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Sony’s wasting no time locking in launch plans for its next handheld.
The format-holder has tonight confirmed the PlayStation Vita will arrive in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Australasia on Wednesday, February 22nd.
North America gets the handheld on the same day.
That’s just two months after the Japanese launch, which takes place on December 17th.
Vita is available in two variants – a WiFi and 3G/WiFi model, priced €249 and €299 respectively.
The device is a powerful addition to the pure-play handheld games market – it boasts traditional game control inputs, plus a touchscreen, rear touchpad, cameras and microphone.
While its primary functions are games, Sony has packed it full of connectivity elements for multiplayer and social use.
It uses a new proprietary storage format card for games sold at retail, but is built with downloads in mind – all games for it will be released as downloads, and only the bigger titles (bigger in terms of publisher support, budget, and expectations) will be available on card.
At both E3 and Gamescom this year Sony promoted a raft of games for the device such as a new Uncharted game, a new version of LittleBigPlanet and many others. The firm says that well over 100 games are in production at its own studios and those owned by third-party publishers.
