Apples Vs. Oranges 2: Electric Booga-fuck-you

   It has been nearly three years since I wrote my prophetic article regarding the inevitable cluster fuck that the next iteration of the PSP would prove to be. Of course, 2009 was a simpler time for the portable gaming market and I was, at the time, confident in my assumptions that the “PSP2” would either follow the Sony tried and true technique of “shiny black— but this time even more so!”, or a more experimental strategy of “plastic that is as BLACK as the void but also so polished that, like, light kinda just slides off of it: like a plastic slip-and-slide. Oh, and we duck-taped an extra screen on there too – with touch controls”. Unfortunately, the future proved to be even more ridiculous than what I had originally envisioned. And I mean, holy shit, my original vision was already pretty fucking ridiculous.

Pictured here: Ridiculous

At the very moment that I’m typing this, the new iteration of the PSP is already barreling towards store shelves faster than an alcoholic trying to desperately find the nearest Total Wine & More. So what can we expect to see in this “highly anticipated” launch from Sony?

Drum roll….

Ta-da!

Wait a second. I’m pretty sure that’s the wrong picture.

No, wait. Here it is:

Drum roll….

TA-Fucking-DA!

No really, that’s the new system. They actually managed to take fewer chances than a designated driver would on an average Monday morning. Just in case you happen to be one of those people that can’t spot differences in two nearly identical pictures, I’m going to go ahead and point out the main difference to you John Madden style.

BOOM.

And that, my friends, is that. I can count the changes of this system’s design on one hand – even if I amputated all of my fingers. Hell, I could probably still make it work even if I amputated my whole hand and tied a string around my stump so I wouldn’t forget that they added an analog stick.

This should be the point where you’re wondering whether they did anything new to the system at all and honestly, the answer is that they did add a few new features. Well, that was before the PlayStation design team got drunk and decided to add even fucking more. So if you like gimmicks then there are enough of those to make the Wii look more conventional than an Atari 2600.

But c’mon, you have to see Sony’s point of view. The people like gimmicky bizarro controls, you say? Fuck it. Let’s just give ‘em a touch screen. What’s that? Not enough? Well how about a completely arbitrary second touchpad without a screen on the back! Now we’re cooking with propane!

Happy now, fuckers?

And then there’s the godamn name.

When I hear “Vita” my brain doesn’t automatically correlate it with an amazing mobile gaming device. In fact, my brain tends to shoot me images that look like this:

But then again, that could just be because I’m American.

What about the competition? Let’s look at the Nintendo 3DS and compare how laughable Sony’s “design change” really is:

GODAMMIT