Sony had a nice launch event of the PSVita this week, We were there and covered as much as we could, There is alot to cover about the new portable games console from Sony. The launch date for the PSVita in Ireland and most of the world is the 22nd of February. The price is €249.99 for the WiFi only version and 3G/WiFi for €299.99. You will also need to pick up a memory card which is not supplied with the PSVita, The memory cards come in different sizes at 4GB for €25:99, 8GB for €35:99 and 16GB for €45.99.
The PSVita brings with it not just a simple revision of the PSP, But a complete overhauled designed. This includes a 5″ OLED multi-touch display with a resolution if 960 x 544, A rear multi-touch pad for even more control over your games, A front and rear facing camera, But none of that is even remotely as important as the addition of second analog stick, The one feature that was lacking from previous PSP consoles. Sony have also upped the CPU/GPU to quad core arhcetecture. This means way more power to those games.
The PSVita also brings along with it WAR, Which is Wide Augmented Realaity, The basis for augmented reality have been around for sometime on smartphone and such, But Sony have take a shot at it and decided to introduce it to gaming.
Check out the video below for some more information
Now let’s take a look at all the specs.
- CPU – ARM® Cortex™- A9 core (4 core)
- GPU – SGX543MP4+
- External Dimensions – Approx. 182.0 x 18.6 x 83.5mm (width x height x depth) (tentative, excludes largest projection)
- Screen – (Touch Screen) 5 inches (16:9), 960 x 544, Approx. 16 million colors, OLED. Multi touch screen (capacitive type)
- Rear Touch Pad – Multi touch pad (capacitive type)
- Cameras – Front camera, Rear camera
- Sound – Built-in stereo speakers, Built-in microphone
- Sensors – Six-axis motion sensing system (three-axis gyroscope, three-axis accelerometer), Three-axis electronic compass
- Location – Built-in GPS Wi-Fi location service support
- Keys / Switches – PS button – Power button
- Directional buttons (Up/Down/Right/Left)
- Action buttons (Triangle, Circle, Cross, Square)
- Shoulder buttons (Right/Left) Right stick, Left stick, START button, SELECT button, Volume buttons (+/-)
- Wireless Communications – Mobile network connectivity (3G), IEEE 802.11b/g/n (n = 1×1)(Wi-Fi)(Infrastructure mode/Ad-hoc mode), Bluetooth® 2.1+EDR (A2DP/AVRCP/HSP)
Now sony certaintly have crammed alot of stuff into the PSVita, Which is why it’s battery life isn’t mentition there, The battery life is rated at 3-5 hours usages, Which probably means that it gets around 2 hours of non stop gaming, Making the few adjustments to brightness levels, have Wifi off when you don’t need it, and of course it depends soley on the game you are playing and if it requires alot of CPU/GPU usage.
That being said the remove of the UMD drive from the previous PSP was always taught of to be a battery save, But since the PSVita has upgraded everything from the screen to the CPU, GPU, RAM and added touch screen, The battery life seems to have suffered alot because of this, What’s even worse is that the PSvita does not have a removable battery pack. This is bad news for those wishing to use there PSVita on long journies, Sony have announced the release of an external battery pack for the PSVita, But that doesn’t account for the fact it would have been easier to make the battery removable, Well at least easier for the consumers anyway.
CPU/GPU
Now the battery life shouldn’t come as a surprise to you as the PSVita is a powerhouse of a device, Featuring a quad core ARM cortex a9 processor, and a quad core graphics card, The PSVita is said to bring along with it current console gen like graphics, Which to be honest this is obviously no easy thing to do, Although we are seeing some amazing graphics on smartphone, They are nowhere near the quality we come to expect from console games, Like Uncharted for the PS3 or Gears of war for the Xbox 360.
Now can the new CPU/GPU over such graphics or is the PSVita really concentrating on different styles of gaming using both the display touchscreen and the rear touchpad, Also not to forget the new augment reality, Which is probably a highlight of the PSVita, But let’s face it, Graphically appealing games are exactly what people want, The PSVita cannot escape the fact of it’s original design.
Gaming
Here we have a quick video of Wipe out 2048, While it’s difficult to tell from the video, The game looked amazing and played incredibly smooth, The colours were fantastic and you could tell the OLED screen made a difference. The CPU/GPU were definitely doing there jobs there and i must say, They do them well. This game had some serious graphics to show off and I’ll be honest, The goal of reaching console like graphics doesn’t seem all that bleak anymore.
There isn’t much more we can say about the PSVita until it’s launched and we have one in are hands for a few day, That goes for anything we talk about. The question will be whether or not this new portable gaming system from Sony will actually make it or be a complete flop that no one wishes to buy. That might come down to the amount of developers they have for it and it does seem like they are getting alot of exclusive titles and defineitly alot of upcoming titles that will be interesting to see.
For now, We can just take a look at some more pictures in the below gallery
