Sony PlayStation Vita Launch Review

PS Vita review by UVM media writer Mike Brooks:

The handheld gaming market has always been a highly competitive one. Many of us have fond early memories of the battle between Nintendo’s Game Boy and Sega’s Game Gear. Where the Game Boy had 8-bit graphics and its black and white color tone, Game Gear had a full color display and allowed you to take a very convincing Sonic The Hedgehog experience with you on the go. However, Nintendo had a much more installed user base and continued to innovate where Sega did not.
Fast forward a couple of decades and Nintendo is still the undisputed king of the handheld market with its highly successful Game Boy Advance and newly released Nintendo DS which featured cutting edge graphics, dual screens, and touch controls. But at this time a new contender joined the playing field. On May 11, 2004, at a Sony press conference before E3, Sony officially unveiled its very own handheld dubbed the PSP (PlayStation Portable). This new contender boasted near PlayStation 2 level of graphics and gameplay and looked to give Nintendo’s upcoming DS a run for its money. The PSP released almost a year after Nintendo’s newest handheld and was met with mixed reviews at launch. The system had some trouble generating steam in a market where Nintendo already had a significant foothold. Some of the common complaints consumers and critics alike had with the platform was its lack of a second analog “nub” and the PSP’s UMD (Universal Media Disc) format which made for some excessively long loading times. Despite some initial hiccups at launch the PSP eventually picked up steam and even gave the DS a run for its money with the launch of triple-A titles like Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops and God Of War: Chains Of Olympus. However, with triple-A titles of its own and significantly cheaper price tag the DS was still outselling the PSP. The Nintendo 3DS was released in Japan on February 26, 2011, in Europe on March 25, 2011, & in North America on March 27, 2011 as a successor to its wildly popular DS and boasted enhanced graphical capability and 3D gaming without the need for 3D glasses. It was met with a lukewarm response due to its relatively weak launch lineup. As the year went on the handheld found its stride.
Nearly a year later Sony released their highly anticipated successor to the PSP, dubbed the PlayStation Vita in Japan and parts of Asia on December 17, 2011. Followed by Europe, North America, South America, and Singapore on February 22, 2012. Now as a fan of Sony’s PlayStation branded products this thing was a must have portable gaming beast and I was there at launch to get my hands on it. After spending significant time with the handheld, here is my in-depth review of the PlayStation Vita and a look at a few of it’s launch titles.

Download the full review (with pictures!) from MediaFire:  http://www.mediafire.com/?z5oth9fyfd4mm6l
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