We were crushed when we heard that the PlayStation Vita wouldn't be releasing in the US in 2011. Crushed. Sure, Sony had never said it would be hitting US shores this year, but we sort of assumed that it would. Thankfully, even though we won't be unwrapping Sony's handheld for Christmas, we won't be waiting much longer: today, CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment, Jack Tretton, announced the official release date for the United States, Canada, Latin America, and Europe: February 22, 2011.
Now that we know the date and the price (the Wi-Fi version is $249.99, while the 3G version runs $50 higher at $299.99), all that's left is learning about the launch lineup. There are dozens of awesome looking games in development for the handheld, and, as we learned with the Nintendo 3DS, having an impressive stable of games available at launch is extremely important. In the past, systems could float with only a handful of interesting games, but in an industry diluted with high-quality games, pushing out hardware just isn't enough anymore. Sony knows this, and wrote on the PlayStation blog that it's "first-party studios and army of publishing partners have been extremely hard at work to ensure that PS Vita launches with a vast library of titles that deliver unique gameplay experiences that go beyond any handheld or mobile device on the market."
So, are you ready to pick up the Vita, or are you going to wait to make sure that Sony doesn't make the same mistakes Nintendo made this handheld generation?
Oct 18, 2011
