PlayStation Vita: what you need to know
After much rumour and speculation, Sony announced the new PSP console – formerly codenamed NGP for Next Generation Portable – would be called the PlayStation Vita.
And we’ve been playing with the new handheld. Read our thoughts in our Hands on: Sony PS Vita review
But when will the PlayStation Vita UK release date be and how much will it cost? Read on to find out.
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PlayStation Vita UK release date
Nobody expected Sony to miss the all-vital Christmas shopping period, but it has happened. While the release date was originally plotted for October 2011 – a flyer from Blockbuster place the original PS Vita release date at 28 October.
Sony has now said that the PlayStation Vita UK release date is 22 February 2012 when 11 games will launch alongside the device in the UK.
On 14 September 2011, the PlayStation Vita was given a release date of 17 December in Japan, with a promised 26 games at launch and 100 in an unspecified ‘launch window’.
Sony has also announced that some gamers will be able to get their hands on the PS Vita early – for a price.
The PS Vita UK price is £229.99
The UK pre-order price for the Sony PlayStation Vita has been revealed, with both Play and Game offering the handheld for £279.99 (3G) and £229.99 (Wi-Fi). The handheld appears to be $299 in the US.
As the more eagle-eyed of you will notice, this is a near like-for-like dollar and pounds pricing strategy, something UK consumers are unfortunately getting used to now.
The PlayStation Vita specifications are pretty tasty
The PSP’s replacement has a five-inch, 16 million colour 960×544 OLED multi-touchscreen, twin cameras, twin speakers, two turntables and a microphone. We’re lying about the turntables.
You also get twin analogue sticks and a ridiculously powerful quad-core processor based on the ARM Cortex A9, the same kind of processor you’ll find in many top-end tablets. Expect four to five hours of battery life.
Some reports suggested that the PlayStation Vita’s memory would be slashed to cut costs. But according to a Sony press release in mid-August this isn’t the case; the specs revealed that the PS Vita will boast 512MB of RAM and 128MB of VRAM to go alongside this.
PlayStation Vita has a touch-sensitive back
The PS Vita has a touch-sensitive back so you can control the on-screen action without hiding it behind your fingers. The combination of a touchy front and back is fascinating – Sony talks about it enabling “touch, grab, trace, push and pull hand movements.”
Game developers have been working hard to incorporate the touchable back panel into their games.
Kotaku clarifies how it will work with FIFA. “One of the features they can up with is touch-panel shooting, where you use the rear panel to aim and kick. When you tap, the ball goes to the spot that corresponds to wherever your fingertip is.”
The PlayStation Vita graphics are POWERVR
The PlayStation Vita doesn’t just have that nifty quad-core processor: it’s got a quad-core PowerVR graphics processor too. We can summarise the spec of the SGX543MP4+ in one word: mighty.
Other features include a screen resolution of 640 x 480 (VGA), and frame rates will be 60 frames per second. This can be doubled, but, to 120fps but the resolution is cut to 320 x 240 (QVGA).
These PS Vita screenshots show off the PS Vita’s bubbly graphics. There’s certainly some colour there.
PlayStation Vita includes GPS
The Vita’s built-in GPS will mean some fascinating location-aware games via the PlayStation Network, and an application called Near will let you know if your friends are, you’ve guessed it, near you.
The Vita also includes a three-axis gyroscope, three-axis accelerometer and three-axis electronic compass for handheld-waggling motion-controlled tomfoolery.
PS Vita games won’t be download only
While UMD has bitten the dust as a distribution format, Sony hasn’t made a complete go to download-only as a form of distribution – there will still be physical products available if buyers want them.
“We believe, for some consumers, the time is [right], but for other consumers, the time is still not [right],” SCE Worldwide Studios (WWS) president Shuhei Yoshida tells our sister website Edge. “So we believe the time is still not right to go download-only as a platform. Some PS Vita titles, like Unchartered: Golden Abyss will be close to 4GB in size, which could be too large to download for consumers who do not have a quick broadband connection.”
Sony will be putting an initial limit of 20 MB on 3G downloads on the PlayStation Vita. That’s the same limit that the iPhone has over 3G.
It appears that some of PlayStation Vita’s launch titles will need to use an external memory card in order to save game files.
You can play PS3 games with the PS Vita
The new PS Vita has a remote play feature which will allow users to play all PlayStation 3 games through the handheld.
It seems an upcoming firmware update to the PS3 will unlock this feature and open the handheld up to remote gaming via a PlayStation 3 console.
Reports suggest you will only be able to play the games in PSP resolution which is just 480 x 272. The PS Vita will then upscale the content in real-time to match the resolution of its screen.
We’re not quite sure how excellent the quality of this will be, considering the PS Vita’s screen resolution is double that at 960 x 544.
PlayStation Vita connectivity
A Sony press release said: “by having both Wi-Fi and 3G network connectivity, together with various applications, PS Vita will enable infinite possibilities for users to ‘encounter,’ ‘connect,’ ‘learn,’ ‘share’ and ‘play’ with friends wherever they are.” That ‘sounds’ quite ‘excellent’, doesn’t ‘it’? There’s also Bluetooth 2.1.
PlayStation Vita won’t support Flash websites
According to Famitsu, Japanese buyers will be able to take advantage of HTML5 websites and those using Javascript 1.7, but Flash support will not be present at launch.
PlayStation Vita games
New titles scheduled to be released from SCE Worldwide Studios include Gravity Daze, Uncharted Golden Abyss, Small Deviants, Hot Shots Golf, Reality Fighter, Hustle Kings, ModNation Racers, Wipeout 2048 and Super Stardust Delta.
Uncharted: Golden Abyss and WipEout 2048 are the highlights there.
Other PlayStation Vita games, such as Capcom’s Street Fighter X Tekken, will be available from third-party game developers and publishers. ModNation Racers, Everybody’s Golf and Motorstorm RCare also slated for release as well as Zipper Interactive’s shooter Unit 13.
In a press release at Gamescom 2011, Ubisoft announced the development of six games for PlayStation Vita: Assassin’s Creed, Rayman Origins, Lumines, Asphalt, Dungeon Hunter Alliance and Michael Jackson the Experience.
Fascinatingly, it appears PlayStation Suite games will become available on more Android devices – Sony is set to release an SDK that will enable developers to develop games that will run on all PS Certified devices.
Here’s the full list of launch titles courtesy of our sister website CVG:
- Uncharted: Golden Abyss
- WipEout 2048
- Reality Fighters
- Small Deviants
- ModNation Racers: Road Trip
- Everybody’s Golf
- Escape Plot
- Gravity Rush
- Hustle Kings
- MotorStorm RC
- Top Darts
- Super StarDust Delta
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