PlayStation Vita will hit Japanese retailers by the end of the year and arrive in western territories in early 2012, Sony Corporation executive vice president Kazuo Hirai announced today.
Sony unveiled Vita earlier this year and confirmed at E3 in June that the handheld would arrive by the end of the FY2012, though wouldn’t go into any specific launch details.
Elsewhere, Hirai went on to dismiss speculation that Sony plans to lower the price of Vita in light of Nintendo’s decision to slash the cost of 3DS last week.
“We packed so much into the device and made it very affordable," Hirai told press in Tokyo. "There is no need to lower the price just because somebody else that happens to be in the video game business decided that they were going to lower their price."
PS Vita will get its first public demonstration at the Tokyo Game Show in September, with more details pertaining to the system’s launch expected to drop at GamesCom later this month.