In the past two weeks the newest handheld of the eight generation of gaming has arrived. The Playstation Vita made its debut in late February to North American markets and has quickly proven to be a title that can compete with the Nintendo 3DS for the market share of handhold gaming. As Playstation and Nintendo are the only two franchises that currently have handheld gaming consoles, the PS VITA will be the flagship of Playstation's attempt to dominate the handhold niche. With the processing power of the Playstation 2 console in a pocket-sized shell, it is great for gamers who have a few minutes (or hours) to kill.
Similar in look and feel to its predecessor the Playstation Portable (or PSP), the Vita uses two analog sticks, geometric buttons, and a direction pad like the controller of a normal Playstation, all sandwiched around the central display. Unlike previous models, however, this unit is capable of touchscreen interface as well as Wi-Fi connections. The Playstation Vita Wi-Fi not only can run specific apps in the same sense as a smartphone, but can also download e-books and programs used on netbooks. Unlike Nintendo's 3DS, the Vita has been aggressively marketed as much more than a video game player.
The most interesting feature of the Vita may be that it runs an entirely new operating system. The traditional interface of Playstation products has been updated with a touchscreen system called LiveArea, allowing users to check out various programs for games, web browsing, photos, music, the Playstation Store (where apps can be purchased), and any friends playing online. While there are some limitations to the Vita web browser -- it cannot run Adobe Flash, the program that YouTube videos are played on -- it can nevertheless give Internet access that rivals the connections of iPhones or Androids. The most popular apps are similar to those of smart phones: social networking, such as Facebook and Twitter, are all available free of charge, while sites like Wikipedia charge only a small fee.
With nearly three dozen titles available on launch, along with dozens of download-only titles. The highly anticipated forth chapter in the Uncharted series, Golden Abyss, has been released as a Vita exclusive, while the third installment of Assassin's Creed, the Brotherhood game, is sold in some packages with the console itself. The Vita is also backwards-compatible with PSP titles, allowing players to go through their library of old games on a new machine.
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