All Sites Get it Wrong. PS Vita Can Do Multiple PSN Accounts

With every new PlayStation device that tends to launch, there tends to also be a circus that follows where people find limitations, quirks, and, in this case, false information and they begin to smear the system. The PSP launched with many crying foul, claiming that the system’s battery could only game about 5 hours before needing a charge (though that seemed to affect such a minority of users who needed to game for 5 consecutive hours). The PS3 then launched with what will happen with Blu-ray and where is our promised 2 HDMI ports and, gasp, the base 20GB version didn’t have Wi-Fi, despite the competing machine didn’t offer Wi-Fi, HDMI, Blu-ray drive and a dedicated hard drive.

Last week, the same sort of assaults began to arise towards the PS Vita, with claims of lack of multiple PSN account access on the machine. Now first, let’s say that the PS Vita was truly locked into one PSN account: In how many instances do you foresee yourself using your Vita, and having a friend wanting to use one but insisting that they must log in via their PSN account? Unlike consoles which are more social, the PS Vita is meant for more of a personal use, much like your cellphone. However, despite all those crying foul, we’ve now learned that the PS Vita does indeed support multiple PSN accounts. Sony associate brand marketing manager Crystal MacKenzie,

“Your PSN ID is bonded to your memory card and your memory card is bonded to your Vita,” MacKenzie said. “So if you wanted to change different PSN users but use the same memory card, you would need to go factory reset.”

However, what this means is that if you and your friend both own a PS Vita, you can simply take your PS Vita memory card, which is tied to your PSN account, insert it into your friend’s Vita, thus enabling your account on that machine. What’s more is, if multiple people in the same house wish to play on the Vita with separate PSN accounts, each simply needs to own their own memory card (starting at $29 for 4GB) and can insert the card into the Vita, and continue their own saved games, trophy counts, and PSN purchases. So, there you have it folks: Multiple PSN accounts exist for you on the PS Vita. Also, many users need to simply look at the PSP and PS3 from when they launched to where they are now and relax a bit, knowing that Sony has always continued to pump new features in their devices, via free firmware updates.