Educated Consumerism

So the recent PlayStation Vita refund debacle got me thinking, how could we possibly be so dumb to just fail to research what we're throwing money at? If you're unfamiliar with the news the short version is that Sony advertised that the PlayStation Vita would have the ability to stream PS3 games and other nonsense that sounds too good to be true. The result was people buying it with the expectation that they just made their home console pretty much portable and when it wasn't true...there was some kickback and some big names with official sounding acronyms got involved. Sony decided to avoid any drawn out legal bullshit and just refunded people who bought the handheld back in 2012 due to misleading advertising since only a few games supported the streaming function. So all this leaves me with is a question, are we really such trusting consumers that we didn't do our research before buying something that obviously sounds too good to be true (at the time)?

I mean, being able to stream a console game to a handheld system is a pretty big deal, you'd basically be able to turn the market on its head. I'd think that any game that could do that through the Vita would have been like, you know, using it as a major selling point. Like seriously, if your AAA PlayStation exclusive can be streamed onto a handheld device and taken anywhere you put that shit on your front page. If you don't...fire your marketing team, they're horrible at their jobs. We live in an age where people hunger for ease of access and will jump at an opportunity to get it.

Buying tech to enhance your game experiences is super common nowadays but I can't believe we're just taking advertisements at face value. When it comes down to it, an advertisement will always be trying to sell you the best aspects of a product and it is our responsibility, as savvy consumers, to do our own research and make sure we aren't wasting our time and money. Sony shouldn't have misled customers but at the same time we've got to take at least some responsibility here, we should have made ourselves more aware through research and just a dash of common sense. It would have led to less problems for Sony and less wasted money for people who bought a Vita expecting something that still isn't a reality. We're getting closer to the goal though, the Vita's functionality seems to have improved to the point where it isn't quite as misleading when they tell you that you'll be able to play PS4 games remotely.


Do your own research before you hop on a bandwagon! There will be less tears.