• he/him

one more cute disaster… it’s hard here in paradise

last.fm listening



iiotenki
@iiotenki

I'm sorry for being part of the problem.

That makes for two Vita TVs (one that was my very first Vita when I finally started to get steady work as a baby freelancer, another that was $20 when those were on a fire sale) and two proper handhelds, this new one being my first actual OG OLED unit. I bought it partly just to see how well that screen does stack up against the regular LCD I'm more familiar with (there is definitely a difference, but it's obviously less pronounced than what you can get today), and also to finally have a unit I can just throw my Japanese PSN account onto to make some store purchases without having to futz with the clumsy account switching shenanigans.

Took a little doing to get my existing data and game dumps properly transferred between Vitas, but by god, I got it all to work and now I'm back in business. 😌

Anyway, Hard Off and the Japanese used game market in general continue to be a godsend for these sorts of purchases. Didn't come with the cable (and I had no idea the original model used a proprietary connector on the Vita end instead of standard USB-B like the 2000—why???), but found it in immaculate condition for all of $75. It's frankly bizarre to me that this model continues to command such a premium on western sites when there's no functional difference between international and Japanese units whatsoever, but I'll take it. Anything to avoid the hustle of western game collecting these days.


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in reply to @iiotenki's post:

Ahaha, that's wild we're coming at The Port Problem from completely different angles. But yeah, screen difference aside, the slim is still perfectly nice in its own right! Definitely lighter and the Start/Select/PS buttons aren't oblong and weirdly puny, which I appreciate, ahaha. If you're not too hung up about sacrificing that screen quality, you might end up liking it even more! Mine's definitely served me very well over the years for sure. 😌

It's frankly bizarre to me that this model continues to command such a premium on western sites when there's no functional difference between international and Japanese units whatsoever

I was going to say I got mine for a similar price (I think €60 ~ €70) from a finnish auction site, but looking at current offerings most seem to be €150 and above. only one under €100 is a pickup-only bare console + charger in rovaniemi (a town in the sparsely-populated north of finland) for €80

has there been a lot of increase in the prices in the last couple years specifically?

I'd say that's been the case, yeah. The Vita TV's price hikes can probably be chalked up to homebrew basically eliminating the compatibility limitations that the official firmware has (I think you can even connect a DualShock 4 and use the touch pad to emulate the touchscreen if you really wanna go nuts), which has obviously made it much more desirable for capturing footage and stuff. The original 1000 handheld itself, I honestly can't think of any one pressing factor that would explain its increase beyond just the general passage of time and whatnot. The 3DS has seen a similar spike in hardware prices in recent years, too, so the Vita isn't really an anomaly in that regard, but yeah.