, but the thought of what Sony might do to file and software access has always kept me away.
SACD and Blu-Ray were excellent mediums and evolutionary steps up before broadband's streaming limitations became the standard for resolution. We've actually taken several steps back from that idea in the aesthetic sense.
The original intent of the PS3 -- to play SACD (which later firmware upgrade made available through the analog
and digital outs before the feature was dropped) as well as Blu-Ray discs -- was also a compliment to the intelligence and taste of the gamers it sought to interest. I haven't seen other companies integrate those kinds of ideas.
It's the equivalent of French publishers' running ads in graphic novels for avant garde literature and difficult criticism. They don't make the assumption the audience of one medium lacks the sophistication of another.