mmntech
Lifer
- Sep 20, 2007
- 17,501
- 12
- 0
Blasted Sony. Even after the price cut, the price disparity between the 32GB Vita memory card and a 32GB MicroSD card is greater now than it was at the launch of the Vita.
$80 for $25 of NAND is absurd. Especially since if you intend to download most of your games and/or are going to make liberal use of PS+, you absolutely must have the largest card.
Sony keeps saying it's because the cards are much faster than MicroSD. Though independent tests strongly contradict this. Mind you, it's hard to get accurate numbers as everything has to pass through their content manager. Though I highly doubt it's slowing things down that much.
At $80 for 32GB, you only really see those kinds of prices in desktop SSDs and professional grade Compact Flash cards. These are devices that are rated for 60MB/s and up. The Vita cards simply are nowhere near that fast. Maybe the write rates are better (I doubt it) but read rate is all that matters in a media consumption device.
Ideally the cards should be priced as an impulse buy. Will encourage people to download more from the PlayStation Store instead of buying games at retail. Which should be top priority, as Sony gets 100% of the revenue, instead of giving a cut to Gamestop et al. Gouging on the memory is a short term solution to a long term problem, and it's not working. You make more profit on each sold, but you sell less of them.