My Dead Console

My fourteen-year-old self would be so fucking proud right now. I just bought my first real gaming console in a Tokyo shop—a PlayStation Vita—and I’m not even sorry about it. People in the industry are probably having a stroke somewhere, screaming that this thing is dead, that it’s more dead than dead, that I’ve made a terrible mistake. Whatever.

I was looking at the Nintendo 3DS first. But the 3D effect bugs me, the dual screens annoy me, and most of the games bore me out of my skull. Nintendo isn’t Nintendo anymore, and that’s the least of it—if I’d bought it here in Japan, it would be useless back in Germany because of regional locking. Fuck that.

Everyone keeps saying I have an iPhone, what do I need a handheld for anyway, all the good games are on iOS. Right. The screen is tiny, most of the iOS stuff is disposable casual garbage, and anything genuinely great comes along maybe once a year if you’re lucky.

So: the Vita. Why? The price just dropped, the thing sold out all over Shibuya, and I grabbed a discounted display model in black with WiFi only. But what got me was the PlayStation Network—all these old RPG classics at ridiculous prices. Final Fantasy, Breath of Fire, Vagrant Story, all the stuff that used to eat up months of my life. It’s all there, it’s all cheap, and I nearly cried in the store.

I grabbed Persona 4 Golden too, which seemed right since the two high school girls next to me were buying it as well. Emotionally damaged kids in Japan killing monsters and playing basketball. Exactly my speed. Yeah, Sony’s probably going to abandon this console before the next PlayStation comes out. I don’t care. I’m going to squeeze every last game out of this thing until it’s completely drained.

Sorry, Nintendo. I actually loved you once. But the Wii U? Really? No thanks. We’re done.