Sony’s Big Business Idea: Proprietary PS Vita Memory Cards. Why We Hate Them, and They Love Them.
We may love our Vitas, but one thing’s for sure, its proprietary memory cards are a headache. But Sony, they think the opposite. The guy who came up with the idea for the little buggers is probably sitting down somewhere, reveling in the dark about his genius idea. I will take the time in this article to do a full analysis on why we hate PS Vita memory cards, and why they were probably one of the best things to happen to Sony.
From here on out, I will take an aspect of corporate-consumer disagreement and explain the views from each side.
Money and Cost
This is probably the main reason why Sony loves PS Vita memory cards. The ones that they make, are the only option out there. And as in the basic rules of business, less options equals higher prices. Considering that thy made it so that gameplay is virtually impossible without one (even with retail cartridges), if you have a Vita, you have to buy a memory card. With this in mind, Sony made card prices outrageously high., in fact, at least 3 times the amount you’d pay for a SanDisk. And basically, the card is the same as a SanDisk, except for some annoying encryption, but I will talk about that later. This really *** gamers off, but makes Sony a lot of guaranteed money.
Even on the PS Vita 2000, a console with 1GB of internal memory, you have to buy a memory card. 1GB can only hold 1, maybe 2, partially decent games. So you fill that up a say “I’ll just go pick up a 4GB card so I can get a few more.” Then you go buy that 4GB card and put it in. You realize that you lost your 1GB of internal memory. With the PS Vita 2000, you put in a card, you lose you internal memory. It just sits there, wasted. And gamers like us, start to shake a little, with the rage building up inside.
Card Size
Another problem that we have is the card size. It seems as though Sony learned from their mistakes on this one. Their first attempt at a proprietary card was with the PSP. The made a card much bigger than all other ones. Some people did a bit of rocket science and figured out that you could simply just make an adapter and put in two normal cheapo cards. This time, they made a really small card that is smaller than others, thus no adapter.
Sony doesn’t really give about card size, but we do. When you buy say, a 16GB card, you only have actually 14GB to use. The rest is used by the system for various things (funny how the system worked fine without the card). And even worse, when you get a 64GB card, five freaking gigabytes are not available for your use. This is annoying. Really annoying. I’ll stay on the topic of the 64GB card for a little while longer.
Here in the West, only capacities 4-32 are available for sale. And let me tell you, with the size of games these days, 32GB can fill up pretty damn fast. After your card is filled up, you have to go to an online retailer to get a 64GB card. Here, you drop around $100 for it. When it comes, it’s only about a month until that is filled too. So now, go get a 128GB. But wait, there isn’t one of those? Nope, not yet at least. First, scam us with your outrageous prices, then take a good portion of the space away from us, and next leave us with no space to store our games. Oh, it’s fine, all you have to do is get another card, and take a few seconds to swap them out. No.
Limitations
You can’t swap PSN accounts on memory cards. Well, I guess you can, but it’s a massive pain. To be able to swap accounts on your card, you have to back up your card, format both it and restore your PS Vita system and then insert the new one. You have to do this for every. Single. Swap. And backing up ain’t quick either (I’ll talk about that under the next header). So, even if you do have different libraries of games on different memory cards, have a fun time swapping them :).
Something that goes hand in hand with the swapping catastrophe is the limit of one PSN account per card. To be able to have more, it’s the same process as swapping cards. Why only one account? On the PS3 and PS4 you can have virtually as many as possible. It’s very paranoia feeding.
Transfer Speeds
If you happen to be one of those constant swappers, for one thing, I praise your patience. For another, you have probably experience the absurd backup and restore times. Reading and writing off of the PS Vita memory card is disgustingly slow. It will take hours to backup, and the same predicament for restoring.
Transfer speeds don’t only affect you for data like that, but it also may affect your gameplay. Playing digital games the system ha to read data off of the card. With this, you may experience lags, bugs, glitches and even crashes. Considering that people play games for pleasure and entertainment, this is not some thing you want to deal with.
Security
Now this is the big hit for the hacking scene and the modding scene. It affects the hacking scene through the pretty obvious fact that encryption ain’t easy to crack. Some big steps were made t cracking the PSP wide open through the unencrypted Memory Stick Duo, but for the Vita, access through the card is helpless.
For modders, or more like the people who could have made a cheap alternative to save our pockets, can’t do their job. The PS Vita system will only accept cards that have the special encryption on them. Again, a no go.
Wrap-up
PS Vita memory cards are greatly flawed for their consumers and could use a real upgrade. Sony doesn’t really care, because they are making money, so we’ll just have to sit in the permanent indents on our couches from gaming marathons, and suck it up. Business will rule over the consumer.
That’s all for now from me, The Jay Doctor. Now that you have read my views and outrage causing points, reflect on them in the comments, or on Twitter where you can drop me a line and even follow me if you’d like, using the handy links below. Also feel free to follow Wololo.
Sources: Heleius and various conversations on Twitter with @HackInformer
“To be able to swap cards, you have to back up your card, format both it and restore your PS Vita system and then insert the new one. ”
That’s not true. You can just turn off the vita, pop in the new card, and turn it back on.
To clarify, i have 3 cards, and I constantly switch through them since i have different games on each ones.
Yes, sorry that is incorrect. I meant to swap accounts on cards. I was just swapping my cards todat in fact 🙂
Still these cards are a real pain in the ***, wether you have to get a new account for swap or not.
Ok. Just making sure, cause yea THAT statement is true for switching accounts on cards. 🙂
I do agree with lucas it’s still a pain in the butt for this card thing, cause they could have done much better on that aspect.
I have updated the article to correct that. Jay Doc, PM me if you think it still needs to be corrected, thanks 🙂
“To be able to swap cards, you have to back up your card, format both it and restore your PS Vita system and then insert the new one.”
Well that just isn’t true at all. I have 3 memory cards with different games on each of them (connected to the same PSN Account though) and all I have to do is turn off my Vita, swap the cards, then turn it back on. Granted, it’s still not as easy as swapping Memory Sticks on the PSP was but it is a far cry from the backup/restore rigmarole that you describe in this article.
“When you buy say, a 16GB card, you only have actually 14GB to use. The rest is used by the system for various things (funny how the system worked fine without the card). And even worse, when you get a 64GB card, five freaking gigabytes are not available for your use. This is annoying. Really annoying. I’ll stay on the topic of the 64GB card for a little while longer.”
This happens on EVERYTHING, not just PSVita, it’s not because ‘the rest is used by the system for various things’, it’s because a common Gigabyte-Gibibyte misconception and a confusion caused by that misconception. When you buy a 16GB microSD you’ll also have only 14GB to use, be it Android, Windows or any other OS, because Operative Systems usually show GiB has GB.
Also:
“Something that goes hand in hand with the swapping catastrophe is the limit of one PSN account per card. To be able to have more, it’s the same process as swapping cards. Why only one account? On the PS3 and PS4 you can have virtually as many as possible.”
I guess this is ’cause history made portable consoles like that, meant to be used by just one person (Gameboy and other old nintendo portable games used to have saveslot for only 1 save, same with some PSP games) I think it’s sad that they kept this thinking… I mean, nowadays 3DS and Vita aren’t considerably cheap, so it would be amazing being able to use multiple accounts to share my Vita with, for example, my brother or anyone else I want to share it with.
About Sony being the only one making Vita memory cards, they should license other manufacturers to allow them to make memory cards, like SanDisk or Kingston. I mean, SanDisk was the First one to show and sell a 128GB microSD card, a few months ago. If they were somehow licensed to produce and sell memory cards for Vita we’ll surely have 128GB memory cards for our Vitas, ans probably at a considerably cheap price compared to Sony’s 64GB
The swap between diferents PSN accounts it’s not only for share the console with other people, it’s also for buying games that doesn’t sell in your region, for example the megaman complete saga it’s only in japan, if you look in th us or eu network there only a few but not everyone, or the final fantasy saga: in the us network there isn’t the crisis core or the aniversary edition of ff1 and 2 while in eu network you can buy it (don’t remember if both, but at least have more ff’s that the us network) so this is not only a matter of lending your vita, it’s a matter of playing the games that you want to play but for reasons of stupidity or only to *** off customers sony does’t sell it in your region when it doesn’t take to much time or effort.
“it’s a matter of playing the games that you want to play but for reasons of stupidity or only to *** off customers SONY does’t sell it in your region when it doesn’t take to much time or effort.”
Pretty sure they would be more than happy to selling it to you (of course, because they would win more money) , but this is mostly a problem with the developer, that can’t (or don’t want to) sell the game in other regions, it can be due to licensing problems (If, for example, a game has a song with a comercial license, and the developer only paid to use the license in Asian countries.) or because they’re just stupid…
The fact VITA memory cards are proprietary is not the whole issue. The issue is that those cards are used only for VITA. There are not so many VITAs around hence not many cards are sold hence their cost must be higher to make production cost effective. Other memory cards can get really cheap because they are being made in great numbers hence the production is way cheaper. And you can switch your card between your camera, telephone, TV or what have you. In their fight against piracy Sony shoot themselves in foot and hurt their consumers.
+1. It’s not about system using some portion of the memory, it’s just marketing bs.
explanation as to why 16GB microSD only have 14GB is because companies sees
1GB = 1,000MB = 1,000,000KB = 1,000,000,000Byte
while the computer sees
1GB = 1,024MB = 1,048,576KB = 1,073,741,824Byte
so for each GB there are 73,741,824Byte(=70.3MB) missing
Therefore, if it’s advertized as 16GB, it’s actual size is only about 15.9GB.
I’m not defending sony or any other companies on this matter; I’m just saying OS doesn’t use a portion of the card. (even if they do it’s not that huge amount)
I think you mean 1GB = 976 MB
meehh each time I think about Vita memory cards I begin to think more and more to just sell it. Not even having PS Plus is enough to keep it, most games sucks badly 🙁
What’s ridiculous is how you guys actually bought more then one card. Honestly spend your money on better things.
Why don’t you mind you’re business, what anyone spends their money on is none of your concern. Who are you to judge, you probably spend all your money on food and Anime, or your just poor and jealous.
Nice burn, dude. He’ll definitely be feeling that one for a while.
What that other guy said.
What business is it of yours what I (or anyone else) spends our money on, and who are you to talk sh*t, anyway?
Just to clarify this @hahahah, I bought the cards from various sales at least 50% off the normal standard price. So it’s not ridiculous that for the price of a normal single 32gb, i have 2 32gbs and 1 16 gb.
I accidentally swallowed my Vita Memory Card.
*sniff* *sniff*
Never buying a used memory card again! :O
Uh, yeah, the fact that a 16GB card is only 14 usable GB and same story with the 64GB is common to any storage you buy on a computer.
Basically, a kilobyte is 1024 bytes. A megabyte is 1024 kilobytes. A gigabyte is 1024 megabytes.
But the HDD sellers have the habit of showing us disk capacity in terms of 1 kb = 1000 bytes, etc. (Base 10). (It’s both easier to calculate, but mostly, it makes up for bigger, nicer number)
So, what’s advertised as 64GB, is merely 64 000 000 000 bytes.
And, to a computer, this is 64 000 000 000 / 1024 / 1024 / 1024 = 59.6 GB
There were reasons for this with platter hard drives, with SD based chips there is no reason they cannot EASILY manufacture it to the required size.
Look at SSD drives, half are their advertised size, the other half follow the same rules.
That’s the way tech math works, it’s not the medium but the file system, you have to know how to convert bytes, bits, and so on. They can’t just make up sizes for these things, just like everything else there is a standard that must be followed. Don’t feel bad you’re ignorant, just do some research instead of assuming stuff.
You’re not exactly well-informed yourself. Filesystems don’t take up that much space. It’s possible and maybe probable that Sony is using a proprietary filesystem, but a 5 GB index+possible log for 64GB is really inefficient. I can’t think of any public filesystem with comparable losses, can you?
UE and Fanagame are right. They only reason to use the base 10 metric is to make it look better on the packaging.
No – you are the one who is ignorant. It has nothing to do with the filesystem but the manufacturers and the fact that they use Gigabyte where as filesystems, operating systems, and EVERYONE who says Gigabyte actually mean Gibibyte.One is base 10 meaning 1,000 MB instead of 1,024.(Gigabyte)
Basically it’s all down to the classification/system of measurement they use. Manufacturers use one classification/system of measurement where as the rest of the world uses the slightly different one. Both are 100% correct and can be used for the conversion. The difference is they are the ones who are benefiting from it as they are making money on selling us the classification that gives us less in return.
Next time instead of insulting someone why don’t you do some damn research yourself!!!
BTW this post was towards TheGZA. He keeps calling people idiots, ignorant, etc when he has no damn clue himself!
Do you guys not realize that he said 14GB is useable out of 16GB? The translation from 1billion to 2^30 leaves you at 15.9GB out of 16GB. That’s a larger gap than a simple translation issue would create. So, either you’re wrong, or the article author is wrong about how much space is actually available.
You’re right, some solid state drives label their actual base-2 capacity, but these aren’t really the norm.
What keeps a 32GB memory card (scale numbers for larger or smaller cards) down to 32,000,000,000 bytes (or even 31.5 billion) is error correction. Electronic circuits, especially as dense as they have to be for data storage, are not perfectly reliable, thanks to everything from manufacturing processes to material purity to cosmic rays – all of which matter when your data’s being stored in cells a dozen atoms across. Similar problems come up with mechanical drives as well, since a (recoverable) head error can come up because you typed too loud (seriously).
Error correction gives the card a way to tell whether the data it’s reading is what it wrote, and if it isn’t it can re-read or rebuild it, and if that doesn’t work at least blacklist the affected section (128 KB to 16 MB depending on process) of the card so a bad part can’t be a problem anymore. More advanced error correction can take more or less of the card, but more robust usually takes more.
And none of this even starts into controller and file system read/write speeds and instruction rates.
So yes, it’s pretty lame that Sony sells 32 GB of PS Vita card for $75 and 32GB of MicroSD for $20, but it’s sort of a miracle that Sony’s MicroSD, which is consistently near the top for both performance and reliability (and objectively pretty damn good, controlling for card readers), is as cheap as it is.
Ok I can’t stop my self from explaining to you wonderful people about capacity vs usability.
1. Every, I mean every media hdd,ssd,sd,mirco sd, cd-rom, DVD, blue ray discs. I a partition table for example 320 gb capacity hard drive whether ssd or hdd will only be 298 gb usable,why you ask?
2. Your files and data have to have a way to know where they sit on said media, so let’s do some basic math and I bet we could figure out what the usable space a 8gb capacity memory can hold.
3. Please do comment see if you know the answer there is only 10 correct answers as the file system you choose changes the answer. Hint 320 gb capacity hdd is formatted to ntfs default allocation table which controls the the max file size.
4. Don’t believe me research Google is your friend.
are these cards really “one of the best things to happen to sony”? i know i personally haven’t gotten a vita yet solely because of the overpriced proprietary memory cards, and i find it hard to believe i’m the only person who is avoiding the system because of this.
while sony is gouging their loyal customers who bought the system, they very well could be driving many potential customers away. vita sales pretty much everywhere except japan have been abysmal, and this very well could be a part of the reason for that.
When the system is $199 with a 8gb card, a game and still only $20 more expensive than the 3DS without any SD card, it’s pretty clear the price isn’t the problem.
The 3DS does come with an SD Card as it is required to even play any games without it. Try playing a 3DS game without an SD card inserted.
umm you were saying? http://i.imgur.com/iuU9nrF.jpg
The 3DS XL already has 4GB of internal storage, that’s why you’re able to play without an sd card inserted.
The point still stands with the original 3DS.
When I got my current Vita, I got a bundle with a 32GB Vita Card with the 3G Vita and Persona 4 Golden for $250.
They want to increase Vita Sales? Give us better games and cheaper memory cards. I just bought the Sly Collection for Vita and was very annoyed that Sly 3 has to be downloaded from PSN and requires 2.9GB of Free Space.
Also the CMA doesn’t always work right when transferring games. I still can’t backup Borderlands 2 to my computer as I get an error every time.
“The PS Vita system will only accept cards that have the special encryption on them.” [Citation Needed]
The fact that the Vita refuses to use the inserted card if it is not associated to the same account as the console is a pretty strong hint… ?
The full quote with context:
“For modders, or more like the people who could have made a cheap alternative to save our pockets, can’t do their job. The PS Vita system will only accept cards that have the special encryption on them. Again, a no go.”
This implies that people have not cloned the memory card because of special encryption. I don’t deny that such encryption exists, but I was just wondering how that can be stated without such evidence.
Also, the Vita rejecting cards associated with another account has nothing to do with encryption. It’s just a a file; namely ux0:id.dat
It would be more accurate to say that they have “security features” associated with them, or some such. One day I’d like to sit and have a proper yarn with you, Yifan. 🙂
Excellent article which brings up some very good points that I was unaware of such as swapping limitations. I buy all my games on cartridge so I did not know these issues existed. That said, what a messed up thing for a company to do to it’s customers. The Vita has been struggling and if they claim they don’t know why then here is a prime example. Good job!
You actually buy cartridges 🙂
You actually buy memory cards 🙂
You can resell a cartridge, makes way more sense
#32 32GB equals 1TB
dear sony please make me a vitatv that fits 32 of those 32gb cards
lol
29 of them would be empty because of the lack of games.
Or not.
OR not, it’s struggling for more space, my 32 gb is full and i have been deleting games for quite sometime , i’m planning buy 64gb one along with a new vita for my younger sibling.
TBH i would buy 128gb or 256gb version if it’s exist, no matter the price.
$100 for 64gb isn’t bad, I paid $100 for 4gb when the PSP first came out.
That was almost a decade ago. Welcome to 2014. You can get a 64GB Micro SD card for anywhere from $20 to $40. You’re comparing apples to oranges, and the oranges are old and rotten. You have to compare to similar products in a similar time frame, and the correct comparison says that $100 is a horrible deal. Vita cards are over double the price of similar products.
“You can get a 64GB Micro SD card for anywhere from $20 to $40”
It has to be the worst microSD card in the world, probably not even class 4.
If we consider quality over price, 100USD for 64GB is the common/perfect match (unless you buy a microSD from any *** manufacturer like “china-something” or “samsung”
Holy ***, that’s expensive. Anyway, I chose high-capacity, low-speed cards because the article says that the proprietary cards read data slowly.
Dude, “because the article says that the proprietary cards read data slowly” has to be the worst argument ever (rean Yifan Lu’s comment).
low-speed cards can lead to usage problems of your device (depending on the device, for example, if it’s an Android Phone/Tablet, and you have a game on the microSD card, load times will be way bigger on a class 4 comparing it to a class 10 or UHS1)
@:v I didn’t see that.
“low-speed cards can lead to usage problems of your device (depending on the device, for example, if it’s an Android Phone/Tablet, and you have a game on the microSD card, load times will be way bigger on a class 4 comparing it to a class 10 or UHS1)”
Yes, and…?
Nobody’s arguing against slower memory cards being slower.
I bought a 64GB SanDisk Extreme Plus (80ms read) for $75 in February. I bought the same size Samsung card with (90ms read) for $60 in June) I’d put good money on the SanDisk being at least 2x faster than the Vita Card, but since there’s no way to actually speed test Vita Memory cards, we’ll never know. Why Sony didn’t go with microSDXC and use the encryption capability built into the standard is just STUPID. Microsoft did just that when you inserted a microSD into a Windows Phone 7. The card got paired with the device and that was all she wrote. I wouldn’t be surprised if Vita memory cards were really just microSD cards on the inside with an extra security chip piggy backed inside the package. Oh, does anyone have a Mini-Disc player I can borrow?
Holidays was the best time to get memory cards for Vita for sure. I will always wait for that time to buy one and not completely feed money to Sony and their overpriced ***.
Have to disagree on Transfer speeds. In my experience, wired backup is pretty fast, and I use 32GB and 16GB cards. I prefer all my games digital, and compared to both loading times, and “bugs”, I find no differences. Some tests were done early on to see the difference in loading times, but that would make sense. It’s a larger card. I’m pretty sure the physical transfer speeds are near-identical. Curious to see an update on these tests with actual read/write speeds being tested, and actual game loadtimes as well. I’d prefer a fresh copy of both, because of RAM boosting loading times. That darn RAM!
Using backup time as indication of memory card speed is a hilariously stupid idea. First you have the CPU trying to compress and encrypt the data. Then you have the USB 2.0 limits. Finally you have CMA’s own limitations.
Everyone knows why you lose 5 GB when you format the 64 GB card, right? Because it’s common knowledge that the storage capacity listed on ANY TYPE of storage media is flawed.
To a manufacturer, 64 GB = 64,000,000,000 bytes
To an operating system, 64 GB = 68,719,476,736 bytes
So when you format the media, the actual capacity of the card is revealed. In this case, size on the package for the 64 GB card should actually say that it’s a 59.6 GB card.
You don’t LOSE the capacity, it was never there to begin with.
This is NOT Sony’s fault, so start educating yourself so you can stop looking stupid on the internet.
I think trnasfer speed is limiting by AES encryption/decryption speed. Because vita came hot while transfering
1) SanDisk is not a memory card type, Its a company that makes varies storage media like SD cards
2)The memory sticks (like the ones the PSP uses) where made way before the PSP even existed and no it is not Sony’s first attempt.
3)”First, scam us with your outrageous prices, then take a good portion of the space away from us”
First off go look up what scam means then go look up why that space is lost, But yes it does suck
4) Only paranoia feeding thing here is you, Watch out! the PS light is flashing again!
5) The PSP was “cracked” because SCE did not have any security on 1.00
Yeah I don’t know why wololo allows all these sensationalist articles that border on factually incorrect and exploits the ignorance of the common audience rather than try to educate them.
not surprised, it’s Jay afterall
I wish I were able to upvote comments…
On his last blog posts, The Jay Doctor makes me wonder if wololo read the blogposts before publishing them. I mean, for example, this one has no reason to exist, only to make Sony look worse, and doing that nowadays is a really bad idea.
To be fair, not all of us are writing sensationalist articles or wanting to this site to be “apart of Gawker” as you’ve said before in comments on other articles. Wololo doesn’t necessarily allow articles like these.
But I agree, you’re completely right that articles like these aren’t necessary. Not being factual, not researching and having a speculative basis is unprofessional looking.
Fair enough, and noted. I do not reply to everything but I do read the comments.
Maybe I’m a bit willful here, but, what if, someone makes a wired adapter for the card?
slap a conventional SDHC card in a slot
then bam-
cuz the Vita gives not a damn when the card slot is opened…
man, there’s no point going for lower end of memory card 😉
i buy 32gb and vita at same time.
*bought
The PS Vita memory card aren’t high end at all
yeah, go buy those 240p 3ds, it’s your choice afterall
LOLOLOLOLOL
i have no any problem with the price.. and i’m not a rich guy.
if i rant it would be 3DS stuff, why would it need Circle Pad Pro, 240p, ultra low performance hardware AND THE *** PRICE IS NOT THAT DIFFERENT FROM VITA, BUT NOT EVEN HALF OF VITA’S POWER.
Don’t mean to cause a rant but really, modern console companies (Nintendo, I’m looking at you in particular) are becoming money wh**es, I love my Vita and I have an 8GB and a 4GB memory card to use for gaming and both have filled really fast, my 4GB is for PS1 games and the 8GB for PS Vita, PSP and PSM titles. $ony, Micro$oft, Nintendo’$ failed consoles…And pricey game$…
Well at least that’s better than on iDevices. 😛
For me the case is simple, if system ain’t broken i ain’t buying it. exactly because of reasons like this ***. At some point everything gets broken, and when it does there’s usually a nice game library for it. I refuse to support such tactics with my money. It’s also quite ironic that i’d prolly use psn store or xbox live, pay for games, dlc etc. however i don’t. Because that means my console will be banned, lose warranty etc. Well it’s their money loss. They’re sc*** themselves using those outdated pre internet anti piracy tactics.
Seriously, the vita is the most expensive playstation of sony. If you compare between vita and maybe the ps3 in price is the same. Bat obviously the ps3 is better. You have the gameshare and play with the friends and the games are more large than the psvita. Well are many reasons. Psvita is too spensive and no practical. i thought that will be diferent bat is only a business machine.
Not really trying to start a flamewar, but I’d like to update these rants with my own recent observations.
When I attended AnimeNext on the June 6-8 weekend, I’d estimate I saw around an honest one-sixth to one-quarter of the attendees (out of a TOTAL of 10k+ attendees) with their 3DS’s out at some time, while I VERY LITERALLY caught a glimpse of A SINGLE PSP (NOT even a Vita).
And it was sitting on a desk.
In Lost and Found, I believe.
The case was ESPECIALLY evident on Saturday.
…GOD, I hate Saturdays…
So while the 3DS (XL size, mind you) may only be $30 less than a Vita, with a lower-rez screen, a single analog stick, maybe half the processing power, and with even Nintendo’s wanton use of dickery…
…(REGION LOCKING….SRSLY? When EVEN Microsoft is doing away with it? Despite nearly all your previous handhelds, from the GB, GBP, GBC, GBA, GBA SP, GBA M, DS, to DSL, were all region free? /rant)…
…it shows that small disparities in the level dickery you integrate into your products results in a HUGE disproportion in consumer adaption.