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PlayStation Vita Memory Cards are Pricey

Posted Nov 28, 2011 at 1:25PM EST by

Listed in: News Tags: disgaea 3, dream club zero, GameStop, playstation vita memory card, ps vita memory card, uncharted

PlayStation Vita is being hailed as the future of handheld gaming, but for all of its technological innovations it still requires one thing many gamers consider almost archaic at this point: external memory cards. The device has a decent amount of internal memory, but if you’re planning to download games directly to the unit, you’ll need the help of an extra card – especially if you are the type of person that buys tons of DLC.

mfvitacard2

Thanks to GameStop, we now have a general idea of how much you can expect your PS Vita memory card to run. Roughly speaking, the smallest card (4GB) will cost you $30, with the largest (32GB) landing at $120. The low-end card isn’t too terribly priced, but you have to wonder how quickly hardcore gamers will fill up a 4GB card with downloaded titles and DLC content.

Here are a couple of lame things about the memory cards: they’re proprietary, meaning you can’t just buy a cheaper card somewhere and plug it into your unit. Also, it’s been confirmed that some PS Vita games will save exclusively to memory cards; you’ll have to buy one at some point regardless of your download habits. Games like Uncharted, Dream Club Zero and Disgaea 3 will all require memory cards. And while they’re not priced so high that they seem ridiculous, comparing the $30 cost of a 4GB Vita card to any other memory card quickly shows the price difference. For example, a quick Google search yields plenty of 16-20GB cards in the $20-30 range.

What do you think about Vita’s memory card requirements, and the subsequent price points?

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I think it's retarded. Being someone who works a lot in the IT field. Proprietary hardware of any kind has always been an annoying costly pain in the ass and always there could have been a cheaper standard solution such as just using a freakin SD card. Im gonna wait till an adapter for these things comes out. I recently got one for my PSP for less than a dollar on amazon and loaded it with a $30 class 10 32gb micro SD. I wonder if these new cards are going to have ludicrously low speed classes like the original memory sticks for the PSP. If I remember correct, anything that was over 512mb ended up in class 2.

# RE: meh — xnamkcor 2011-11-28 15:57

I couldn't find any MSXC cards for sale. The cheapest SDXC was 70 USD for 64GB. And that was a brand I don't even trust. It's 84 USD for a 64GB Sandisk. I would say the price is quite fair when you don't do price-matching with the wrong generation of cards.

+3 # RE: PlayStation Vita Memory Cards are Pricey — xnamkcor 2011-11-28 15:49

16-20GB cards? you mean, 16GB cards? Because, that's the only size card between 16 and 20.

# ummm not really.. — Night 2011-11-28 15:50

These are just placeholder prices (yen to US conversion) that gamestop is using. In most cases, US pays considerably less than what the actual yen conversion is.

All in all, this article is just rumor and speculation (as is gamestop's part) until Sony USA announce official prices.

# RE: ummm not really.. — Fate 2011-11-28 17:52

you guys lucky in US when you convert the US price into the my county's currency it is about 25-50% more expansive,

-2 # RE: RE: ummm not really.. — Chris 2011-11-28 21:20

ex·pan·sive/ikˈspansiv/
Adjective:

Covering a wide area in terms of space or scope; extensive or wide-ranging.
(of a person or their manner) Open, demonstrative, and communicative.

# RE: RE: RE: ummm not really.. — Azariel_z 2011-11-29 04:22

Quoting Chris:

ex·pan·sive/ikˈspansiv/
Adjective:

Covering a wide area in terms of space or scope; extensive or wide-ranging.
(of a person or their manner) Open, demonstrative, and communicative.

Now listen, weird translation regardless... when you go out of the US market, prices really go "expansive" ...up to 100% or more.
Not wrong at all, not wrong at all..

+1 # RE: PlayStation Vita Memory Cards are Pricey — june 2011-11-28 16:31

how is 30 bucks for 4gb not ridiculous? this is something i would bring up with my friends once we decide whether to get a vita or not. I mean, when you're losing market share to the damn iPhone you don't purposefully sabotage your own product with stupid ideas like this. In the age when social media decides whether you fail or not its a pretty good idea to make your customers happy.

# RE: RE: PlayStation Vita Memory Cards are Pricey — xnamkcor 2011-11-28 18:40

You would bring up a rumor based on Yen conversions that is in no way a real announcement of the prices? That's some well-informed decision making right there.

# RE: RE: RE: PlayStation Vita Memory Cards are Pricey — june 2011-11-28 19:03

I read the article and then comment on it. no where in the article does it state anything about conversions. Way to jump to conclusions. And for your information that specific comment was not there when I submitted my comment. That's some well informed comment right there. Also what makes you think I'm not from Japan in the first place?

# RE: RE: RE: RE: PlayStation Vita Memory Cards are Pricey — xnamkcor 2011-11-28 20:15

Even if you are from Japan, you aren't very Japanese.

# RE: RE: RE: RE: PlayStation Vita Memory Cards are Pricey — PS360 Owner1 2011-11-29 09:51

That's not very Japanese-ish, that's why.

# RE: PlayStation Vita Memory Cards are Pricey — Teflon02 2011-11-28 18:41

ppl need to wait till sony gives prices. gamestop and all that translates prices from japan. and they get it usually more expensive then us like ps3 ff13 jap $99, ff13 US $59.99

sony doesn't do it by cost to be equal but how much they can do it for reasonably the translation for 32GB was $120 but really more likely $99.99
and everyone is so worried about game prices. japan sells games for up to $120 NA $69. and PSP games released at $49 in NA and sony said that the games will be more affordable then psp games at release cuz then they didn't realize people arn't willing to spend the same on console games and portable games.

# RE: PlayStation Vita Memory Cards are Pricey — murundi 2011-11-28 20:21

The price of the cards will soon go down. When psp came 1gb was expensive too but after a few months they became cheap

# It's the last straw for me. — TPot 2011-11-28 21:33

I was umming and arring whether to get a vita, but if Sony are continuing with their one-eyed practices I am out. They need to learn to look after their customers. Why in this age should anyone support/enforce proprietry memory?!

+1 # Epic Fail!!!! — OpenSOurce 2011-11-28 23:00

This will be Sonys next handheld epic fail with Nintendo following close behind. When will they learn.

# RE: PlayStation Vita Memory Cards are Pricey — Aldo P 2011-11-28 23:01

Do Sony deliberately set out to piss off it's customers? Anyway i'm in no rush to buy Vita so i'm just hoping someone makes a Micro SD adapter because like Hell am i paying that much, and i'm sure Sony will only allow authorised third party manufacturers to make these cards so the price isn't gonna go down anytime soon.

# RE: PlayStation Vita Memory Cards are Pricey — hadoken 2011-11-28 23:51

WTF, very unhappy, who tha f do they think they are selling this crap at this price, so how much would a vita game in a memory card cost? plus you have to buy memory card and games, ps3 came of course with a hard drive u could choose from 20 to 120 nor 500gb thus u can buy a 2tb hdd for around the same price 120$ come on now it not anything new or new technology this shit doesnt its not supposed to cost this much...wtf...

# not a problem really — reza666 2011-11-29 08:17

Seriously the VITA is priced extremely low! Consider what you get compared to a even Android phone.
so this is one way Sony will earn a little cash. I will for sure buy the 32Gig and get done with it. Stop being so cheap!
Also i doubt the cost for developers will be the same as this article.

+2 # RE: not a problem really — Aldo P 2011-11-29 08:48

People aren't being cheap they just being sensible, because everytime i get a new bigger Micro SD the old one so every device constantly get improved by hand-me-down memory, but what the Hell are you supposed to do with this Proprietory Vita memory when you upgrade?

-1 # Not a problem indeed — ZaDoo22 2011-11-29 09:14

I agree! I was expected to be about 350$ for a wi-fi verson. Yes it kinda expensive for Memory cards and stuff. But if you guys want a quality product you need to pay up! Earn some cash or something!

# RE: PlayStation Vita Memory Cards are Pricey — andrewcha 2011-11-29 11:57

It still looks like a M2 card for me.

# RE: RE: PlayStation Vita Memory Cards are Pricey — xnamkcor 2011-11-29 16:52

They haven't changed the shape of the Micro SD throughout SD, SDHC, and SDXC. It probably is a M2 with an extra or missing notch. My best guess is that this proprietary card isn't about making money. It's about making sure customers don't buy a non-XC variant of M2 or MSPD cards.

One could say, "I don't need the speed or capacity of XC", or "It's still a way for them to make money. I have no definite proof to argue against that, but imagine the tech support required to explain why every person's DLC game they loaded on their 20 Dollar MSPD is loading so slow. Remember, this is the generation where we might see full games downloaded to the Memory Stick. Balancing the two costs, having a lot of poor people mad at you is less of a cost than having to do tech support for anybody who decided they were smart by finding a 3-generation old Memory Stick that happens to fit and work in their Vita.

# RE: RE: RE: PlayStation Vita Memory Cards are Pricey — Aldo P 2011-11-29 18:09

They said a few months ago these cards are for security purposes, which probably means they hard coded with something similar to the way Magic Gate is recognised on MS cards but probably more sophisticated on these, but Sony knows very well that people absolutely hate proprietory memory and will constantly piss people off, so there is only 2 possible reasons they using this, #1 Money. #2 they know there FW coding skills are so embarrassingly bad they have to add these cards to try to curb the inevitable arrival of Homebrew. But i really do think this stupid idea is gonna come back and bite them in the arse.

# RE: RE: RE: RE: PlayStation Vita Memory Cards are Pricey — xnamkcor 2011-11-30 08:24

"similar to the way Magic Gate". Well, Magic Gate didn't really do anything, so if it is similar, I have no issue with it.

PS: Their FW coding ability is fine. The goal of FW is to drive hardware, not security. Their efforts to stop homebrew were lacking, but that doesn't mean their firmware coding was lacking.

# RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: PlayStation Vita Memory Cards are Pricey — a 2011-11-30 12:13

Magicgate did have a purpose though, because you needed a Magicgate compatible MS before it allowed you install new FW, so something similar to that will really matter to people if Sony includes that extra hard coded layer of security on their cards that fake cards might not have, and that way Sony could use a FW update to block fake cards or stop Homebrew, and every one of their consoles has been soft modded without needing to affect your warranty and everything they try very quickly gets bypassed, so by any standards that is weak security, and also most of the people creating their security are only book smart unlike other companies who hire hackers to do the job properly.

# RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: PlayStation Vita Memory Cards are Pricey — xnamkcor 2011-11-30 16:47

Why would you even consider buying a fake card? And how would only allowing you to use their card stop homebrew?

The companies that hire hackers do so to protect their data and customer's things from theft. These are things like medical records and banks. To hire hackers to stop people from running homebrew, would be an improper use of funds.

I'm not defending piracy, but if companies prevented the Used Game market from ever existing, they would be much better off than if they spent all that time trying to stop homebrewers. Homebrewers just want to use the platform as they want, which leads to pirates stealing games, but the used game industry has been stealing profit and making money themselves this whole time.

# RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: PlayStation Vita Memory Cards are Pricey — a 2011-11-30 17:55

Dude you are completely blind to the obvious facts of the gaming industry, because companies making software that need protecting from hackers have been poaching hackers after they've been convicted of crimes since the invention of the home computer, because they the people who were basically born with their brain wired up to do this stuff, where i have seen it reported numerous times that Sony mainly hire people who just do well in computer studies at University and no matter how many of them they hire it just takes 1 genius hacker to beat the crap out of them.

# RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: PlayStation Vita Memory Cards are Pricey — xnamkcor 2011-11-30 18:52

All the other "genius hackers" in the community would like a word with you. It isn't just one person finding these exploits. It's the fact we have a whole, international, community working towards the goal. Just because one person finds the exploit, doesn't mean that any one "genius hacker" hired by Sony would be able to debug the entire firmware. Also, don't forget about exploits in software. Is that "one genius hacker" going to go over the code in each game released?

+1 # RE: PlayStation Vita Memory Cards are Pricey — asd™ 2011-11-29 22:44

A problem for those who want to buy Vita at launch, but not a problem for those who will buy at a later time. Everything is always expensive at launch, just wait for a few months and those prices will soon drop.

For me I'll just wait for a cheaper Sandisk version or an adapter.

People complain it's expensive, then don't buy it, you're not forced to buy it

# RE: RE: PlayStation Vita Memory Cards are Pricey — xnamkcor 2011-11-30 16:50

Yeah, you don't have to save your games or buy the games only released for DD.

# RE: RE: RE: PlayStation Vita Memory Cards are Pricey — asd™ 2011-12-01 10:32

seems you missed my point, I'm referring not only to the memory card prices but also for the vita, why would I buy a vita at launch then wait for the memory card prices to go down leaving my vita without a mem card. common sense really, I'd wait for both price to go down then buy a Vita + mem card at a lower price.

I can't believe you didn't understand my comment

# RE: RE: RE: RE: PlayStation Vita Memory Cards are Pricey — xnamkcor 2011-12-01 17:03

Believe it!

+1 # RE: PlayStation Vita Memory Cards are Pricey — Michael Roach 2011-11-30 14:14

You guys realize that they are doing this so that they can create a card that is faster than the Pro Duo, right? (Pro Duo is the same speed as the SD card.)
And yes, these are not the real prices. What did the writer do, get this article straight from Kotaku?

# RE: RE: PlayStation Vita Memory Cards are Pricey — xnamkcor 2011-11-30 16:51

Shhhhh! Don't reveal their secrets!

# RE: RE: PlayStation Vita Memory Cards are Pricey — truk 2011-12-01 11:04

there is definitely a lot of truth to your comment. specifically in regards to the 'speeds'. if we take that in to consideration, it definitely justifies the price. if people do a bit of research, they would notice that depending on the class of card, the price is going to differ even it has the same capacity, ie. class 10 vs class 4.

# RE: PlayStation Vita Memory Cards are Pricey — truk 2011-12-01 11:14

what everyone also needs to remember is that there is still going to be physical copies for games. remember there are two card slots? now, it's been discussed time and time again that most gamers like owning the physical copy of a game. so chances are, the same people complaining about the cost the memory card won't even need any thing above 4gb.

# RE: RE: PlayStation Vita Memory Cards are Pricey — xnamkcor 2011-12-01 17:08

I wonder if, in the future, the technology used in the Vita MS will be faster than game publishers bother using. I don't know how fast Mask ROM is compared to rewritable media. It's possible Mask ROM is inherently faster, but I don't know. But if the Vita MS does exceed the Mask ROM speed, I wonder if DD would become a little bit more preferred for the speed boost. That is if you spend the money for the Vita MS that is actually the fastest.

# blargh — blargh 2011-12-08 11:56

is it just me or has this website turned into a massive trollfest?

# make your own adapter! — Forest_GX 2011-12-29 22:11

1.Buy a 4GB Vita memory stick.
2.Gut it.
3.Stick a 64GB microSD card in the gutted vita stick.
4.?????(luck?)
5.Profit.

Though, it's possible the card won't be compatible, I doubt Sony built an entire proprietary architecture for a memory card.

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