2012's Most Wanted: PS Vita

February 22. A date that should be marked in your calendars as the coming of the next generation of handheld entertainment. Sure, Nintendo 3DS was nice with its 3D effect, and multiple innovative features, but if the hype is to be believed the PS Vita is essentially a Playstation 3 that fits neatly in your pocket.

The PS Vita is Sony's answer to the riddle of how to properly break into the handheld market. Where the PSP saw success in some areas, PS Vita, has been designed to be a worldwide success - and with enough horse power and innovation to convince both longtime Playstation fans and early tech adopters.

The first thing about the PS Vita that strikes is just how sleek and beautiful the device is. Extremely light in your hand, surprisingly ergonomic, and with a dizzying array of control options within your grasp.

With a 4 core ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore processor and a 4 core SGX543MP4+ graphics processing unit the PS Vita has been compared to a slightly underpowered Playstation 3, and the crisp 5" OLED screen (960x544), does its bit to help bring forth visuals you will find it hard to believe (until you see them for yourself). Sony obviously wanted to afford developers every conceivable method of input when they designed the Vita, and in addition to the dual analogue sticks, face buttons, and shoulder buttons you've come to expect, there is touch screen, back touch pad, gyro, as well as front and back cameras (key to those augmented really features).

Our reservations against the PS Vita are mainly to do with Sony's inability to make PSP successful in Western markets. Sure, the hardware sold in decent amounts, but for the last couple of years it has essentially been a dead platform even if there has been the occasional great game released. Do Sony really understand the needs of handheld gamers over here? So far a lot of attention has been reserved for handheld takes on popular home console franchises such as Uncharted, Resistance, Wipeout, Motorstorm and Little Big Planet. Will that be enough to make it a success? How has third party support been impacted by the sluggish sales of PSP? Sure, all the major Japanese players are on board, but that's to be expected given the mammoth popularity of PSP in Japan, but how will Activision, EA, Ubisoft and others treat PS Vita. Are we in for half-assed ports of PS3 titles signed off on by second grade developers? It's obviously an attractive dumping ground for ports in the early stages of its life when there are a lot of new owners looking for some decent software for their new handheld, but hopefully it won't impact the Vita too much.

Another issue is battery life, something that is also true for Nintendo 3DS and the PSP. Sony has been quoted as saying the Vita battery will last for 3-5 hours of gameplay (5 hours of video playback/9 hours of music listening with the screen off). Not a lot when you're on a transatlantic flight, but hopefully later models will come with better battery life, and we're sure to see some third party solution for the issue (although those are seldom very handsome).

One very interesting detail about the PS Vita is that alongside retail releases of the game all software titles will be available for digital download simultaneously. In Japan, digital copies are less expensive and it has been speculated that there will be a similar system applied in Europe with as much as a 40 per cent difference in price between digital and physical products. If this is true, it shows that Sony are starting to understand the realities of the digital future, but it may also spell trouble for them at retail. The download only model of PSP, PSP Go, was pretty much doomed for the get go as retailers had little interest in selling the model, and while no similar sentiments have surfaced yet when it comes to Vita, it could spell trouble down the line.

Our the last six months or so we've tried a number of PS Vita titles, at E3, Gamescom, Tokyo Game Show and various events. It is easy to see that Sony got the development kits for PS Vita out early as there is a surprising amount of titles that have been shown in playable form already. While there are some obvious highlights in the shape of established franchises such as Little Big Planet, Uncharted: Golden Abyss, Resistance: Burning Skies, and Wipeout 2048 - it should also be noted that Sony are bringing out some brand new ideas to the platform - titles like Reality Fighters and Little Deviants are designed from the ground up to take advantage of the hardware features. In a way it's almost a shame that these titles have to compete for attention with established and powerful franchises such as the above mentioned as they will likely struggle. Little Deviants, for instance, could be the "Wii Sports" of the PS Vita if given proper exposure - it really showcases all the various hardware features in easy to grasp mini games - it would suggest Sony bundle it with the device, or perhaps include a decent size demo so everyone can try a few mini games and have something quick and easy to show off to their friends. For more on Little Deviants check out the video interview further down the story.

As far as third party support goes, the Japanese publishers are well on track with the device, while Western publishers have yet to fully commit even if a Call of Duty title has been promised. We think you can expect a fair amount of ports, and hopefully these will measure up to their console counterparts. A few notable third party titles include Lumines Electronic Symphony, Touch My Katamari, Super Monkey Ball: Banana Splitz, and Sumioni, along with the usual offering of sports titles and racing games you would associate with any hardware launch.

For now, we'll conclude that there is every reason to feel upbeat about the prospects of the PS Vita.