The folks over at IGN have made a curious discovery. It seems that the 3G version of the PSP Vita is capable of receiving text messages sent to a number registered in the system settings of the device. Text messages arrive as a type of notification, "Notices from Operator," and cannot be responded to.
Sony has yet to comment, but it seems pretty straightforward as a means for someone to deliver messages to the handheld. The only problem is who might send them. I really hope Sony and AT&T can keep the records of those numbers secure. I already get junk messages on my cell phone and I shudder to think what might happen if spammers get such an easy in to our handhelds as well.
3G PlayStation Vitas Receive Text Messages [IGN]
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Contest:
4:30 PM on 02.21.2012 | 
Profit.
I don't want to hear any lies about everyone receiving the same note.
I assumed it was just gonna be their pay as you go data plan.
Buy data, it runs out? buy more! and what interesting about their prepaid data plan, is that if you top up before 30 days, your data rolls over.
BUT NOOOOOO, they had to go and make this shitty plan. Even japan's by the hour plan is better than their current plan, because at the end of the day, there's no pressure of all your data/hours gone before the end of the month.
I actually think that if I stick an AT&T sim card with pay as you go plan, it will work with the Vita. Gonna give it try on friday. Gonna buy the sim card, and take a gamble.
It makes sense that this could be the reason for such a feature being available. It's also possible that this phone number could be there for the planned Skype app since they do the same thing for any device that can utilize Skype's phone service.
However, this still concerns me a bit since I due really hate the concept of possibly getting spam messages on my Vita, but I'm willing to bet that if something like that becomes a problem, Sony would probably just throw out a firmware update that removes the feature or disables it since it's not a marketed feature or anything.
Blame AT&T, who continues to believe that bandwidth is some kind of non-renewable source. I was lucky enough to have unlimited data for my phone before they became greedy dicks and eliminated it for new subscribers.
Personally I think they should be working on their ****ing coverage instead of trying to go to war with the customers on how much they use the phones they paid and signed contracts for.
As a doorway to spam, it's another reason I'm glad I got a WiFi version, which is tethered to my phone, downloading PSP games... right now. PSP games that are too big to download directly over 3g, but not too big to do via 3g via wifi.
Excellent.