A new milestone, gaming-wise and technology-wise.
The new touch screen generation was launched ahead with full speed when the first iPhone came out in 2007.
I myself resisted that trend for 4 years before caving into the touch screen technology so I got myself a Nokia n8, but that's the beside the point. What I'm trying to say is that it makes little sense to resist modernity, it WILL happen eventually, so you either go along with it or you become the minority.
Sony decided to keep carrying that touch-screen flag along with creating hardware that stands somewhere between a PS2 and PS3 (closer to PS3) - a truly impressive feat.
There are a few minuses in my opinion though:
1. The analog sticks could be slightly wider. Instead of sometimes using my big thumb joints (like on the PS3 controller) to navigate, I can only use the middle of my big thumb.
2. The wi-fi range is still insufficient. I went to Madison Square Park in the middle of Manhattan and could only get around 6-7 wifi hotspots. Three of them did not have a security key however the weakness of the signal (one bar) prevented PS vita from connection to the internet. So I'm glad I got the 3G version (just in case) but I'm not about to pay $ 15 a month for services that I can get at home by using my Wi-Fi. I also went to several spots around Manhattan and got the same thing. Sometimes I was able to connect, sometimes I wasn't. I also do not understand why there is no auto connect feature to the nearest wi-fi spot.
3. The OLED Screen is amazingly sexy (there's no other way to describe it) but forget about playing the game with any sunlight around you - the screen will reflect anything. I thought they fixed that problem with the PSP-3000 (I could be wrong) so I'm guessing we can brace for another PS Vita-2 in about 6 months.
4. I shouldn't complain about the PS-Vita parts and and other things such as the exclusive charging cord, the expensive exclusive flashcards, no UMD, no PS1 game compatibility in NA, the fact that I barely saw any discount for any games on the playstation store even though I'm a Plus Member. But when you add a few of these things,
5. The Content Manager Assistant. It's that little thing that you need to install on your PC if you want to transfer data between Vita and PC. Basically, this program gives you "shortcuts" for Pictures/Music/Applications/Videos. However, instead of copying and pasting the files with the PSP, you now have to activate the transfer by using The Content Manager Assistant on the actual PS Vita. It's kind of like simplified iTunes (the main reason I don't own an iPhone or anything that has letter "i" in front of it).
6. The "start" button. Yeah, you won't find it in the dark. It's too small and it's all the way out there, on the right side of the handheld.
7. This is a big one. NO FLASH OR HTML 5.0 support. Which means you can't watch videos on YouTube or watch just about anything else on the internet. I heard that YouTube is slowly transferring over to the HTML 5.0 script since Adobe doesn't want to support touch screen phones as much, so we just have to wait and see. For now, we are restricted to downloading movies, TV shows and movie trailers from the playstation store.
8. Crappy front and back cameras. I myself am a camera enthusiast. I carry around a 12 Megapixel nokia n8, so I am kind of spoiled in that regard, although I wont be using the camera that much anyway.
9. Main menu music. It sucks to constantly hear it. So I turn it off to enjoy silence and to SAVE THE BATTERY by decreasing the volume and holding the button for 5 seconds. But after I'm done meddling with the interface apps and boot a game, you have to turn it all the way up again. Get rid of that silly music, the 3DS has it, but that thing is for kids; however the PSP didn't have it.
10. No TV output feature. I apologize for bringing up my Nokia n8 again, but that thing can do the 720p HD output on any HD TV without a problem. I mean Sony used the TV output feature when they initially released the prototype back at 2011 E3, so why did they get rid of it?
11. The ability to pause games, although this feature is pretty useless since once you pause the game, all you can do is hang around in the UI. If you choose any other application you'd have to close the game.
12. Finally, the biggest minus in my opinion is the internal battery.
With the PSP, I had 3 extra batteries to go around. This time, you can only have one at a time which really really sucks.
The positives:
1. Extremely powerful hardware: 1.4Ghz quad processor (as opposed to iphone 5 1 Ghz duo processor).
This thing actually has more RAM and VRAM than 360 and PS3. Now THIS point is the major reason why I give PS Vita such a high score.
2. Extremely fast browser, almost 4G-ish like.
3. A TON of potential to run PS2 and some older PC games. One day hopefully. This thing has ton of potential in general.
4. The ability to take in-game screenshots by pressing the PS button and the Start button. However, when I pulled those screenshots up on my PC the quality was horrendous. The files only weighted about 102 kb and displayed about 320x260 resolution.
5. The touch sensitive back pad. I have only used this feature to play The Escape Plan, but perhaps it will be utilized later for something else. Uncharted:Golden Abyss already uses the back touch pad to rotate and examine three dimensional objects.
6. Slick UI, Netflix, Trophy support, music, videos, etc. although I feel the icons are too big. They could put all the necessary apps into one screen easily.
7. Integrated GPS (only if you get the 3G version), which can come in handy in case you survive the plane crash and find yourself lost in an Amazon Rain Forest or a desert one day with a fully charged PS Vita.
I am sure I am missing a lot more positives here, but these are the first ones I can think of off the top of my head.
All in all, I have a feeling that PS Vita is going to have a really good life span full of great titles and other features. The pluses far outweigh the minuses; the biggest minus probably being that you can't play PS1 games on it.
In closing, I will add that I often consider Vita as one of the by-products of Japanese defeat in World War II; the country's complete destruction, misery and decades of resilient servitude and hard industrious labor. It's not just that some gimmick that spawned itself in a sweat-shop, its a commodity of ingenuity, progress, miniaturization, inventiveness so personally it is hard for me to not appreciate that.