PSVita (Successor to PSP, was PSP2 then NGP)

[abigsmurf]

Touchscreen controls were confirmed as optional I believe. Not sure if that means the glinting can be turned off.

I believe the buttons were confirmed as being the same size as the PSP ones. I'm hoping that the larger size of the vita will make the console a bit more comfy as I find the PSP slightly hard after a while when using the shoulder buttons heavily.

[mrhahn]

got to play on the new f1 on a vita last week. loved the nice bright screen, superb analog sticks and thought the gfx for a handheld were impressive.

[charlesr]

Ridge looks amazing.

[Neon Ignition]

Watching that Uncharted vid really rams home how the handheld is a huge leap on anything else that's available but also to what level it's underpowered compared to a PS3. Helps set my expectations to a more reasonable level.

Magicbox have reported that Sony has said the battery breaks down as:

Music - 9 Hours Playtime
Video - 5 Hours Playtime
Charge Time - 2hr 40m

Seems to pretty much set out that gaming will drain it in 3 hours.

[Brad]

Well seeing as Sony have a big battery coming out let's hope that some 3rd party beats them to it with a cheap Chinese version!

[Dogg Thang]

I know I should probably be happy they're getting a bigger battery out for launch but it just seems like a doctor walking into your ward grinning while showing you a fancy prosthetic leg, as if that makes it okay that he's about to lop your leg off. With the battery pack, it's really an acceptance of failure to manage the battery life of the handheld, whether through better power management or a better battery.

I know it doesn't seem to matter to some of you but the 3DS battery life has had a direct negative effect on the gaming experience for me, clapping out at all the wrong times and often with little warning. It has been, and continues to be, a pain in the ass. With the Vita, the shame is that everything else (if they deliver on what they're saying now) looks absolutely rosy. It seems like it's going to be a pretty fantastic handheld.

[Neon Ignition]

It's a shame as I don't think overall there's that much point to the 3G version of the PSVita so I'd have much preferred the 3G support to be dropped and the increase in price on that version justified by having the better battery built in

[abigsmurf]

I'll wait an see benchmarks on retail units, if the Vita gets over 3 hours 'normal' operation I'll be happy.

The Vita has a much better excuse for its battery life than the 3DS which has mediocre HW but still can't hit 3 hours in 'normal' mode.

[Brad]

I quite agree with you dogg thang. I've just tried to learn to lower my expectations. Everyone in this industry always seems to make some kind of cock up that stops a device from being perfect. Sony's Move controller is a current annoyance. They made everything more accurate and better but by insisting that the PS Eye be used to detect a coloured ball on the end of the controller (rather than copy Nintendo's pretty much flawless 2 x IR system) they made it so that full calibration needs to be done (at system level!) pretty much every time you turn the PS3 on. They don't tell anyone this and the end result is that people find the Move controls 'drift' around and end up concluding that it's worse than the Wii controller. Since 'discovering' this I've found that Move works brilliantly, every time and in every game but that's not the experience of most. In contrast, I put Metroid Prime on the Wii on and I get perfect gameplay every time without having to do anything.

[Neon Ignition]

The battery in the 3DS will likely be the first thing fixed in the eventual revision, the 3D support drains it hard and Nintendo made the mistake of attempting to maintain huge profit margins. The Vita is a little harder to call, there will no doubt be an endless series of revisions for that as well but the battery will probably be very incremental, maybe reaching 6 hours eventually given how much Sony has undercut the price on the hardware.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-09-19-playstation-vita-region-free

Re-confirmation of it being region free

[eastyy]

was listening to a pod cast someone was saying that the memory sticks the vita uses can only be used on the vita and nowhere else and the prices were huge...i think they said something around 30 $ for a 2gb ....does anyone know if its true ?

[randombs]

I seem to remember the PSP doing around 3 hours or so. Let's not forget that the 2h 40m charge time is for 100% charge(which is better than the 3DS time), but it'll likely charge to around 80% within an hour or so. Of course, that's no consolation if you're on a 3h trip with no way to top up!

I have one of those emergency USB battery chargers. Would probably be handy keeping one around as I imagine the Vita will charge over USB like the PSP(2000+) did.

was listening to a pod cast someone was saying that the memory sticks the vita uses can only be used on the vita and nowhere else and the prices were huge...i think they said something around 30 $ for a 2gb ....does anyone know if its true ?

Not sure why Sony would do something like this but maybe they'll be using special sticks for the games only? They could keep the same shape as regular memory sticks but make it a different format so you couldn't just insert one into your laptop and rip the games. Alternatively, it could be a new type which they'd then use in their cameras/phones/etc

[dataDave]

I know it doesn't seem to matter to some of you but the 3DS battery life has had a direct negative effect on the gaming experience for me, clapping out at all the wrong times and often with little warning. It has been, and continues to be, a pain in the ass. With the Vita, the shame is that everything else (if they deliver on what they're saying now) looks absolutely rosy. It seems like it's going to be a pretty fantastic handheld.

I really wouldn't mind as much if it went to a sleep mode. At least on my PSP when my battery dies I have a couple of days to get to a power source and save/continue my game. With the 3DS as soon as the half-way (actually 10% remaining) mark kicks in you have to beware of a sudden black-out which kills your game and any progress. This isn't a big deal now but with future RPGs I can see it being a massive problem.

I get 7hrs out of my PSP on lowest brightness and no audio. This is great. Hopefully I can reduce everything down to minimum on the Vita and get the same.

[Cornflakes]

Being a close format means that people will not be able to reproduce the cards. Looks like a way to prevent piracy, if you ask me. Even if people eventually hacked the system they will still have to buy the memory cards from sony. I reckon third party producing adapter/replicas will probably sued by sony, since no other system actually uses these type of cards.

[Neon Ignition]

Yup, the new card design has been confirmed and comes in 4 memory sizes. The biggest size is 32GB and when converted from Yen to GBP it works out at almost exactly ?80.

Actually, just found it:

•4GB - 2200 yen (?18)
•8GB - 3200 yen (?26)
•16GB - 5500 yen (?45)
•32GB - 9500 yen (?80)

Sony would be stupid to try hiking those prices any higher here. ?80 for 32GB is despicable.