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Vita firmware update locks memory cards

There is a huge difference between the possibility to switch accounts and the practicality of doing so. And that gap just got a lot bigger.

You're right there is a difference but you're doing the same steps as before if you wish to switch. with the same unskippage vita intro that last 1 minute and the same step sinc eyou have to reconnect your network setting to register the new acocunt ..

This painfull process ? it's still there and hasn't been changed ( so far )
 

sajj316

Member
That's besides the point. Curtailing piracy is great, but it didn't hinder consumers, or erase their saves.

Although Linux was sacrificed. ;;

The major problem I see here is that the saves (at this point) are not retrievable. Those saves are not erased unless you reformat the memory card. We need Sony to say something about the save files and provide users a mechanism to retrieve it without going back on this firmware change (I don't think they want to do this).
 

Dunan

Member
Every few months it seems like another appropriate time comes to shake your head and say: "Seriously, Sony? Seriously?"

Taking away people's saves without warning while pushing their new, desperately-needs-more-sales handheld further towards 3DS-like region lock status?

As a multilingual PS3/PSP/Vita fan who has games in four different regions, this is disgusting news. They've got to be kidding.

And shame on you indifferent corporate cheerleaders who don't care that people are losing save data. There's just no excuse for unilaterally destroying a user's save data. At the very least, you have to warn them first so that they can get a second memory card ($$$) and get their save files properly separated.
 

Pie and Beans

Look for me on the local news, I'll be the guy arrested for trying to burn down a Nintendo exec's house.
Taking away people's saves without warning while pushing their new, desperately-needs-more-sales handheld further towards 3DS-like region lock status

Is absolutely nowhere near the region lock status of 3DS. Not even in the same ballpark.
 

Darknight

Member
How is this new news?

I clearly remember reading this before Vita came out. I read that only 1 card per account. It would be wiped off when you took it out to place another(thus having to redownload your crap.) and only 1 PSN active account per card. (if you switched accounts, you couldnt play the other content.)

Was this not implemented till now?
 

magawolaz

Member
Never bothered much with account swap back in PSP days. I never liked being forced to use one account at a time.

On PS3 I have some 'fake' account, mostly used to download esxclusive demos and a couple of games (Flower, because it was on sale on the US Store, and FFVII because of the bad PAL conversion), so this whole memory-card locked thing doesn't really affects me... but erasing save data without warning is really lame.

I don't think Sony will go back by letting us switch account with a simple restore, let alone giving us multiple accounts support like PS3.
Ironically, if they did this thing on day1, it would have been better.

I hope this makes Sony think about the whole Store/account/sharing situation.

---

Question: let's say tomorrow Sony will announce a 50% price cut on Vita memory cards, along with new sizes (64GB, 128GB)... would you be cool with that?
 

LiquidMetal14

hide your water-based mammals
How is this new news?

I clearly remember reading this before Vita came out. I read that only 1 card per account. It would be wiped off when you took it out to place another(thus having to redownload your crap.) and only 1 PSN active account per card. (if you switched accounts, you couldnt play the other content.)

Was this not implemented till now?

Yes but people figured out how you can exploit that. That was cool and I was highly tempted but stuck to my 1 region. It's too much of a hassle to do the system refresh for just a demo or something odd from another region.

I said it earlier but if people were already using a loophole to do this, why up in arms for when that's shut? I didn't know nor care if this happened. I didn't want to put myself in the position to lose save data. That or I would have bought another card for another region. At least they let you still do it, even if it means the card is locked to that region's purchases.
 
How is this new news?

I clearly remember reading this before Vita came out. I read that only 1 card per account. It would be wiped off when you took it out to place another(thus having to redownload your crap.) and only 1 PSN active account per card. (if you switched accounts, you couldnt play the other content.)

Was this not implemented till now?

There was a workaround that was found that was patched this morning.

Some people are angry because sony didn't say that this workaround would be patched and thus they lost part of their content ( content became unnacessible ) including some games saves since the vita put your saves under the same icon as your game data.

Some other people are saying that it's sucks big time to lose saves but that workaround was just a workaround and not a feature and if you change accounts often , you should at least have a backup on your ps3 or PC since on vita,changing regions wipe the vita internal mémory each time it's done..

I don't think Sony will go back by letting us switch account with a simple restore, let alone giving us multiple accounts support like PS3.
Ironically, if they did this thing on day1, it would have been better.

I hope this makes Sony think about the whole Store/account/sharing situation.


You can still do that
 
Without formatting I mean. Just as was before 1.80

i know this is not a perfect solution since everyone has a different budget , but if you switch accounts often a Second mem card was kinda obvious from the start ..

I know i know ... they are pricey and stuff .. but as far as i remember importing games never was cheap..
 

test_account

XP-39C²
Probably been covered, but how did it work before if you switched account? Did all the games show up regardless? Did they run even when using a different account?
 

Maedhros

Member
Isn't that how people actually wanted it to be BEFORE Vita was released? I mean, I remember people here thinking that having different accounts on differents memory cards was better than having to format the card.
 

Luigi87

Member
Isn't that how people actually wanted it to be BEFORE Vita was released? I mean, I remember people here thinking that having different accounts on differents memory cards was better than having to format the card.

It is basically like this now, from my understanding (I know the Before is true at any rate)

Before:
You needed to reset the system to a fresh state to change accounts, but could say No to reformatting the memory stick, thus allowing one to keep saves, albeit locking out data from another account.

Now:
You still need to reset the system to a fresh state, but are also required to insert another memory card, as you can no longer say No to reformatting.
 
They remove features at almost the same rate Microsoft adds advertising.

Important game related features > pointless ads that have nothing to do with playing games.

I would take ads over removing gaming features any single day of the week and I'm sure the majority of gamers feel the same.
 

tborsje

Member
Why not just use US account for Vita exclusively in that case.

Because games like Wipeout have region locked online passes - they aren't really 'region free' at all. I brought the game along with my Vita before I knew that there was still such a large different in prices between different PS Stores and that I'd want to use a US account. Plus, I have Wipeout HD + Fury associated with my EU account so I can only access the free DLC when I'm on that account.
 

Darknight

Member
OK just read the replies. Thanks guys, good info.

Sadly im in limbo with my Vita, either sell or keep it. So far I havent used it since its meh to me.
 

demigod

Member
Yet one more reason for me NOT to buy the Vita.

I get a kick out of this everytime I see someone say this. Fact, you never intended to buy the Vita. Most people coming in here saying this do not even understand the situation. They didn't region lock anything, just now it requires another memory card for another account.

Important game related features > pointless ads that have nothing to do with playing games.

I would take ads over removing gaming features any single day of the week and I'm sure the majority of gamers feel the same.

And which gaming feature that they promised to have yet removed on the Vita again? Please enlighten me.
 

yankee666

Member
This is bad news, at least for me. I already spend more tha 20000Yen on JPN account and more than $150 on the US account, All of that without counting the PSX games. So in order to have all my games without loosing my saves i need to buy another 32GB mc, that means another $100. From now on, no more digital purchases, only physical copy of games.
For me this situation is worse than region locking. With the 3DS knew beforehand that was region locked so i bought a JPN one and all the games for that region.
 

Pie and Beans

Look for me on the local news, I'll be the guy arrested for trying to burn down a Nintendo exec's house.
This is bad news, at least for me. I already spend more tha 20000Yen on JPN account and more than $150 on the US account, All of that without counting the PSX games. So in order to have all my games without loosing my saves i need to buy another 32GB mc, that means another $100. From now on, no more digital purchases, only physical copy of games.
For me this situation is worse than region locking. With the 3DS knew beforehand that was region locked so i bought a JPN one and all the games for that region.

You could always get a cheaper, smaller card and just not have all the games you own all on the Vita at the same time?


If this wasn't a problem before I have a hard time understanding why they'd feel compelled to patch it out now.

PSOne licensing, Cross Buy initiatives, third party pressure. Plenty of reasons.
 

Raonak

Banned
Goddammit sony. why do you always have to do stuff like this. You give us an open ps3. then lock it. regionfree vita, but lock down memcards.

atleast stay consistent. constantly flipflopping is annoying.


--
doesn't really effect me either way; early on i decided to ONLY buy stuff on my main account. and it's really paid off in the long run.
 
Important game related features > pointless ads that have nothing to do with playing games.

I would take ads over removing gaming features any single day of the week and I'm sure the majority of gamers feel the same.
What are you even talking about? They've always made it difficult to have more than one account on the Vita. They've discouraged it every step of the way. This latest update's only made it even more of a pain in the ass. But even so, they've removed no "gaming features."
 

NBtoaster

Member
Goddammit sony. why do you always have to do stuff like this. You give us an open ps3. then lock it. regionfree vita, but lock down memcards.

atleast stay consistent. constantly flipflopping is annoying.


--
doesn't really effect me either way; early on i decided to ONLY buy stuff on my main account. and it's really paid off in the long run.

This is not a change of policy though, it's closing something of an exploit.
 

consoul

Member
I really enjoy the opinions of people in this thread speaking from positions of ignorance.

There are so many people defending or downplaying this who have no idea how single-card account switching worked in the first place, or what the implications of sneaking this change through unnanounced are.
 

demigod

Member
I really enjoy the opinions of people in this thread speaking from positions of ignorance.

There are so many people defending or downplaying this who have no idea how single-card account switching worked in the first place, or what the implications of sneaking this change through unnanounced are.

Ignorance would be from the people who didn't understand what one memory card per account meant.
 

FSLink

Banned
Maybe I've misinterpreted the situation - I don't own a Vita, though I might down the line - so forgive me if I'm off-base, but I'm having a hard time coming to terms with how there's blame being directed towards the victimized customers here.

Why should anyone presume that Sony would lock them out of their personal data for simply updating the official firmware? If the "one memory card, one account" policy was truly obvious from the start, then why did the Vita ever give users the option to format their memory card when switching account regions? Why would it let them choose not to format it? I simply don't understand how that could be a "loophole" in any real sense of the word. If Sony originally intended for users to have one and only one account per memory card, then what point could there possibly have been to allow data from multiple accounts on the same card?

Bearing that in mind, the problem is not that Sony closed some ambiguous loophole that allowed users to circumvent the Vita's intended functionality - the problem is that Sony removed an existing feature without warning: the choice to format one's memory card when switching account regions. That, in turn, locked paying customers out of their personal data without their approval. If that's not a bait-and-switch, then what is? It's not like you had to crawl through eldritch, non-euclidean labyrinths to take advantage of this feature, either.

If the writing was truly on the wall in the first place, it sure wasn't written clearly - at least from an outsider's perspective. And that ain't cool.

This is probably the best post in this thread. It absolutely is stupid that they didn't put a warning or even a footnote in the patch notes about this.

I import games all the time and luckily I haven't gotten anything off the Japanese PSN on my Vita...but wow I'd be pissed. Putting it in the same patch as PSOne titles was just stealthy and scummy.

I personally think it was originally a loophole, but not putting any warning or note or any way to migrate the other region's save data to the PC or PS3 (which doesn't let you anymore post-update).....augh. It's inexcusable.

What a dumb situation.
 

LuchaShaq

Banned
Is absolutely nowhere near the region lock status of 3DS. Not even in the same ballpark.

Yes I'd argue this is worse because region locking on 3ds never caused people like my old roommate to lose ALL of his American saves since he was playing a different region downloadable game.
 

consoul

Member
Enlighten us.
It's not my job to enlighten everyone. People should educate themselves on topics they're going to weigh in on.

Regardless of what their intentions may have been, the fact is that Sony deployed a system that allowed account switching in two ways:
1. Through the purchase of two expensive memory cards and a process that involved switching them.
2. Through a cheaper and faster method using just one memory card.​

I don't accept that the people at fault here are those that used the least laborious, least expensive method.

Changing the system without warning in such a way that it holds their multi-region purchases hostage and demands the purchase of additional expensive memory cards is blatently anti-consumer. Revoking access to their save files is indefensible.

I don't dispute that Sony have the right to control their system. Informing users when they're going to make changes like this is not too much to ask.
 
It is basically like this now, from my understanding (I know the Before is true at any rate)

Before:
You needed to reset the system to a fresh state to change accounts, but could say No to reformatting the memory stick, thus allowing one to keep saves, albeit locking out data from another account.

Now:
You still need to reset the system to a fresh state, but are also required to insert another memory card, as you can no longer say No to reformatting.
You can say no to reformatting but when booting ( with the same memory card ) the system will tell you that the card isn't ready/can't be used.
At this point you either

-put another card

-format the current one
 

Acosta

Member
This sucks, I'm glad that I can still buy a game from USA or Japan and play it on my European Vita, but the whole process is such a mess.

Really, what a disgrace for this generation handhelds. It's incredible we are going backward from Game Boy times in the regional thing.
 

Jinfash

needs 2 extra inches
Haha, Sam Bishop is on another site saying that this is no big deal and GAF is "retarded" for being upset. Someone's still bitter.

"I sort of wish more people [bought the Vita] too, but I don't think I've met anyone that bought one and didn't love the games that really shined. And there's lots of 'em too. To think that a Sony system would have arguably the best launch of any console or handheld in terms of sheer volume is mind-blowing to me. Usually it takes a PlayStation system about two years to really start ramping up on the software side, but it was there day one and the potential for future stuff is absolutely nuts. Mark my words, in a few years we're absolutely going to see stuff that gives the PS3 a run for its money."

WyPZZ.gif

He gets some credit for speaking in grammatically correct, typo-free sentences, but he's just as crazy as a 15-year-old Sony fanboy on GameFAQs. No wonder he got permabanned here.
Quiz time: Which respected GAFfer uttered "Listen to the wise words of SamBishop" shortly before his meltdown? bonus points if you answer using your memory and not search.
 

SmokyDave

Member
Yes I'd argue this is worse because region locking on 3ds never caused people like my old roommate to lose ALL of his American saves since he was playing a different region downloadable game.
Yes, region-free is worse than region-locked. Of course.

If your friend had imported a physical cart rather than setting up a bogus account, he'd have been fine.
 
I got screwed over in that when I imported my PS3 (US to the UK), I used a US account as my main gaming account. It makes my life more difficult with the Vita, because I have to be wary of buying any physical games with on-line passes; essentially they're rendered useless because you can't use the pass with a US account. Not to mention I can't use any of the cross-buy games on my Vita if I purchase them on my EU account. So, well done Sony, great job all around.

I just hate the way in which they actively encouraged people to buy digital products across multiple accounts on the PS3 and PSP, only for them to gimp the Vita in such a way that renders all that obsolete. If Sony really didn't want an EU gamer buying from the US store, then they could easily put a stop to that, just like they do with the digital movie and tv content.
 
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