crossbearer02

@tendoboy1984 No, as a matter of fact. I am steadfastly against piracy. However, opening up a system for homebrew applications that do not constitute piracy is another matter entirely.

However, having said that, my knowledge comes not from dabbling in the dark art of hacking, but rather from working in the industry and having studied it. I have a masters degree in computer science, and am a software developer for a regional healthcare provider myself. Naturally, we have a need to focus on security and robust software and hardware solutions for our organization, but as a gamer it's quite easy to apply these same principles to the world of gaming technology as well.

What I'm offering here is insight as to why Sony might have chosen to go the proprietary route with their hardware this go-around, and that major reason is likely security. But make no mistake, I do not, nor have I ever, condoned piracy of modern software in which the company is still actively selling the product for profit.

@superfrick I completely agree. Although all I listed are the possible reasons why they might've went with a proprietary format, and that it's entirely possible they're using the fact that the memory cards don't work on anything else, and no other memory cards work in the Vita to artificially inflate the price. In fact, I would be quite shocked if they WEREN'T doing just exactly that (after all, Microsoft artificially inflates the costs on its internal HDDs for the 360 and for the same reason almost).

But I think you're right. They made the media format and thus control the cost. Having it prices exorbitantly high is, in my opinion, not at all fair to consumers who have no other choice but to purchase a Sony-branded card (and I would bet any third-party cards will need to be blessed by Sony, if they are allowed at all). I don't so much mind Sony's card being the only game in town, but they need to really consider reducing the price on these things to a more reasonable pricing tier (hint to Sony: consider how SD cards are priced, and maybe add $5 to that if you want a little extra profit).

From a programmer's perspective, here's my take on the rather expensive memory cards for the Vita. The short version is this: Money's a reason, yes. But a bigger reason is security. Details follow:

So again, the first reason is monetary, and is likely the one easiest to point fingers to ("They just want to nickel and dime us!"). Perhaps, because the logic follows that if you sell people a system, then require a proprietary memory card that works only on that system, and that they are guaranteed not to already have that particular storage device, then you will make money off an additional sale. After all, you can't really use the Vita much without one, now can you?

But I think it's the second reason that's likely the most compelling: combating piracy.

Consider this: The PSP had a somewhat open storage media in the sense you could plug in a USB cable to your PC and drag and drop files onto the MemoryStickDuo at will. You didn't have to have a go-between, and the file format was known (FAT16 or FAT32), and the system itself serves as its own card reader if you happen not to have one. Sony has never liked customers jailbreaking their consoles whether for good or ill, no matter how customers might view that stance (but that's an argument for another post).

Now, consider the Vita -- a much more closed system. The physical memory device is proprietary. The file format is likely also proprietary. The system can not interface with a PC directly without using Sony's somewhat lackluster Content Management Assistant application, and even then you can't transfer files at will. You have to manage file transfers with the Vita, and the Vita will only transfer those files it recognizes and can verify as valid files. (Side note: The only way around this would be to write a hardware driver for Windows, Mac, Linux, etc., that can access the Vita's file system, interpret its file formatting nuances, and transmit files to and from a PC, which would be a difficult and time-consuming problem to solve, though not entirely impossible for a good enough hacker.)

The PSP emulation core can, of course, be hacked, and rather easily so as we've seen demonstration of that just today using Motorstorm (Japan only). But that hack only gains you access to the PSP emulator itself and what the PSP itself can do, and there's likely no way to gain access to the Vita's hardware directly because, and I may be wrong, but I figure if Sony has programmers worth their salt they took a page out of Apple's book with iOS and have made the apps run within their own sandbox.

This same sandboxing goes back to the aforementioned file transfers and the possibility of passing in spoofed files via the apps on the Vita itself. Early on, the PSP could be hacked with a simple buffer overflow trick by copying what is essentially a faked .jpg file to its photos folder, loading the file through the PSP's photo viewer, and the PSP knew no difference until it was too late, and had no error handling with which to stop the hacked code from running. I'm willing to wager you a shiny new penny the same trick won't work on the Vita if they did what any good programmers should do and have sandboxed the photo app (and indeed ALL apps for the Vita) so that, in the event of a buffer overrun, an offending app (somewhat) gracefully exits on exception back to the home screen and returns simple error message to the user (or not, as the case may be).

@JasonGW That's what I was thinking. Seemed like prior to the 3DS's release when it was first shown at E3, one of the features Nintendo made mention of (although I think only once during its reveal) was that the 3DS would be able to download and patch the games directly.

@pluupy Nobody?

Actually no, what I meant was when Sony updates their firmware to fix the problem with it getting permanently stuck in this mode, it might be neat to keep the dolphin debug in there as a neat little easter egg, only fixing it so you can actually exit out of it when you want, of course.

That's actually kinda neat for a glitch. Hopefully in future revisions, Sony will keep this in there for folks to play around with. I mean as long as it's here and all. Maybe make it easier to get into or something.

Well that's certainly........ different.

I mean there's nothing wrong with the solution, I suppose, and it IS a fix that doesn't require one to mail in an SD card or whatever to Nintendo directly to get it fixed. But it's definitely different from the usual patching procedure done everywhere else. Then again I suppose it's the only way they can do it on the Wii.

Seems like this would be an excellent opportunity, though, for Nintendo to stop and consider how the Wii U might do things differently in regards to patches and the like.

Hate to hear it but it makes perfect sense to me. No big deal if you buy for yourself and you're the primary (or only) one that will play games on it.

But if they did allow multiple accounts on a single console, then you could, in theory, buy one Vita for the kids and have them share it among each other. But by restricting to a single account, you now have to buy a Vita for each child, lest the system become useless to any of them (because they're all going to want to save, right?).

Just a roundabout way to squeeze an extra sale (or two) from folks. It's also a good way to convince parents to buy a 3DS, iPad, or iPod Touch over a Vita.

@This Little Man Says His Name Is

Exactly. Well somewhat. You see, the idea is that there was a deadline for which you would be eligible to get these 20 free games. That is, they're only available to early adopters of the 3DS who accessed the eShop prior to the official price drop date on August 12th.

The idea is that, by making the games downloadable (for free) through the app only means that only people who owned a Nintendo 3DS prior to 08/11/2011 at 11:59PM PDT will have access to download those 20 games for free. For everyone else, the app will be unaccessible.

As for redownloading the app, in my plan it wouldn't have been removed entirely from the eShop. Just flagged undownloadable after midnight on 08/12/2011. That way, if someone had downloaded the Ambassador app, but accidentally deleted it, they could recover the app, same as any other previously downloaded app on the eShop.

As for the time period on the app, it's already passed for being able to do it. The app would've been announced, launched and downloadable by any eShop user between the announcement and 8/12/2011. As most any 3DS user would have had access to a wifi network of some kind, everyone would have had ample opportunity to grab the download in time. I suppose those that didn't grab the download might also be able to show a proof of purchase date and get Nintendo to unlock it for them as well.

Best way to have done it:

1. Post a temporary eShop item, "Ambassador Program". Set the price to free. Allow anyone with a 3DS to make the download.

2. Remove the app from the eShop after the deadline passed.

3. Use that program to distribute these special downloads instead of the actual eShop itself.

They couldn't have done it with a redemption code because if it was for a game you didn't like, but a friend did, you could sell or give away the code for them to download. They wanted the downloads tied to the 3DS launch systems instead. So I understand their complicated method for providing these games, but really I think my method would've been much better.