Today marks the day Sony launches its much-hyped successor to the PSP, the Playstation VITA…
Touting two multi-touch pads, one on the front screen, and one on the rear of the device, it’s clear that it’s gunning for iOS. We got hands-on with it at last years E3 and were impressed with its visual prowess in both the quality and resolution of the screen, and the PS3 like like graphics it was able to push out. An early demo of Uncharted – now a full VITA game called Uncharted: Gold Abyss – impressed us with its graphics, and how you could control Nathan Drake with both touch panels in conjunction with the twin analogue sticks.
There has been lots of press about the VITA in the run up to today’s release, but not all good. One of the main drawbacks, and no doubt a ploy from Sony to make the device seem cheaper than it is, was to not include the proprietary flash memory storage, and instead sell it at ridiculous prices ($99 for 32GB). Sure, the VITA is half the price of an iPad, but after upgrading it with flash storage and shelling out for a couple of games, you won’t be far off the iPad price.
The VITA is certainly an impressive piece of kit, but with recent news that Nintendo’s 3DS is doing record sales in Japan, and with Apple’s AppStore continuing to challenge the more traditional style marketplaces for gaming on consoles, it’s hard to predict how the hardcore-like VITA will do.
Our very own Torbjorn Kamblad received his shiny new VITA in the post yesterday (a result of an early pre-order). So look out for our thoughts on how the VITA fairs against the iPhone and iPad. Afterall, this site is called TouchGen (Touch Generation) and so it would be foolish to ignore the dual touch screens of the VITA.
Are you planning on purchasing a VITA? And do you already have an iPad or iPhone? Sound off in the comments below.
