As for the whole alleged 360 fanboy stuff, I see it how Shipwreck sees it. With only one caveat. All the game reviewers you see are full-time gamers. To a full-time gamer, spending $50 per year on Live is a minor issue. And once you pay, you might as well buy all your games on 360, right? I mean, all your friends are already there, right?
For a part-time gamer, the argument is flipped. Paying $50 for a year of Live when you only play a few games a year makes no sense. Even buying 3 months doesn't make sense when you only play a game for a few weeks (don't tell me to buy a month, the prices on 1 month of Live are a joke). In that way, I think the gaming press inadvertently is inadvertently biased toward a solution that appeals more to the hardcore gamer and somewhat excludes the casual gamer.
I saw the quicklook for the Vita Uncharted game and while I agree with Ship that it is silly that there is a Start button on the Vita and you can't start the game with it, that's peanuts compared to the tech demo junk in the game. I mean, if it were a great game, I wouldn't peep one bit about having to touch the screen to start the game, it wouldn't detract from my gameplay at all. But the balance beam crap or having to wipe dirt off objects you find? That's a whole different story.
I think Cheapy said a similar thing (about the iPhone), but this kind of thing always reminds me of what Roger Ebert said when people talk about movie length. "No good movie is too long and no bad movie is short enough." If you actually like a game, you're not going to complain about minor nits in it.
The problem is Cheapy, Shipwreck just don't like these Vita games (and thus for now at least the Vita). Then when trying to express it, they give justifications which, while surely accurate don't really express what their real problem is. Then the people who disagree with these items try to counter each one individually, not understanding that the problem with the game isn't the sum of these parts. If you successfully pick apart every problem Cheapy and Ship have with the Vita, you don't end up then proving the games are good.
Now, as to the games being junk, they're always junk. Most consoles are not the N64 or the Wii. They launch with lousy games. The 360 didn't take off because Perfect Dark Zero or Kameo was any good. The PS2 didn't take off because of Fantavision. And the DS was considered a silly gimmick until good games like Nintendogs came along for it. But while the current crop of games may not be any good, let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Simply don't buy a Vita until you find some games you want to play on it (and that may be never).
If I could ask just one thing of the CAGcasters, it would be this. Please stop measuring a console launch by looking at the inventory still on the shelves. This has two problems, first of all you don't know the supply levels. Just because you can find one doesn't mean no one is buying them.
The bigger problem is that if you only say a launch is a succes if the shelves are bare, then companies will artificially restrict supply so that shelves will be bare. They're already tempted by the Wii situation where it sold like hotcakes as long as there were lines, for a year. And then as soon as supply loosened up, no one wanted one anymore. They don't need any more encouragement.
Talking gaming console makers into restricting supply is not good for gamers, especially cheap ass ones. So please don't encourage them by equating availability with failure.