Why do both portable systems suck re digital libraries?

It's 2014 and there are two dedicated portable systems on the market, the 3DS and the Vita. It would seem that digital distribution is ideal for portables because while having a few shelves devoted to Playstation or Wii U games is no big deal, taking a bunch of game cases with you on the go, and especially switching games on a crowded bus or train, is a huge PITA. Despite this obvious advantage neither system is well designed for carrying a digital library.

The 3DS is fine from a hardware perspective, permitting the use of cheap 32GB SD cards that can hold loads of 3DS games, but Nintendo is so crap with online services that the system severely punishes you for trying to go all digital. You have to manage a bunch of accounts, if the system is lost or stolen you need to jump through tons of hoops to get your software back, transferring from one system to another is a huge pain etc... It used to be cute how terrible Nintendo was at the Internet but in 2014 it's just infuriating. I have been able to redownload Xbox 360 games at will since 2005. Nine years later I need a police report to do so for the 3DS? Utterly unacceptable. And it makes me nervous carrying the system around because even if it's only worth $200 with the software it's quite a bit more. Add to this the fact that Nintendo's digital pricing is ridiculous (everything stays at MSRP virtually forever and discounts are almost always less than 50% when there are sales) and it's a system well-designed for digital that suffers due to Ninty's awful awful digital rights practices and store.

The Vita has a simpler problem. Memory cards are sold at prices so high that i refuse to buy one out of principal. $90 for 32 gigs when I can get an SD card for $20? Aww hell no. If it was only double the price I might be tempted but Sony has basically lost a customer who would buy a VITA and a bunch of games off PSN with those abusive, garbage, pricing tactics. PSN digital management and Sony's storefront are good (I have a PS3 and PS4) but with a default 4 gig card I might as well be using cartridges since it can only hold one game. I don't want to have to connect to the Internet or my PS3 if I want to switch games, I want my library in my device because it's 2014!

When I was a kid I dreamed of a Game Boy with a whole bunch of games built in that I could switch between at will. You know who delivers on that promise? Apple and Google with their cell phones. Why have two VIDEO GAME companies dropped the ball so thoroughly in this department?

sigh, this is why tablets are kicking butt right now. Stewamworld Dig, Gunman Clive and Mutant Mudds are probably going to see massive jumps in their sales for being on Steam then compared to Nintendo eShop. Even if Nintendo were to have videos explaining in detail how to log online, it's probably going to be a minority of owners of the systems. That's why a lot of these companies are just known for selling cheap plastic stuff then a good digital store front.

I don't see the problem everybody has with memory cards on the Vita. I paid $45 for a 16GB card and I have 18 games on it plus Persona on the cartridge. Do you need a 32GB card? No. You just want it because it's the biggest thing available.

I remember when PSP memory cards were just coming out. The biggest were 4GB at first but then they came out with 8GB cards. You could preorder them for $450. Yes, that's 1.5 times the price of the PSP at the time. My 512Mb card was $80. Memory prices today are fine.

Vita memory card prices are still exorbitant when compared to the prices of other memory card types. It's especially maddening when you realize that they're the same technologies, you just can't fit an SD card into a Vita memory card slot. That's it. That's the only reason you have to pay way more for a Vita memory card than you should. Just because a 16GB card is "good enough" or that PSP memory sticks were very expensive at release doesn't mean that current prices are fine.

However, this does not mean that the Vita is bad as a digital platform. Sony's storefront is pretty good. It's way faster than that PS3's, at least. Buying games digitally works as it should (you can download and delete them at will). It is a digital library done right, it's just expensive to get started.

A 16 GB card is probably big enough, though if you have 18 games they are mostly smaller games since many PSP Vita games are quite big (Persona, for example, is over 3 Gigs.) The issue isn't so much absolute cost as the fact that Sony insists on gouging its customers with BS proprietary memory. 16 GB SD cards are $10. Yours was $45. That's abusive pricing. Even Microsoft abandoned BS proprietary memory years ago. Heck, Nintendo, the most backward company technologically, has used SD cards since the Wii. The fact that Sony gouged even worse with the PSP (back when flash memory was generally more expensive) isn't really relevant.

Nintendo is dumb.

Sony is dumb.

Sony has to figure out the games situation before they start lowering the prices of their memory cards. Once there are more than a handful of Vita games worth purchasing, they can worry about the other stuff.

Nintendo needs (Insert Religious Figure Here).

Need to manage a bunch of accounts? No, that's actually not accurate at all, as neither Club Nintendo nor NNID are required to shop on the 3DS eShop. NNIDs serve no purpose on the 3DS at this point in time beyond allowing you to post on Miiverse, and that functionality is barely a month old.

Also, the system transfer process is not that big of an issue. I'm not sure what sort of headaches it caused you to be a supposed pain. And how often do you really engage in a system transfer that it would be more than a one-time headache? I had more trouble performing a system transfer from my old PS3 to my new PS3, what with the requirement of an ethernet cable, connecting both systemf to the TV and ensuring that both had the latest firmware, and then having to do more fumbling around when it turned out that one end of the ethernet cable wasn't plugged all the way in, causing the transfer process to fail. Oh, and also having to deactivate my PSN games on the origin console, and making sure that trophies were fully synced. I had to look up how to perform the entire step-by-step process on Sony's website because there are so many things that have to be updated and put in a proper state before the transfer process can even begin.

The 3DS system transfer is a fucking cakewalk by comparison.

$45 for 16 gigs of storage is not fine by today's standards. Hell these days when I give someone data on a USB stick, I don't even ask for it back unless it's a fancy USB 3.0 one. These things should be priced at 50c per gig maximum. Plus it's a dumb business model. They shouldn't need to profit from selling you storage. It's in their best interest to give you as much storage as possible so you are encouraged to buy games.

Oddly enough, Mutant Mudds' revenue on the 3DS version outweighs all its other platforms combined. As for Gunman Clive, I recall a news article where the developer was saying the relatively recently released 3DS version was outselling its Mac/Android counterparts, both of which had roughly 10 months to do what the 3DS version did in a lot less time.

So hey there, uh yeah, guy.

@whiteforestparkrangr: Yes, I have heard how well they sold. But I do think they will start to seeing more of a jump in sales from releasing on other market places even if it's on Google Chrome.

@mosespippy:

No matter what you say, 45 dollars for 16 gigs of space is absolutely ridiculous.

@hailinel:

The accounts may not be absolutely required but they are certainly encouraged and there's no reason they should be split up like they are. It reeks of incompetence and makes dealing with the account stuff a pain.

I will admit that all I know about system transfers is from people who found it a pain to move from a normal 3DS to an XL because of it, I don't really know people who did the same with a VITA or PS3 because there wasn't the same advantage to be had. Handhelds should be easier to transfer, and purchases should not be tied to the system, though BECAUSE they are more likely to be lost, stolen, or damaged by far. Making a system transfer should be easy once you've forked over the cash for yet another system to Nintendo (who is profiting on the transaction.) You shouldn't be made to feel like a criminal or someone demanding something unreasonable when you want to play the games you bought on the new system.

Sony's memory prices are hard to swallow, which is why they need to do more game code pack-ins with the cards. In Europe they had a 10 game + 16gb pack that cost £37, or £13 more than the card itself, which is the right direction to be going in but still quite expensive, especially as the games weren't all great. £37 for 10 games is easier to justify and accept than £25 for a 16gb card, though.

I think it'd be sensible of them to include PSN credit rather than game codes, to essentially lower the price. For Sony it would get people instantly into the ecosystem and used to spending money on PSN. The vita attach rate is very high so you'd be pretty much guaranteed future sales once people are on the system. Since they would still be selling cards for the high RRP they wouldn't be taking a loss on that hardware, just in potential digital sales. It'd be a sort of loss-leader for the PSN, and would eliminate the #1 complaint about the system.

Another option would be to include free PS+ time, or Playstation Now time, when that comes out.

Sure most of them are smaller games. I'm getting way more use out of the smaller games though. Spelunky, Divekick, Lumines, Hotline Miami and Ten by Eight are all games that I play all the time. Bigger stuff that tries to emulate the console experience, like Uncharted and Killzone are not things I'm gonna play more than once.

You insinuated before that they were required. But beyond that, there absolutely is reason for them to be separate. Club Nintendo accounts are just accounts for registering your games and earning rewards for them. They are not tied in any way to a gaming network structure and were not meant to serve as player IDs for within games. NNIDs, which are much newer, were designed as part of the relaunched online gaming service, beginning with the Wii U. Is having two separate IDs like this a bit inconvenient? Sure. Is it a sign of incompetence? No. As the NNID service is improved, particularly now that the ID system is supported on both the console and handheld end, they could, at some point down the line, allow for merging of the two IDs. Until that happens, though, they exist as separate entities with separate purposes.

A 3DS system transfer in no way makes you feel like a criminal. Nor is it a massive undertaking:

Even in summarized form, this is so much less of a pain in the ass than performing a PS3 system transfer. No cables or TV feeds to worry about. No having to sync controllers to different consoles. No need to even worry about different memory cards, as the one you're using can transfer right over. You might have some legitimate gripes about the 3DS, but this isn't one of them, and to pursue this path makes you appear to not understand what you're even talking about.

@hailinel: You have not explained at all why Club Nintendo should be separate. It is DIFFERENT, I grant you that, but what purpose does it serve not folding that into your shop ID or NNID? What is gained? Also the fact that they did not anticipate, in 2011 when the 3DS launched, that there was a need for a unified ID is indeed a sign of gross, sloppy, incompetence. 2011. The Xbox 360 and Live launched in 2005. PSN and its growing pains in 2006. This is 5 years later. If failing to anticipate that people would want a unified ID is not incompetence what do you call it?

I don't want to get bogged down in system transfers. I've seen complaints on various boards, and from folks I know, especially when people have damaged units or when they bought new units with digital vouchers and downloaded before the transfer, that it's a massive pain, but have no real experience with that end myself. Given the irritating and poorly designed nature of the rest of the 3DS digital rights stuff I tend to believe that people have had problems, but system transfers aren't the main issue (except that recovering your stuff when your unit is lost, destroyed, or stolen should be easy and it appears not to be so easy.)

• www.yesasia.com/us/playstation-vita-memory-card-64gb-japan-version/1034043241-0-0-0-en/info.html ($95.99 US / £58.51 GBP)
• www.play-asia.com/playstation-vita-memory-card-64gb-paOS-13-49-en-70-7279.html ($115.99 US / £70.57 GBP)

I did see it selling for about £50 just recently, but I can't remember the name of the site right now derp.

As I said before, the NNID system wasn't even available on 3DS until roughly a month ago. It is also not mandatory that all 3DS owners register one at this point. It is perfectly plausible to be in a situation where you own a device connected to your Club Nintendo account, but does not have a Nintendo Network ID. This goes double for any device capable of connecting to Club Nintendo, but is entirely incompatible with NNID (Wii, DSi. Yes, people still own both). As an additional note, historically, Nintendo's hardware side of the business was divided by console and handheld development. This made sense, as there was little need for those working on the Game Boy, GBA or DS to share work with those working on the SNES, N64, GameCube, or Wii. It wasn't until last year that Nintendo reorganized the hardware division to handle both console and handheld development under a unified team. Thus the reason why the 3DS is playing a bit of catch-up in regards to utilizing the NNID system and so forth. Again, it is not incompetence. It is a matter of team structuring, and of updating the 3DS to use a system that was still far from finished, in terms of accounts, when it launched in 2011. NNIDs weren't implemented until about a year and a half later with the Wii U's launch. Going forward, the hardware will likely be much more compatible with each other and with their network services out of the gate.

As for system transfers, you shouldn't speak on their difficulty until you have performed one yourself.

Maybe you'd prefer Sony throw in 64gb of storage and charge $700 tor it? That's what Apple is doing and people seem to be fine with that...

@hailinel

What you describe is rank and obvious incompetence. Anyone with half a brain could have seen the need for unified accounts. Nintendo's organization made sense in 1994 but not 2008 let alone 2011. You did not explain any advantage for Club Nintendo. If Wii and DS can be linked to Club Nintendo they could be linked in the same way to a universal ID maybe not for purchasing but for registration and the fact that they cannot be linked for purchasing shows poor design in the first place. You can explain how Nintendo implemented backward and convoluted policies but that does not make them any better or even more excusable given how late they were still doing dumb things like not having unified IDs ready for 3DS launch. Just dumb dumb dumb.

@bigsocrates: As someone that works in the software industry, I can safely say that you don't know what you're talking about. You aren't taking factors like the infrastructures ir necessities of the account systems involved. You only say that they should be unified because that's what makes sense to you. But NNIDs exist on an individual, personal basis while Club Nintendo accounts are meant to be shared by households. You link a CN account to one, and the other NNID owners would not have access to it. They were designed separately and designed for separate purposes, but choosing not to merge them is not a sign of incompetence. Who are you to judge the competence of hardware and software engineers with a much greater working knowledge if their hardware and network infrastructure than you?

Nintendo continues to not be in line with how everyone else with online accounts works. Sony continues to use vastly over priced proprietary memory cards for their devices. Neither of these should be a shock if you've paid the slightest bit of attention to everything else they've ever done.

Nintendo is kind of moving in the right direction with getting rid of friend codes and making unified accounts for 3DS/WiiU, but they're still keeping purchases locked to individual hardware unless you do a complete system transfer. Maybe they'll get around to making purchase locked to accounts instead eventually by the end of the 3DS's lifecycle in time for their next handheld, but I don't see it happening in the immediate future.

Sony will probably continue to be Sony and use vastly overpriced proprietary products though.

As for tablets/smart phones taking over, yeah sure maybe or probably, but not because of just cheaper games, but because they can do so much more so much better.

Yea, to say $400 phones are a good solution because... of something is a bit selective. They play somewhat sub-par games with a poor interface at a huge price tag and monthly service plan.

I agree the 3DS is a mess digitally and the Vita's memory cards are kind of insulting but I'm just saying I don't think phones are a runaway success either.

Companies have been charging out the ass for storage for a long time. Get used to it, Vita memory cards just seem more insulting because they are optional and in a market filled with cheap SD cards.

That's where a huge profit margin is from. It costs Apple like 10 bucks for 32GB over 16GB in an iPad, but they charge 8x that.

Most people in this thread have probably paid way more than they should have for extra storage on a phone, tablet or computer at some point.

Amazon will periodically do deals on Vita cards. I got a 16 gig for 19 bucks last month. It was actually sold out when I bought it, but it shipped later at the regular price.

All I know is that this page indicates that Metal Gear Acid 2 is on VITA but that appears to be a GOD DAMN lie. I want my MGA kick.

I'm just going to coast with my 4gb memory card until they become cheaper. Vita memory card prices are ridiculous and I'm not going to spend any money on them.

I have Divekick, Spelunky, Hotline Miami, and Gravity Rush installed on my Vita right now and Persona 4 on the cartridge. I'm just going to make sure to swap out the bigger games as I finish them.

I think the Vita would be 100x cooler if the memory cards weren't a complete rip off.

If Nintendo starts putting some SNES stuff on the 3DS, all will be forgiven. I actually haven't run into any of the problems. I don't plan on buying multiple systems. And I'm pretty good at keeping track of my belongings. My only complaint is how lacking their Virtual Console is on that platform. Maybe they think I'll buy a Wii U just to play SNES games?

Vita is super appealing. But I'm not picking one up until I see a good price on the memory card thing. Or until they release a model that takes a SD (yeah, right).