The good news? Sony's PS Vita is on sale now in Japan, and it's region-free, so will play games from all over the world. In other words, you can import one from the Far East, and the games will work. The bad news? If you want to sign in with a different account, you'll need to do a full factory reset.
"[The] PSN account is tied to the hardware and the memory card, not just the card," a Sony spokesperson said in an email to Wired.com, "which means that if a second person is using your Vita, it's not just a case of switching out memory cards, it's clearing out all of your saved data on the Vita itself when you do the factory reset." That sounds like a lot of hassle, especially considering it links to Sony's online hub for gaming and shopping.
"In other words, PlayStation Vita is intended to be played by only one user," the spokesperson clarified. The PS3 and PSP let you create Japanese or European accounts depending on where you are, to download games from those regions. It seems quite a major oversight to leave that out of the Vita.
But it didn't seem to deter this happy customer, who seems pretty chuffed. His nine-minute long unboxing is worth a watch -- despite being in Japanese, you get a good up-close look at a game in action, as well as the ports and what's in the box. The device looks nice and glossy too, with ebook-style turning pages on-screen.
The Vita doesn't go on sale in the UK until 22 February, though it will stream all your PS3 games, so you won't need to hog the TV to game.
What do you think of only allowing one account on the Vita? And will you be buying come February? Let us know below or on our Facebook page.
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Comments 6
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anonymous 17 December, 2011 11:16
Are you kidding me?! He is speaking in Cantonese (Chinese) not Japanese. Beyond ignorant from a 'global' review site!
Dwight Shalders 17 December, 2011 12:09
will this ultimate device kill the nintento 3ds? or will the 3ds kill IT?, I think the ps vita has done a good job about wait to focus on th games :D PS vita FTW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
anonymous 17 December, 2011 12:24
so now it streams all games ? 2 weeks ago they said that then 1 week ago it did not ? make ur mind up
Leszcz 17 December, 2011 15:43
.co.uk obviously stands for global
reverse racism
Peter Hudson 17 December, 2011 16:41
We will have to wait 6 months down the line to see if anyone is still making games for it.
The PSP had loads of great launch titles, then the games all stopped.
Ultimately it doesn't matter if this is better than the 3DS, Android and iOS, will ultimately win out
anonymous 2 February, 2012 10:27
A device of this price locked to one user will prevent families buying this to share between their kids.
My kids share their games and psp, if they were not able to do this with a Vita then they will have to stick to their PSP and android phones for mobile gaming.