Skip to main content

Do new colors and PlayStation Plus make up for the lack of a PS Vita price drop?

ps vita price drop
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Sony didn’t just announce a grossly overpriced new PlayStation 3 at its Tokyo Game Show event on Wednesday morning. It had a little bit of news to share about the PlayStation Vita as well. The game announcements were less notable than those at the Gamescom conference in 2012 unfortunately. Reason being, most of the games announced are targeted only at the Japanese market. There’s little likelihood that the big-breasted-ninja game Senran Kagura or Monster Hunter clone God Eater 2 will be making it to the US anytime soon.

PlayStation Plus for the PS Vita, on the other hand, will absolutely be a selling point for the struggling portable in the coming months. Sony already confirmed that PlayStation Plus would extend its reach to Vita at Gamescom but it was only at TGS that pricing and release info was made available. Vita gets PlayStation Plus in November for $18 per month or $50 per year, and that fee will net you discounts on myriad downloadable games and free access to others.

Recommended Videos

Sony also announced a couple of new Vita colors, namely a snappy red console and a nice blue one as well. These are only confirmed for Japan at the moment, but Sony never shied away from releasing new PSP colors with regularity. The US will still get access to the white PS Vita when it comes out bundled with Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation in October.

Sony already said in August that it didn’t plan on a PS Vita price drop before 2013, but it’s still disappointing to have TGS come and go without Sony attempting to incentivize a purchase of the handheld. The Vita’s a great gaming machine, with some quality games. Gravity Rush, Sound Shapes, LittleBigPlanet PS Vita, and others have made the Vita’s first year more memorable than PSP’s first three years on shelves combined. At $250, without one of Sony’s expensive proprietary 32GB memory cards, Sony just doesn’t have a machine to entire people yet. They’re spending on Kindle Fire, on the iPhone 5, on the iPod Touch, and even Nintendo 3DS before they are Vita. The only thing that Sony can do to lure them in is to either drop the price, or bundle both the PlayStation 3 and the PS Vita together at $350, positioning it as a Wii U competitor.

Anthony John Agnello
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Anthony John Agnello is a writer living in New York. He works as the Community Manager of Joystiq.com and his writing has…
PlayStation’s 30th anniversary PS5 collection is pure nostalgia
A PlayStation 30th anniversary DualsSense, PlayStation 5 Slim, and disc drive displayed in front of a white background.

PlayStation already announced that it's planning a variety of releases and other surprises for its 30th anniversary, and on Thursday, it revealed a collection of special-edition consoles and accessories that bring back a flood of memories.

The company is selling two bundles: a PlayStation 5 Digital Edition with a 1TB solid-state drive and a PlayStation 5 Pro with a 2TB solid-state drive and some extra goodies, like a DualSense Edge and controller charging station. The disc drive is still sold separately, although you do get a vertical stand this time. Both bundles come with a cable connector, four cable ties in PlayStation face button shapes, a sticker, a poster, and a PlayStation Paperclip. You can also get the DualSense and DualSense Edge controllers separately, along with a PlayStation Portal.

Read more
Don’t expect PlayStation to abandon consoles for PCs any time soon
A PS5 sits on a table with a DualSense standing up next to it.

Sony has recently had a lot of success publishing its first-party PlayStation 5 games to PC, but that doesn't mean the company is going to become a PC company first.

In an interview with Japanese publication Nikkei (via Video Games Chronicle), Hideaki Nishino, head of Sony Interactive Entertainment's Platform Business Group, said that that Sony will continue to make content for PCs, but "there is no doubt" that consoles will continue to be the priority.

Read more
Play this highly-anticipated indie for free on PlayStation Plus next week
A character in Plucky Squire punching an enemy on what looks like a picture book.

PlayStation Plus already kicked off September with Harry Potter's Quidditch Champions and MLB The Show 24, but the service is getting a bunch of amazing indies in the second half of the month -- including one that's caught the eye of many players thanks to its unique visual style.

The Plucky Squire from All Possible Futures and Devolver Digital is the headliner for the latest PlayStation Plus catalog announcement. It'll be offered starting on its launch date, September 17, along with the rest of the games on the list. It's about the eponymous plucky squire Jot and his friends, storybook characters who have to jump across our three-dimensional world to defeat the evil villain Humgrump. It's an action-adventure game with combat, puzzles, and platforming challenges, and it feels fresh thanks to its combination of 2D and 3D animation, which you can see for yourself in the adorable trailer below.

Read more