After a promising unveiling, the PlayStation Vita has faced a lot of cynicism because of Sony’s decisions with the handheld. It seems like they’re trying to screw up their own system with pointless limitations like a proprietary memory card, a one-user limit for the proprietary memory card, and a still-unconfirmed-for-the-United-States overpriced UMD owner game download plan. Basically, Sony’s choking the PS Vita, and when the 3DS is already $80 cheaper than it will be when it launches in February (after missing the holiday season), this could mean the new PSP will suffer the same also-ran fate as the old PSP, or suffer the completely-failed-and-ignored fate of the PSP-Go.

The PS Vita isn’t a lost cause, though. Despite some screw-ups before launch, it does have a lot of potential. Its screw-ups aren’t that big for most users, as well. While hardcore gamers will be irritated by the memory card issues and the UMD thing, these are actually factors that most users won’t even notice.

The most egregious problem with the PS Vita is the proprietary memory card. The PSP already used Sony’s own Memory Stick Duo format, so Sony forcing another memory card format onto users sounds like a bad joke. You’d think they learned their lesson after Betamax… Minidisc… UMD… the first Memory Stick… okay, in retrospect, this isn’t that surprising. It is a big pain in the ass, though, and I can freely admit it. If you have a PSP or a Sony camera, your media won’t work (when an SD card works just fine with, say, a Wii or a 3DS). I spoke with some Sony reps at a PlayStation press event last week, and they explained the obvious: it’s an anti-piracy measure. Specifically, it’s anti-piracy and anti-cheating. Since there’s no feasible way to interact directly with the memory card on your computer, you can’t (or will have a much harder time) using exploits for the PSP. It’s silly, it’s greedy, and the hacking community will cut through it and probably build a card reader weeks after the Vita comes out, but there you go.

The memory card leads into the other big inconvenience with the Vita: you can only use one account per card. If you want more than one user, you need to get another memory card. Again, dick move. It’s an unnecessary requirement that comes from Sony’s increasingly deranged copy protection and proprietary memory actions.

However, besides those two main problems, the Vita looks like a solid system, and while Sony might tweak hardcore gamers very, very hard with its measures, the Vita hasn’t really gotten a true gamebreaker yet. If you’re willing to spend $250 on a handheld, you’re going to swallow your pride and spend $25 or less (not $30; Sony’s already backpedaling about memory card prices after the initial ragefest) for a memory card… just like you did for the PlayStation, the PS2, and the PSP. All of which used different memory cards. The multiple user thing is an inconvenience for families, but Sony seems to be ceding the game-system-for-the-whole-family field to Nintendo for now. The company is working under the assumption that little Donny’s going to get his own Vita, and that there won’t be much sharing.

The backwards compatibility and UMD pass issue has pissed off some gamers for relatively good reason, but what were we expecting? We knew the Vita wouldn’t have a UMD drive. That any games we currently own on UMD could somehow be played on the Vita is a benefit, not a downside. If the pass is as expensive as it will be in Japan, it’s pretty safe to say few people will bother to actually use it, but assuming backwards compatibility on any non-Nintendo system is unrealistic. The PS3 only had backwards compatibility with the PS2 near launch, and now you can’t find a PS3 new that plays any PS2 game. The Xbox 360 had a limited number of backwards compatible games, and they haven’t added to that list in years. It sucks, but it’s also not something Sony has arbitrarily ripped away. At worst, we’re just not going to use the feature.

Most gamers aren’t going to look at the Vita as a way to play their old PSP games, or as a way to import games (the reason for a one-user Vita to have multiple users on the system). They’re going to look at it as a way to play Uncharted and other games on the go. It’s a new generation and a new system with connected features that work with the PS3.

When you get down to it, the PS Vita is a technically stunning device, even with Sony locking it up tighter than East Germany. The hardware is closer to PS3 than PS2, the screen is breathtaking, and it has just the right combination of power and gimmicks (touchscreen, rear touchpad, dual analog sticks) to make it stand out against the 3DS. Looking at it just as a handheld gaming system and not a backwards compatible system, game import system, or homebrew and pirating system, it’s really impressive.

Of course, the PSP was really impressive, too, and it got wrecked by the DS. $250 is cheaper than the PSP at launch, but we won’t know if it’s still too much with all the limitations until after it launches February 22.