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Genius idea, half-baked product, or both? When Vita TV was first revealed on the eve of the Tokyo Game Show, the reaction to the screenless version of Sony's underperforming handheld was uniformly positive. Buoyed by a growing library of quality indie titles in combination with triple-A heavy hitters, this was the micro-console done right: quality hardware, decent games and an excellent controller in the form of the existing DualShock 3. But mediocre sales on the machine's Japanese debut suggest that Vita TV's execution may not have quite lived up to the potential, with much work left to do before the product hits the West.First impressions of our Japanese import device are wholly positive - perhaps not surprising bearing in mind Sony's legacy of great design and decent build quality. Indeed, nothing quite prepares you for how lovely the micro-console itself actually is - Vita TV is a credit card sized unit, with just enough depth to house an ethernet connection. The hardware is patently well-designed and beautifully constructed with quality matte plastics. The standard kit comes with a multi-voltage 5v power supply, an HDMI cable, and not much else. A more expensive value pack is also available, supplying a DualShock 3 in matching grey plastics, USB cable and 8GB memory card.
Ah yes, the memory cards - the Achilles' heel of the Vita family. As a company, Sony has radically transformed for the better in recent years, but some bad habits are hard to shift. While the world moved on to the standard, cheap MicroSD cards for their mobile storage, Sony hung on to the concept of flogging us overpriced, proprietary memory cards and, unfortunately, they're still here. As standard, Vita TV only comes with 1GB of internal storage - good enough for running cartridge titles and installing a few apps, but woefully short for downloading many games.
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