THE BUZZ: During the last few days of Thanksgiving / Black Friday madness, one bit of info you may have missed was the reveal of prices for PlayStation Vita memory cards.

Remember—the PS Vita uses a new proprietary form of memory cards, versus the PSP and its reliance on slightly-more-common Memory Stick Pro Duo cards. As well, many Vita games will require you to have a memory card in order to start them, even if you never intend on creating a save file.

A few days ago, game retailer GameStop released a list of PS Vita accessories, which included a rundown of the four memory cards and their suggested retail prices for the States.

4GB PS Vita card – $29.99
8GB PS Vita card – $44.99
16GB PS Vita card – $69.99
32GB PS Vita card – $119.99

EGM’s TAKE: Ouch. When you consider the fact that you can get a 16GB SD card for as little as $15 from some retailers, these prices come off as highway robbery.

However, there is a bigger picture to consider here. Yes, these prices feel shockingly high—but it’s entirely possible that this is one of the ways in which Sony accomplished the lower cost of the PS Vita unit itself. Lose money on the hardware, make it back up on accessories; it certainly is a sales tactic that has been used many times before. While we have no official statement to this being the case, it certainly is a realistic and logical possibility.

It’s a question of perception: Would consumers prefer a $250 Vita and a $70 memory card, or a $300 Vita and a $20 memory card? As the price of the hardware itself is often the most important factor to many consumers, if Sony is helping to make up for that cheaper price with higher-priced memory cards, it’s hard to blame them for going that route.

What are your thoughts on the pricing of PS Vita memory cards? A necessary evil, or is Sony going a little too far with the pricing of these proprietary accessories?