geekosystem

Digital comics seem to be the way of the future: Storing comics on a computer is great for world travellers living in small apartments, but bad news for collectors who like to show off their life experience with stacks of longboxes. The collectors have a point: Downloading comics instead of keeping physical copies definitely has its pitfalls. You never know when your comic-reading platform of choice may just decide to shut down forever. Case in point, Sony announced that they plan to shut down the PSP's comic book store at the end of October.

Security was a major issue for Sony when they designed the PS Vita. Anyone who's familiar with the PSP likely knows that the console is one of the easiest consumer gadgets to crack out there: It was (and is) very easy to pirate PSP games, and that's something Sony does not intend to allow on the PS Vita. Despite Sony's best efforts, no device is "unhackable": Self-proclaimed reverse engineer Yifan Lu says he's found an exploit in the system that will eventually allow custom software to run on the device. While many gaming pirates are hopeful that the breakthrough will lead to hackers eventually jailbreaking the PS Vita, Lu says that his work doesn't allow people to pirate games, and he has no intention of helping them figure out how to do so.

It looks as though Sony is following Microsoft's suit and offering up a free PlayStation 3 or a free PS Vita with the purchase of a Sony VAIO computer.

Unfortunately, Sony has announced that it will not bring its UMD Passport program to the U.S., which means that U.S. PS Vita owners will not be able to bring their UMD PSP games to the upcoming handheld. The UMD Passport program allows owners to register their UMD PSP games via an application obtained from the PlayStation Store, which in turn allows them to purchase and download the digital version of the game for a reduced price.

The PS Vita launched this past Saturday in Japan, a few months before the U.S. and European launch date of February 22, 2012 (not counting the early release bundle), moving 321,400 units in only two days. Not a bad launch considering the two day figure, but like most brand new hardware, the PS Vita is not without some obnoxious launch flaws, such as system freezes that come with an unresponsive touch screen and buttons. Yes, the power button counts as a button, which is unresponsive, so users have to remove the battery to unstick the machine. Yikes.

Sony's PSP successor, the PS Vita, released in Japan over the weekend, a handful of months before the U.S. and European February 22, 2012 release date. One early adopter stacked the PS Vita up to other handheld consoles, as well as some PS Vita game boxes, to give everyone a size comparison of the new unit: It's noticeably larger when placed next to other units, but it isn't the largest one around, only slightly bigger than the PSP.

Sony's followup to the PSP, the PS Vita, is releasing on February 22, 2012, but if you want to get yourself a Vita a full week before the official release date, you can grab the First Edition Bundle a full week ahead of time on February 15. There is a bundle for the U.S. and one for Canada, with the U.S. nabbing the 3G + Wi-Fi model and Canada receiving the cheaper Wi-Fi only model. Aside from variant PS Vitas, both bundles come with a 4 GB PS Vita memory card, a limited edition case, and Little Deviants, the obligatory launchgame  mini-game compilation that showcases a device's capabilities. The 3G + Wi-Fi bundle will be selling for $350, while the Wi-Fi only bundle will be selling for $299, each bundle only $50 more than the base PS Vita units.

So, are you anticipating the PS Vita enough to where you'd shell out an extra $50 of getting your hands on it and Little Deviants a week earlier than you otherwise would have?

Sony announced the U.S. and European launch date for their follow-up to the PSP, the PS Vita. The PS Vita is set to launch in Japan in December, and will follow with its U.S. and European launch only a couple of months after, on February 22, 2012. Some may be disappointed that the PS Vita launch window will miss U.S. holiday season, but it'll actually come as boon to those who are already going to be very busy and could use both a breather for themselves and their wallet. Notable franchises the system will be launching with include an original Uncharted, LittleBigPlanet, and Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3.

The PS Vita will launch with two models: A Wi-Fi only model at $249, and a 3G (which still has the Wi-Fi, of course) for an extra $50, putting the model with fancier connectivity options sitting tight at $299. Sony has yet to slip word on the pricing structure for the 3G model, or if it'll even be offered on multiple carriers as of yet, as I'm sure people who, for example, already pay a pretty penny for a data plan on Verizon would like to just roll their 3G Vita into that, rather than have to pay for a separate carrier and separate data plan. However, it wouldn't be surprising if PS Vita owners had their own special 3G plan that is structured differently than phone data plans. One can only assume that we'll get wind of the pricing soon enough.

We've seen what Microsoft had (or didn't have, depending on how disappointed you were) to offer from this year's E3. Did Sony do any better? The short of it: It was similarly predictable, though it did have a few more interesting surprises -- the price and date of the PSP2, otherwise known as the NGP, now officially known as the PS Vita have been set, and Sony matched Nintendo's flailing 3DS in price with a $249 price tag on the non-3G PS Vita model and a $299 price tag on the 3G-enabled model. An honestly stunning move, considering the Vita's tech is far more powerful than the tech inside the 3DS and must be much more expensive to produce. They also announced a 24-inch PlayStation brand 3D television and 3D glasses bundle for the (again) honestly low price of $499. As for games, everything we already knew about: Uncharted 3 looked great, the previously-mentioned God of War PSP games bundle is indeed coming to the PS3, BioShock Infinite will include Move functionality and come with a free copy of BioShock, the Ico and Shadow of the Colossus HD remake bundle got dated for September, and there was a bunch of PS Vita news, as well as a few new games and added Move support. Jack Tretton also gave a sincere, though kind of awkward, apology regarding the recent PlayStation Network hack mess.

Are you ready to dive into Sony's presser?