3DS vs. PS Vita — Economics vs. Ergonomics?

March 5th, 2012 by

With both Sony and Nintendo’s new systems out of the gate and well on their way, it’s a good time to step-back and take a look at where both of the systems stand. Being a proud owner of both of these new(ish) portable systems, and having lugged them both around everywhere like needy children, I’m in a good position to offer some keen insights into the practical gaming applications of each system. We’ll split this bout up into several categories so we can explore the key areas in which these systems excel or ex-…smell. Read on to see how they measure up to one another and their predecessors.

[WARNING: This article ended up being really, really long. If you’re leaning to the side of “tl;dr”, just know that there are summary sentences for each category before it announces “The Winner”. Try at least reading those and if you want to know how I came to those conclusions you can read the parts above. Happy reading! -Miyamoto]

“What’s that?” Factor:

The “What’s that?” factor of a system is basically how likely it is to impress third parties when you’re out on the town and bust out your new portable game system because the town is boring. The PS Vita is obviously impressive for several reasons, the first of which is that you’ll be driving a forklift around to carry it. Joking aside, it’s a large system and unless you’re wearing it slung around your neck like some kind of giant 90’s rapper bling you’ll probably have some kind of issue carrying it around in your pocket, the traditional transportation medium for “portable” systems. Luckily enough for me, I wear cargo pants whenever I’m forced to leave the house, so I am one of the anointed few that have been blessed with Vita-sized pockets. The Vita also sports an enormous 5-inch Super AMOLED (A Monkey Only Learns Efficiently Dead) screen which is sure to impress. At 960 × 544, there’s enough pixels there for everyone to enjoy, and they’re strikingly bright and crisp no matter where you have the Vita’s brightness slider. A keen observer may also notice that you’re pwning aliens/Russians/zombies/robots using two micro analog sticks instead of just a single nub and they may ask you if you modded your PSP, but non-gaming third parties are unlikely to be wowed by either the dual sticks or the back touch panel at a glance. Overall, the PS Vita is an undeniably sleek system and sure to impress people with it’s modern form factor and brilliantly bright screen.

With a total of 151 million Nintendo DS units out there in the wild when you bust out your shiny 3DS most people will probably assume it’s a plain old DS. If you’re not playing in 3D, even people who have a clear view of the screen couldn’t be blamed if they thought it was the same as the other few million DS’s that they’ve seen floating about. Should someone notice that the screen looks blurry from their angle, or if they’re aware of what the 3DS is, the payout of showing off a glasses-free 3D screen to them for the first time is much more rewarding than the initial experiences that can be shared with the PS Vita. So, while people are less likely to ask what a 3DS is, they are much more likely to be impressed by the unusual technology contained therein and want to be your friend or bake you some cookies or something.

Each of the systems offers its own form of impressive technology that’s sure to net you some conversations that you would not have otherwise experienced (perhaps even with some attractive ladies/men depending upon the weather).

The Winner: Tie

 

Screen(s):

The PS Vita’s screen, as mentioned before, weighs in at a hefty five inches of the Super AMOLED variety. The 960 x 544 resolution is large enough to alleviate a lot of the aliasing problems that were/are rampant on the PSP, DS, older iPod Touches and iPhones, and the 3DS. The multi-touch functionality works as well as any other good consumer touch screen with the exception that when you’re holding the Vita “PSP-style” with your fingers curled around either end, you’re unable to touch an area on the screen that’s about 3/4 of an inch wide. This thumb-reach complication is usually not a huge issue, but presents complications with things like typing and precise touch-control in certain games. Otherwise, the colours are bright and vibrant and any other complications that were present with the PSP (like occasional ghosting and dead pixels) seem to have been completely eradicated.

The 3DS’ 3D screen is its most infamous feature. Measuring in at 3.53 inches, the iPhone-sized 3D screen is no dimensional slouch, but it takes an unfortunate hit in the resolution department at a meager 400 × 240 per eye. I personally blame a lot of the aliasing issues that have carried over from the DS onto the 3DS on the system’s huge ungainly pixels brought about by the lower resolution. The 3DS’ bottom single-touch touchscreen is 3.02 inches, or just a hair larger than the touchscreen featured on the original DS, and features a resolution just a tad better than the older DS screens at 320 x 240. You can’t tap two things at once, but in exchange you get the more assured precision of using a proper stylus. When you have your head and 3DS in the exact right positions and the moons are in alignment the 3D effect is pronounced and very effective in almost all circumstances. The 3D slider helps everyone tailor the 3D effect to their own ideal amount of 3D-ness and does a lot to make the best of the otherwise not quite mature and robust 3D technology. At medium brightness, both of the 3DS’ screens look good (for as long as the battery lasts).

Both of the systems offer unique and engaging displays that have their own share of pros and cons and do their respective jobs admirably.

The Winner: Tie

 

Battery Life:

Portable systems by definition need batteries to give them power on the go. Recent systems with excellent battery life like the DSi XL at 9-11 hours on medium brightness had us believing that the days when you had to switch the 6 AA batteries out of your Sega GameGear every 4 hours or less were well behind us. The 3DS came out and made our horrible nightmares of the GameGear’s battery life a reality once again with only 3-5 hours of gameplay possible at best per charge. I was recently playing Resident Evil: Revelations on my 3DS at medium brightness with the 3D turned on and headphones being used for sound and I only got about 2 and a half hours out of the system before the battery light started blinking red.

The PS Vita, on the other hand, with an extra year of development, much more internal room for a large battery, and only a single energy efficient screen to deal still only on paper manages to put out 3-5 hours of gaming before its charge bites the dust. In practice, though, the PS Vita usually seems to come closer to 4-ish hour mark on a single charge as opposed to the 3DS which is lucky to see three hours and usually conks out closer to two. It’s worth mentioning here that there is no way to access the PS Vita’s battery without tearing it apart while the 3DS features a fairly simple to remove bottom panel to allow for both battery placement and augmentation. There are many cheap third party replacement batteries that are able to greatly extend the 3DS’ battery life, but they’re not licensed by Nintendo and technically void your warranty, so you use them at your own risk.

Overall, in practice you’ll get longer battery life and therefore more playtime per charge from a PS Vita, so:

Winner: PS Vita

 

Ergonomics:

The PS Vita, ironically shaped like Nintendo’s logo, gets a couple of things right ergonomically. While it is admittedly quite large dead-on, it happens to be thinner than I was expecting (especially considering all of the graphics tech that it is stuffed with). Holding the PS Vita in your hands feels very similar to holding an iPhone sideways, in a good way. The metallic-like edging and nicely rounded corners give it a nice high-quality texture. Where the PS Vita falls short in the area of ergonomics is its unwieldy screen and back touch panel size. One’s grip has to be significantly altered in a manner similar to the “clawing” grip sometimes experienced when using Xbox 360 and PS3 controllers to reach toward the center of both the front and back touch panels. The back touch panel also becomes an impediment to holding the PS Vita in a position that is comfortable for long periods of play. Accidental touches on the back panel, while not always detrimental to gameplay, can be an annoyance and avoiding them involves clutching the Vita in your fists to keep your fingers in the provided grooves on the back. This position isn’t always immediately uncomfortable, but in games like Touch My Katamari where you’re craning your fingers across the back panel to stretch your katamari while using both of the micro control sticks, it can become very uncomfortable over any extended period of gameplay. The micro control sticks, while very functional and close enough to being flush with the system that they don’t get in the way, contribute largely to the PS Vita’s ergonomic discomforts. This is more of an issue that I have with Sony’s control sticks as a whole, but I greatly prefer concave or at least blatantly textured control sticks to convex ones. Most people’s thumbs are convex by nature, and physics has to go ahead and get it the way by not allowing two convex objects to move together very well, thus making the control sticks less comfortable than is technically possible. Finally, the PS Vita’s “Start” and “Select” buttons are so small and so poorly placed (practically in the palm of your hand while gripping the system) that you have to let go of the system with your right hand entirely before you can access them. More than once I have tried to quickly pause a game only to be penalized for my fumbling around trying to reach the “Start” button.

The 3DS follows most of the same tried and true ergonomic principles that are present in the DS lite/DSi lines of systems. While the 3DS’ corners are more pronounced than the essentially non-existent ones of the PS Vita, they don’t pose a problem unless your gaming sessions are in the 2.5-3 hour range. If you’re gaming for that long, the corners of the system leave fairly defined imprints on your palms, but you should probably take a break or two if you’re gaming for that long anyways; Cheetos don’t refill themselves, you know. Nintendo did, however, take a fairly significant step backwards in regards to the stylus placement on the 3DS system. Since the DS lite’s inception in 2006 the stylii for all of Nintendo’s various portable system varieties were located very conveniently (at least for right-handed people) on the right-hand side of the system. This allowed for the quick removal and replacement of the stylus without practically having to close the system. While the telescopic nature of the 3DS’ stylus is pleasant and well-executed, it’s storage place on the 3DS is not. One could argue that the stylus had to be moved back up to the top of the system à la its 2004 position on the original Nintendo DS to allow for the proper positioning of accessories like the Circle Pad Pro, but every part of the system is equally blocked off my such monstrous shells that it still wouldn’t have mattered if they had just put it on the side of the system like normal. Speaking of the Circle Pad Pro, even though it is an unwieldy beast of an attachment, it still feels nice in the hands. Even after two hour sessions of playing Resident Evil: Revelations, my hands have never felt fatigued when using the Circle Pad Pro. Both of the circle pads, with their smooth, concave, rubbery texture feel much better than the dual micro sticks on the PS Vita. Control-wise one could argue that the PS Vita’s sticks provide more fine control than the 3DS’ circle pads, but after using the Circle Pad Pro for a while you get used to the mental adjustments that have to be made when using the new hardware and the comfort more than makes up for the learning curve. This isn’t to say that the $20 attachment is a gift from the gaming gods, though. The Circle Pad Pro has some shortcomings including the fact that neither the stylus nor the game card slot can be reached while the attachment is employed. I thought not being able to reach the game card slot on a portable system went out with the N-Gage, but I guess I was wrong. The lack of stylus accessibility is highlighted perfectly in Resident Evil: Revelations where there are infrequent touch-based puzzles required to unlock doors that have you yank the 3DS out of the Circle Pad Pro to remove, use, and then replace your stylus. My only other ergonomic qualm with the Circle Pad Pro is the R button that it adds in addition to the ZR and ZL buttons. Even though I suppose there was no other place for Nintendo to put it, I still find it more comfortable to reach for the original R button on the 3DS than you the extra one on the Circle Pad Pro.

While neither system achieves ergonomic perfection, the 3DS just feels better in the hands during gameplay sessions of any length, especially (and surprisingly) when using the Circle Pad Pro.

Winner: 3DS

 

Games:

Any competition between any two video game systems both in economical superiority and in the hearts of gamers comes down to how good the games are that are available on the respective systems. But, if you think about it, the PS Vita hasn’t been out for very long, so it would be unfair to compare it to the 3DS which has had basically a year’s head-start on having games released. I could compare the system’s launch line-ups, but again that does very little to gauge the quality of the systems themselves and would again be superfluous in this situation.

Time will tell which system gets the best support from both first and third parties as far as game releases go, but for now:

Winner: Nobody

 

Augmented Reality:

What can be nicely compared apart from retail games are the AR cards that come with each system and how they are used. Nintendo started off this AR card competition, so we’ll start by looking at the 3DS’ built-in AR features. The 3DS comes with 6 AR cards: one question block card that serves as the main positioning medium and then five cards that can be used to spawn augmented reality sprites of various famous Nintendo characters. The 3DS’ two cameras allow you to play the AR Games in 3D if you want, but as soon as anything involves movement on your part your eyes start to wander in and out of the 3D sweet spot usually making things more frustrating or disorienting than fun. Luckily, whether you’re carefully playing in 3D or in 2D there is a ton of really fun things to do in the 3DS’ AR Games collection. After you’re done playing and unlocking everything, you have 13 ar games/toys to play around with including fishing, a pool/golf variant, archery, and a couple picture taking tools.  Additionally, the game Face Raiders lets you take pictures of your friends’ (or celebrities’ if you’re taking pictures of your computer screen) faces and then battle them as they fly around the room trying to harm you with their love.  One of the levels in Face Raiders even takes place underwater and makes for a really cool atmosphere as you can look up and see the waves overhead or look down to see the fancy way the light refracts through the water.  Each of these AR games is well thought out and fun, especially when you first get the system or are showing it off for the first time to others.

The story of the current free AR offerings for the PS Vita is a little more sordid. Like the 3DS, the PS Vita comes with 6 AR cards, but they’re a little less flashy, just featuring the numbers one through six and a smallish QR code more similar in style to the ones used by Pokedex 3D on the 3DS than the ones that are used most frequently in print ads. While fairly unassuming, the AR cards work exactly the same way that the question block “anchor” card does on the 3DS, telling the PS Vita where to spawn the various augmented reality elements. There are three free AR games currently available for the PS Vita, all of which have to be downloaded individually from the PS Store and occupy an average of 400+ MB apiece on your memory card. The first AR game that I tested on the PS Vita was called Cliff Diver which is probably the most involved free AR game available for either the PS Vita or the 3DS, even though that’s not saying much. The game spawns a series of cliffs and pools of water on top of the #1 AR card and your goal is to guide a diver using a series of timed button and back touch-panel taps from the cliff into the pool. While this sounds alright, it is very clumsy in practice and more often than not I was failing to tap the back touch-panel with the proper rhythm and having to pay through the nose with my in-game currency for my diver’s hospital bills as he seemed to very greatly enjoy landing on his neck. I quickly tired of this virtual medical insurance simulator and moved on to the second AR game, Fireworks. This was my favourite of the three, being the only one that didn’t eventually get deleted so that I’d have more room for demos and the like.  Fireworks is like a rhythm game without appropriate musical queues where you tap the on-screen fireworks when their outlines line-up to make them explode.  Moving your system back and forth through the exploding fireworks is neat, but that’s about the extent of the game’s charm.  Scoring is done arcade-style where you have to play for quite a while to get up to the high scores that you’re meant to beat.  The disappointing thing about Fireworks, though, is how it utilizes the multiple AR cards available for use.  You can start the game using either AR card #1, #2, or #3 and what this does is change the difficulty level.  Yes, that’s it.  What could have been done in a split second with a tap or a button press gets relegated to the physical switching of cards for no apparent reason.  When I first saw that there were multiple AR cards, my thought was that you would use them to create several anchor points either on the table in front of you or in the room around you so that the system doesn’t lose its sense of spatial relations if you happen to sneeze or move your single card out of frame for more than a split second.  This is apparently not was Sony currently has in mind, though, and you can feel this most acutely when you attempt to play the third PS Vita AR game, Table Soccer.  When you boot up Table Soccer, you are given but two choices: How to Play and Options.  If you can manage to get through the How to Play section (which I did not on my first try as I flicked one of my players into an awkward position at the corner of the goal post), then you’re given the ability to actually play the game and things get even worse.  Table Soccer is a turn-based soccer game that makes little sense where you have to hold your PS Vita fairly close to the 6 cards that you have laid out in various fashions (three facing you to form the field and then three facing away for the bleachers and scoreboard) and flick your players about one by one to try and score on the opponent.  The motion for moving a player is the same as kicking the ball and the game demands pixel-perfect accuracy to allow you to do anything.  Basically it’s a huge mess whose greatest accomplishment is showing you what a miniature soccer field would look like if it was experiencing a magnitude seven earthquake, as all of the AR elements are characteristically shaky even if you’re holding your breath while trying to keep the PS Vita still.  The really basic and un-fun nature of the PS Vita’s AR games is disappointing considering how they knew about the content that Nintendo was offering and basically had every chance to improve upon it.

In the areas of general fun, longevity, ease of use, accuracy of tracking, and amount of content the 3DS’ AR games win on every front, so:

Winner: 3DS

 

Graphics:

Graphics have almost always been used to gauge a systems worth, even when the differences are so minute between two systems (like Xbox 360 vs. PS3 or SNES vs. Genesis) that it hardly matters. The graphical discrepancy between the PS Vita and the 3DS is a little more apparent, though not as much as it was last generation between the PSP and the DS. On paper, the PS Vita sports up to 10 times the polygon rate of the 3DS, but the major caveat with these specs is that no one is 100% certain of the clock rates that are being used in-game for the CPUs and GPUs of either the PS Vita or the 3DS. Both Nintendo and Sony have refused to provide clock rate information on their components, so we’ll basically have to wait until these systems are hacked or some developers feel like breaking their NDAs and publishing those numbers. With both a 4-core CPU and GPU, the PS Vita still beats out the 3DS’ 2-core CPU and single core GPU numerical specs-wise (not to mention that the PS Vita has twice as much RAM as the 3DS), but with the clock rates still being such a large black box it is really difficult to gauge the difference in potential graphics performance of the two systems any way but qualitatively.

The graphics on the PS Vita, first and foremost, are much less visibly aliased than those on the 3DS. I believe this is due largely to the better pixel density on the PS Vita’s screen, but could also be a sign of the superiority of the PS Vita’s graphical capabilities. When you compare the graphically headlining games on the 3DS and the PS Vita, though, the disparity between the two systems’ hardware specifications on paper is much less apparent. If you are unaware of how these games appear visually, you can do yourself a favour and watch a couple gameplay videos of Uncharted: Golden Abyss for PS Vita and Resident Evil: Revelations for 3DS. When it comes down to it, and the developers are willing to put in the time, the graphics on both the 3DS and PS Vita can be really quite spectacular. With all of the PS Vita’s extra RAM and the like, though, I’m sure that you’re able to see that it can still utilize higher resolution textures than the 3DS, even if other aspects of the graphics are fairly similar.

Both systems, when used properly, can deliver very nearly current generation home console-quality graphics, but the PS Vita with both evident and implied hardware superiority (especially considering aliasing and texture quality) earns the graphics trophy.

Winner: PS Vita

 

Economics:

With global recessions waxing and waning across the world, the cost of video games matter now perhaps more than it ever has. Anyone with a web browser could tell you that the PS Vita Wi-Fi costs $249.99 and the 3DS costs $169.99, but any gamer could tell you that a system’s base price is just the beginning of its total cost.

The PS Vita Wi-Fi edition costs $249.99 US/CAN (it’s $299.99 for the 3G/Wi-Fi version plus a data plan) and comes with 6 AR cards and a charger/USB cable. To store game saves, updates, demos, etc. you are also required to buy a proprietary PS Vita memory card that comes in 4GB, 8GB, 16GB and 32GB sizes that cost $19.99, $29.99, $49.99, and $99.99 respectively. With your PS Vita, you’ll also want to protect your new investment and since there’s nothing by default to protect the large touchscreen you’ll need a screen protector ($9.99 for a set of two) and a case ($19.99) to protect both the screen and the system (particularly the micro control sticks) when it’s not in use. Luckily, Sony sells a “Starter Kit” for the PS Vita that costs $39.99 and comes with a “4GB Memory Card, Pocket Pouch [soft case], Protective Film, Card Case, Headphones, and a Cleaning Cloth”. Games, on average, cost $39.99 each as well. So, for a basic good set-up for the PS Vita, you’re looking at a cost of: $249.99 (base Wi-Fi system) + $39.99 (starter kit) + $39.99 (one average game) = $329.97 + tax.

The 3DS only has one hardware version (at the moment), but a good couple of colours are available and they all cost $169.99 and come with 6 AR cards, a charging cradle, a single stylus, a 2GB SD card, and a charge cable. You don’t necessarily need a case to protect the system, as the clamshell design largely takes care of that for you, but what you will need is a set of screen protectors. Not only can the 3DS’ bottom screen get damaged by constant stylus jabbing, but the top screen is also prone to getting scratches from rubbing against the bevel for the bottom screen and getting a nice impermanent circular mark from contact with the circle pad. A top-of-the-line Hori screen protector set for the 3DS will set you back $8.99. With an average battery life per charge of only around 3 hours when using the 3D mode most avid 3DS owners will also want to invest in a third-party expanded battery pack. The least offensive and most widely available of these is the Nyko Power Pak+ that now retails for only $9.99 (used to be $19.99). 3DS games, on average, also cost $39.99. So, a basic good set-up for the 3DS would cost: $169.99 (base system) + $8.99 (screen protector) + $9.99 (extended battery) + $39.99 (one average game) = $228.96 + tax. If you want to be nit-picky and throw in the Circle Pad Pro which retails for $19.99 (but note that the extended battery and the Circle Pad Pro cannot be used concurrently), you get $248.95 + tax.

Simple math will have to prevail here, $248.95 < $329.97, so the 3DS is the better economical choice with all things considered.

Winner: 3DS

Summary

With 2 ties, 1 abstention, 2 categories going to the PS Vita and 3 going to the 3DS, the 3DS manages to pull ahead and win this matchup.  As it stands at between $80-$100 less than the PS Vita (even with necessary peripherals considered), the 3DS not only delivers more gaming bang for your buck, but also a higher quality of gaming in most respects.  The shortcomings of the current 3DS units, like a short battery life and the lack of a second circle pad, have been fairly well dealt with by both first and third party companies to make a system that is a must-have for the portable gamer, even considering that it may need some help along the way.  Make no mistake, the PS Vita is a very worthy system, but this early in its life much of its potential (both actual and unknown) has yet to be truly utilized, and you can really tell when you play around with it for more than a couple of hours.  If you’re hankering for some new-generation portable gaming, you’ll probably be able to squeeze more raw fun out of a 3DS at present, but time will tell which one of these systems ends up being the victor in terms of both sales figures and providing a compelling and unmissable gaming experience.  Of course, this is but one man’s opinion, but I believe that I’ve backed up my assertions fairly well.  Do you have a PS Vita and/or a 3DS?  How has your system been treating you?  For now, though, we’ll crown the victor:

Overall Winner: 3DS