Who Else Is Getting a PS Vita?

So an hour and a bit with the console today and being honest I'm not sold.

It's a very pretty piece of hardware, and feels nice and light yet sturdy too. But it really doesn't feel like a giant leap for handheld gaming. Compare the PSP to Vita to the DS to 3DS hardware jump and the latter emerges as the clear winner as a more significant upgrade. The screen on the PSV is very nice, no doubt, but almost felt perfunctory.

I think it was probably down to the games, in fairness. Uncharted felt like a low-grade version of its' bigger brothers. Little Deviants I lasted about two minutes before having to turn it off in frustration at the rear touchpad controls. Escape Plan looked nice but felt like a slightly poorer version of Machinarium. Gravity Crash has a lot of potential - it at least has novel central mechanics, an offbeat graphical presentation - but the demo was criminally short! Reality Fighters is basically a five minute gimmick. Super Stardust was Super Stardust! Indeed, the games that emerged favourably were the duo of Modnation Racers and Wipeout 2048, the latter particularly with some excellent graphical flourishes and sound design. But the feeling even there is that it's nothing that home consoles can't do more effectively.

TBH, it persuaded me to hold out a little longer until either more interesting software emerges or there's a price drop. Didn't see anything today to truly justify the leap, even though the hardware seems to be able to handle some things - like augmented reality and camera - better than the 3DS.

Basically, if I was offered one I'd be delighted, but wouldn't be all that pushed to spend 250 euro on one!

Oh, and yes: the loading times are ridiculously poor. I'd say a race in Wipeout takes the guts of a minute to load!