The main problem is people expecting the exact same feature set of a home console for a handheld
But the entire value proposition of the Vita (much like the PSP before it) is that it's as full-featured as a console (and nearly as powerful and full-featured as a console) but it's portable and designed around mobile use. When the system is full of features where Sony have upgraded the experience to match their console offering, why should I be held back by a few areas where the features are a step backwards -- when that step back has no technical reason underlying it? It's disingenuous for Sony to sell a product by touting its console-like functionality and then fall back on "well, what did you expect? it's a handheld!" when they want to cut out a feature.
- Better still is the assertion that because someone else in your house will need to play on your Vita, that they absolutely must have their own account. Why?
This is the same problem. "We made these cool features that make our system awesome! ....Except you can't use them if you don't follow our exact rules for how you should use your device -- rules that aren't there on your other device!"
On PSP, accounts didn't matter because there were no account-based features. Nowadays it's different: we have trophies that we want to keep distinct (because Sony's invested in making trophies a desirable feature to use); we have unique friends lists (which the Vita's online-focused design will make it easier to keep up and/or play with); we have separate save games (a feature we can live without, but which is nonetheless a beneficial quality-of-life improvement.) We got used to these things, and gave ourselves nice marketing-friendly unique accounts with separate logins, because the console makers
wanted us to do that. Now all I'm asking is that their latest device actually work with those features that I've been made accustomed to on the products I already own.
Been reading your posts about the Vita for a while, am I right in that you probably never really intended to buy one? I mean, it's cool, the system isn't going to appeal to everyone. But it sounds like you haven't had much experience with the other online portable consoles (PSP, DSi/3DS) compared to home consoles.
I am a handheld-primary gamer and a huge handheld fanboy. For like a year my avatar was just a picture of a DS and PSP with "Play Handheld Games" written over it. There are a number of must-play franchises on both previous handhelds that
guarantee I will eventually own both a 3DS and Vita -- which is more than I can say for the next batch of three consoles. (I wasn't going to buy one at launch, but I've never bought
any system at launch. With handhelds it's at least usually within the first eighteen months, though.)
My frustration comes from the fact that both of this new generation's handhelds are downgrades in many real, meaningful ways over their predecessors: badly priced, filled with arbitrary content restrictions or horribly designed online systems, features left out, games or accessories price hiked, etc. while at the same time both systems are passing over obvious improvements to their predecessors. I'm going to wind up buying both of them but neither is going to be as good a system as it's predecessor, and that irritates me greatly.