Don’t Even Bother With a 4GB Vita Card
We’re not fans of the fact that you have to buy an expensive memory stick separately simply to save games, but if you plan on buying two or more PSN games, you’ll be in serious trouble with a 4GB stick.
Take the Vita’s flagship title, Uncharted: Golden Abyss. It’s slightly cheaper on PSN than in most stores and having the convenience of not needing to go out and buy it, or having to carry around tons of cards means that digitally downloading the game makes far more sense. In theory. See, the problem is that the game is 2.7GB in size (a whopping 3.3GB in Europe), which means that if you bought a 4GB you’re going to be hugely limited in what you download next. On the US Store, highly rated WipEout 2048 is 1.6GB, so you wouldn’t be able to buy that as well, nor the 2.8GB FIFA or the massive 3.3GB BlazBlue. That means you’ve spent $20 on a memory stick and another $44.99 on Uncharted, but now can’t download anything else. Oh joy.
That’s why we’d suggest splashing out on a larger memory stick (the larger the better), even if it means forgoing a few launch games – you’ll thank us in the long run. Think about it: these games are larger than most PS3 PSN games, and how quickly did you fill up 4GB on your PS3? Hell, even 32GB won’t be enough.
Of course, in Europe, this problem is even worse as games are often considerably larger to include all the different language packs. So how has SCEE responded? They’ve decided to not sell the 32GB stick at all. Bafflingly stupid. On top of that, they’re only selling some titles digitally that are available through retailers in other regions, further forcing you to use the PSN. For example, hotly anticipated Gravity Rush will be digital only and weighs in at 1350MB on the JP store. Add in another few hundred for the language packs and you’ve got yourself another game that takes up your 4GB.
And let’s not forget you want to keep some space for you saves, for your photos, screenshots, music and apps.
The 4GB shouldn’t exist other than as a bundle with all Vitas so that consumers can actually save games. Selling it to consumers hoping to join the digital revolution will only cause disappointment, frustration and lost sales. Save yourself from all that by investing in a bigger stick early on.
What size are you getting? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
25 Responses to “Don’t Even Bother With a 4GB Vita Card”
unfortunately, I got the first edition bundle. and while the case is durable, it is a bit too large. Little Deviants is a bit of a let down and the 4gb card is almost full
I should have waited the extra week for the launch bundle. because the extra $50 I spent doesn’t seem worth it. the launch bundle comes with an 8gb card. Sony really screwed the pooch for early adapters.
I am just going to stick with my 4gb card for a while and allocate space as needed. I would like to see the memory sticks come down in price and that is when I will buy a new one. until then, I suppose I will buy mostly physical games. the case has a place to hold a few…
Any psvita games you aren’t playing you can store in your ps3 asssuming you have a ps3 or pc.
I got a good deal threw best buy and had gotten a 32gb card , but chances are you only need a 4-8 gb card and keep 1-2 or 3 games at a time on your vita. I mean how many games would you play at once? Aps like Netflix only take up 12 mb so not really a big deal, guess it depends on how much you want to spend, if you can get the 32 I’d get it. But you can still get enjoyment from having even the 4gb card if that’s all you can afford. I plan on just leaving games on my ps3 and maybe pc, whenever I want to put them in and off as I need.
That’s part of the reason I’m justifying a 4GB card – sorf like justifying only getting wifi:
I’ll never REALLY be away from my PS3 or a PC long enough to not be able to manage my storage. Yes it’s a portable, but in all seriousness I won’t be travelling cross country with this thing any time soon.
Just like I’ll hardly ever find myself away from a wifi hotspot (home, work, coffee shop, etc).
And when I am away from my PS3 or PC, or a WiFi hotspot — I’ll have my game ready to go.
I really was stuck between getting the 3G/Wifi pre-order bundle from Amazon or the Wifi + free 4GB card.
The 3G model came with a 8GB card, which I liked, but I didn’t care for 3G that much (or the free data session)… I could get the Wifi model with a 4GB card, and still get a game (Wipeout 2048) for less than the 3G bundle.
I ended up going for the Wifi model because I wanted a game. It ended up being less than $300, which I thought was a decent deal. Only having 4GB though is going to be rough.
Question though – I can use multiple memory cards, right? If I wanted to get, say, a new 8GB or 16GB card in the near future, I could swap them out without having to reformat anything, right?
I had that same problem with the iPad wifi or 3G which I’m glad now because iPad 3 might have 4g , but at times after I did wish I had the access to 3G. Which is why I’m getting the 3G vita, to have access to 3G if I want it. I may use it a lot or may never use it. MIT was only50$ compared to iPad which is much more between wifi and 3G. I think since your account is activated on the 4gb card you have to deactivate the card and activate the new card, not 100% sure but I think you can only have 1 account active at a time, but not 100% sure.
8″ for me…I mean 8GB
I always planned on buying the 32GB card and that hasn’t changed.
I agree that 4GB is too small, but the article didn’t point out (as others have) that you can simply delete and swap out games from the memory card, storing them on PS3/PC. With that in mind, I think 8GB will be fine for me; at least 2 games at a time, plus a physical game. I don’t see a reason to have more than that at one time.
Very good point. It’s a hassle sure, but if you’re buying the smallest card it’s because you probably won’t be interested in downloading several of the big games.
I got 16GB, as 32GB isn’t available in Norway.
I think Sony should have quipped the Vita with 4G LTE. My phone is flying at 15Mb/s and thats moer than enough for online gaming. Imagine the Vita with that. Being able to play online anywhere almost. So I think the 3G on the Vita is a mistake.
Pretty sure when they started on the vita that wasn’t a choice
I picked up the launch bundle, so it’s an 8GB card for me. I originally going to get the wifi only version and pick up the 8GB card on the side, but I figured that since that card costs $35 at Game Stop, which is the only place I have physically seen it, it was only an extra $15 to get the 3G launch bundle. Anyway, I don’t see me needing any more than that for a while. I have very limited bandwidth, so the only digital games I will be getting are ones that are digital only.
Well I would hope no one would willingly buy a 4gb card when an 8gb is obviously a better deal. I’m using my 4gb for movies while I bought a 16gb for all games, etc. Another use I can think of for the 4 would be PSP games as they are usually much smaller, or even minis. Or you could simply use the 4 for all save data for the physical games you own. So please don’t buy one but there are some ideas if your Vita came with one.
I have a good use for a 4gb card. Along the same lines as your idea, except for minis. Being a second year plus member I have a tons of minis. A 4gb card would be great for those. Since it’s my understanding the vita has no file system like the ps3.
Starting with the 8gb that is coming with my launch bundle, 32 later on when I can splurg on myself again. Damn woman holidays ruin everything.
The Vita should have come with a dedicated flash chip, of 4 GB in size, dedicated solely for gamesaves. The prices of these memory cards needs to come down YESTERDAY.
That’s another thing….
I’ll stick with my free 4GB card, and when the prices come down, I’ll probably even invest into a 32GB card.
Hopefully that happens soon.
I personally think the memory card pricing is Sony’s artificial way of selling the Vita for less. They wanted to sell the system at a lower price point to attract more prospective buyers but in order to make the margins they needed to recoup costs and make a profit they decided to go with this proprietary memory card and set steep prices. For those of us who pay close enough attention it just makes us a little upset, but we aren’t mad enough to refuse to buy the Vita entirely, while the more ignorant consumer sees the Vita at a lower price point (even though it is still a little pricey) and doesn’t realize until after they commit that they need these expensive accessories.
I disagree , if you don’t want to pay the prices then don’t buy one, but they shouldn’t lower the price based on how much you want to pay for it. If that was the case everything in the world would be sold at an affordable price for every one.
I agree that 4gb on a portable device like this is not nearly enough. Sure there are work arounds, but they are so inconvenient. I would wanna swap and play different games on the fly, not having to fire up my pc, connect the vita, delete and load up a different game to the card each time.
When prices go down all around maybe ill consider getting One.
BlazBlue 3.3 GB!!!! what the hell did they put in there!??
I’ll proberbly use the £40 I was gonna spend on ME3 to get a 16GB card
BTW if I was to import a 32GB memory card from the US would it work on a UK Playstation Vita?
Yup, that’s what I’ve done