During a SCEJA conference earlier this morning Sony announced two surprise new products to the Vita line.
Firstly, and perhaps the most un-surprising of the two is a new lighter, slimmer Vita.
The new portable revision comes two years after the launch of the Vita so it’s around the time we’d see a smaller (read: cheaper) revision. Cheaper here is a standout word because aside from the Vita’s original headline horsepower was its OLED screen which has been nixed in favour of a normal backlit LCD offering. There’s no specific information on the grade of the new panel but it would be safe to say it’s not going to stand up to its predecessor.
Lastly, the new Vita will offer six colours to chose from and cost slightly less than the ‘fat’ at 18,980 yen with the value proposition shored up by an included 1GB on-board storage – the original Vita came with no storage as standard event though it was required to play games.
Secondly, the bolt from the blue was that Sony is releasing a Vita without a screen that links up to your TV.
As you can see in the above image the device is absolutely tiny (6cm x 10cm).
The PS Vita TV (PSVTV?) will play all Vita, PSP and PS1 games fine on your TV as well as work as a remote play device for the PS4. There is a Vita card slot for ‘disk’ based games too as well as a memory card slot and, obviously, HDMI out.
I think it’s clear this is Sony’s Apple TV, and to me personally, a lot more compelling. There will be support for Hulu and the like from the off of course backed up by a massive backlog of games.
The PSVTV comes in at around £63 with an economical conversion from the yen (9,480 ) so maybe expect it at around £70 when it arrives on these shores – if ever – Sony announced no release date along with the new Vita revision for anywhere outside Japan.
