Playstation Vita

[Dark Jaguar]

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2011/...3g-299.ars

That's what it'll be called. There will be one with Wifi and one with 3G. The 3G one will, in America, be locked to AT&T. The press audience was NOT polite about it (nor should they be) openly booing the announcement. Good for them. Devices really should be service agnostic. I'd hate to get routers that were locked to Comcast or Cox. In this case, it's going to cost $299. Unless that's STILL being subsidized by a contract (doubtful, the wifi-only one isn't something you get from a cell phone provider), then we're paying full price and still don't have full freedom.

Expect this to be unlocked about as fast as the PSP was.

[A Black Falcon]

$250 with wi-fi and $300 with 3G are pretty good prices, it's impressive that Sony matched Nintendo... gives them a little more of a chance. I think the 3DS is certainly going to win, but this might help Sony do better than it would have with a higher-priced system.

Of course though, Nintendo can just reduce the 3DS price (and $250 is ... pretty high, to say the least), and its big games of the year are still upcoming, while Sony announced nothing of note for the Vita, so I think the Sony fans calling this "the death of the 3DS" and absurd things like that ridiculously wrong, but it does give Sony a bit more of a chance than it had.

[Dark Jaguar]

I have to wonder just how much Sony is losing with every one of these. I knew they'd have to subsidize to sell the thing as it'd be insane to try and sell it for anything over $300. My main worry is just how much money Sony's been bleeding over the past few years.

[Weltall]

I wonder how playing games online with AT&T's 150MB bandwidth cap is going to be. Besides expensive.

Expect the 3G version to disappear within a year of release.

[Dark Jaguar]

The state of American cell phone service is abysmal. That's not the case in Europe and Japan though. It may disappear in America, but if the system does well at all, I expect that model to be the dominate one overseas.

[A Black Falcon]

Well Sony is rumored to have cut the system's specs recently -- reducing the amount of RAM in the Vita and dropping all internal storage -- in order to reduce the price... I still do expect that they're losing money on each sale, but not as much as they would have been, probably.

Also, only the Japanese launch is guaranteed this year; the US and Europe will quite likely not get it until early 2012.

[A Black Falcon]

http://www.examiner.com/video-game-in-na...table-3yrs

Vita will indeed be being sold for a loss, and they don't expect it to become profitable for three years. Sony being Sony indeed...

[Dark Jaguar]

And yet all this aside... I just realized that essentially the Vita could easily be used the same way as the Wii U controller, but for the PS3... Huh...

[A Black Falcon]

Sony might be thinking along the same lines.

http://www.develop-online.net/news/37930...xperiments

Of course though, getting a PS3 and a Vita is a bit more expensive than buying a single console that comes with the tablet...

[Dark Jaguar]

Well, keep in mind the PS3 already has a wide install base from the start, as opposed to also introducing a PS4.

[A Black Falcon]

True, but still it is a more expensive option, like the GC-GBA link that was held back by the cost.

Also, Vita FAQ posted.

http://us.playstation.com/support/answer...?a_id=2254

Two major bits of news -- the Vita battery won't be removable, it'll be embedded (thanks to the rear touch panel, apparently... but that is a bad, bad decision for sure!), and there will be no video output, unlike the PSP.

[Dark Jaguar]

Oh it'll be removable. Maybe not by design, but I'll get it out of there.

[A Black Falcon]

Yeah, but you'll have to break the warranty to do it. That's not good.

[Dark Jaguar]

By the time I need to replace the battery, it'll be past warranty anyway.