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Sony brushes aside hacker woes, pushes new Vita portable and 3-D at E3
Photo by Chris Weeks, Associated Press
On Monday night, Sony could have announced that it had invented a time machine, gone back and prevented the hacking attacks of the last few months and still would have had a hard time capturing the attention of gamers and press who’ve grown weary of the company’s problems.
That its press event came on the same day as a whirlwind Apple presentation from CEO Steve Jobs, a solid-B showing from Microsoft, which is riding high on the success of its Xbox 360 Kinect hardware, and even an unexpected press conference from naughty U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner was just more bad luck for a beleaguered Sony.
Nevertheless, Sony did have some interesting new information to share and something Microsoft and Apple did not: new hardware. Sony unveiled the “Vita,” the new name for its previously announced “NGP” portable console, the successor to the Sony PSP, which has sold about 70 million units.
Sony did apologize in the presentation for its PlayStation Network outages.
The Vita, which doesn’t look that different from the PSP, has some flashy new features including a 5-inch OLED screen (which is also a touch screen), accelerometers, a camera and a rear touchpad that will assist in game controls. Like Nintendo’s recent 3DS console, it will also be able to detect when other Vita devices are nearby to share information and gameplay. It will cost $249 with Wi-Fi capabilities or $299 fora AT&T 3G-capable version.
Sony also rolled out a $499 3-D monitor package that will include a 24-inch HDTV display, the game “Resistance 3” and a pair of 3-D glasses. The neat feature here is that the monitor will be capable of displaying two different images for two separate players at the same time, providing split-screen-like gameplay if they both are wearing 3-D glasses.
Both the Vita and the $499 HDTV package should be out by the holidays. For more info, check out Joystiq’s live blog of the event, which includes info on specific games and demos.
On Tuesday, Nintendo is expected to roll out a successor to its generation-leading console the Wii, which could draw lots of attention away from Microsoft and Sony’s announcements.
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