Having a hands-on experience with the PlayStation Vita was a highlight of E3 for me. The thing was solid, the graphics were amazing, and it was an all-around intuitive piece of personal technology. Though no street date for the Vita had been officially announced, the general tech public believed that it would be released this year. However, we did know that it would be an incredibly tricky release, and PlayStation warned that the release will only even begin later this year. Well Sony exec, Kaz Hirai, has just announced that the only country seeing the Vita this year will be Japan, everyone else (America and Europe) will have to wait until 2012.
Now one of the major talking points that came with this news was questions of whether the announced price of the Vita will be dropped in accordance with Nintendo’s 3DS price cut. To that Kaz Hirai pretty much said a resounding hell no!
“We packed so much into the device and made it very affordable,” Hirai said. “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.”
Thanks Kotaku!