Hardcore gamers on the go have a powerful new weapon in Sony’s PlayStation Vita.
Released Wednesday as the central component of a $299 “Launch Bundle,” the Vita, which looks and performs like a PlayStation Portable on steroids, easily outperforms Nintendo’s portable offering – the 3DS, released last March.
The Vita lacks the Nintendo’s 3D capabilities, but corrects the PSP’s biggest flaws by adding a bevy of control options.
Now, there’s a beautiful 5-inch touchscreen, which makes the device almost feel like a tablet computer, a second analog stick for better control while playing first-person shooters, a large touchpad on the Vita’s back and motion-sensitive controls just like a PS3 controller.
Another PSP sore point, the noisy and slow Universal Media Disc drive, has been removed. Vita games are distributed on silent but pricey ($39-$49) memory cards, or downloaded from the PlayStation Network and stored on a secondary “PSVita” memory card. Some downloaded games are as cheap as $10.
When the Vita is made available as a standalone item Feb. 22, owners will need to buy the proprietary PSVita card, which costs about $20 for a 4 gigabtye version, to play most games.
Two versions of the Vita will be released Feb. 22, one with 3G/Wi-Fi ($299) and one with just Wi-Fi ($249).
The good:
- 25 good to great launch titles, including Uncharted: Golden Abyss, Rayman Origins, FIFA Soccer, Little Deviants and Wipeout 2048. Most downloaded PSP games will also work on the Vita.
- The hardware is impressive. Two quad-core CPUs run blisteringly fast games with ease. Graphically, most games seem almost on par with those on the PlayStation 3 console.
- The operating system has a few quirks, but runs smoothly.
- The web browser is fast.
- GPS with Google Maps. Other handy apps (Netflix, Twitter and Facebook) will be released later this month.
- The 5-inch OLED capacitive touchscreen is bright and much larger (960×544) than the PSP (3.8 inch) or 3Ds (3.5 inch).
- Great overall build quality.
The not-so-good:
- Those will a collection of games on UMD are out of luck. The Vita has no way of playing them.
- Cellphones, which also play games, are getting smaller, but Sony's handhelds are getting larger. The Vita does not fit comfortably in most pockets.
- No video output.
- No Flash or HTML5 support for the web browser.
- The front and rear cameras are weak (640×480, 0.3 megapixels) but good enough for game interactivity.
- The 3G version requires paying AT&T for service, at least $15 a month.
- Remote Play remains largely useless.
- MLB The Show 12 hasn't been released yet!
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