Is the Playstation Vita hitting U.S. markets December 31?

By Rick Marshall Published October 19, 2011

Every week seems to bring a new potential U.S. release date for Playstation Vita, Sony’s next generation of handheld gaming system.

Just over a month ago, Sony indicated that the Vita will hit shelves in Japan before the end of the year, with U.S. and U.K. release dates to follow in early 2012. Now it appears that two notable retailers have a slightly different timeline for the system’s release.

According to both the Amazon and GameStop pre-order pages for Vita, the system will be released December 31, 2011 — giving U.S. fans a chance to welcome the new year with the next-gen handheld.

It’s worth noting that both sites also offer a list of games for the Vita also scheduled for a December 31 release, including Uncharted: Golden Abyss, Resistance: Burning Skies, and Street Fighter X Tekken.

Of course, all of this could just be a miscommunication about the system’s varying release dates around the world, since it was Sony Corp. Executive Vice President Kazuo Hirai himself who made the “early 2012” announcement. It’s also worth noting that Best Buy’s Canadian site listed a March 2012 release date for the system last month, too.

Keep your fingers crossed, eager Vita fans — at this point, it’s anybody’s guess when the system will make its way to shelves on this side of the ocean.

Topics

Former Digital Trends Contributor

A veteran journalist with more than two decades of experience covering local and national news, arts and entertainment, and…

Gaming

Best PlayStation deals: PS5, controllers, headsets on sale

PS5 and DualSense art.

With the latest iteration of the Sony PlayStation 5 out, the Slim version now is the perfect time to pick yourself up the PS5, especially if you're coming over from the older PS4. There are some good deals floating about, and while things are slowly building up for Prime Day in a couple of weeks, we're slowly starting to see more and more deals coming up. So, be sure to also check out our roundup of our favorite PS5 game deals, as well as some great gaming console deals if you want to pick up one of the other consoles potentially.
Sony PlayStation 5 Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 bundle — $509, was $600

If you’re looking to get your hands on a PlayStation 5 console with a game to get you going, try this bundle with Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. This console features the PlayStation 5’s slim design, yet still has 1TB of solid state storage built in. It also comes with one DualSense Wireless Controller, and of course, a digital voucher for Marvel’s Spider-Man 2.

Gaming

Astro Bot will reference one of PlayStation’s oldest memes

Astro Bot and its PlayStation character cameos, which include Aloy and Nathan Drake on the right.

The Astro Bot series is known for showcasing PlayStation history, with some incredible deep cuts and cameos. For the upcoming Astro Bot, which was officially announced during Sony's latest State of Play this week, that apparently comes in the form of a nearly 20-year-old meme.

In an interview with EW, Team Asobi head Nicolas Doucet mentioned some of the characters that players will encounter spread throughout the game's 80 planets. This includes some obvious inclusions, like Nathan Drake from the Uncharted franchise and Aloy from the Horizon games, but snuck into one of the paragraphs is mention of an island in the shape of a giant crab.

Gaming

Walmart is having a rare PS5 sale — save $50!

The PlayStation 5 Controller being used to play mobile games on an Apple TV 4K.

We don’t tend to see many PS5 deals still, even now that PS5 stock issues are a thing of the past. However, Walmart has bucked that trend by discounting the Sony PlayStation 5 Slim by $50. Normally costing $500, the console is down to $449 for a limited time only. That’s a big enough saving that you could buy a game or PS Plus subscription with the change. Keen to learn more about if the PS5 is for you? Let’s take a look.

Why you should buy the Sony PlayStation 5 Slim
Considered to be the best game console around at the moment, the PlayStation 5 is a delight to use. It offers speedy hardware with an eight-core CPU running on a modified version of AMD’s Ryzen line. With 10.28 teraflops of power, it supports great looking processes like ray tracing so you get advanced lighting while you play. Crucially, it’s the little things that soon add up like how if you play Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, fast traveling is instantaneous and instantly appealing.