All the PS Vita information from E3 2011

Sony’s E3 2011 presentation has just ended and with it came a wealth of  information for its next generation successor to the PSP, the PS Vita.

That’s right, it has been confirmed that the NGP will now be called the PS Vita. Whenever people will complain, prefer it or just not care remains to be seen.

Before the games were shown, Kazou Harai talked about the features of the PS Vita, going through what most of us know (slide pad, dual analog sticks, sexy shape) to explaining some of the more fun features such as Party where you can communicate with your friends and see what game they are playing and the Near app, which tracks your location and shows you where you;ve travelled. It also connect with other PS Vita users to show you what popular games are being played, what else is being played. It will also allow you to buy the games that are being shown. Handy if you bumped into a Monster Hunter group and wanted to join in (you know a Monster Hunter game for the PS Vita is inevitable).

Of course it was the games most of us wanted to know about and only a few were shown more then briefly but they looked promising. Not surprisingly, they began by showing Uncharted and demonstrated now just how smooth it ran but how the touchscreen controls enhance the game. Those worried about that not being the case can take comfort that traditional controls can still be used. Sony must see Uncharted as one, if not the, key demonstrations as to why the PS Vita is an essential purchase and you can’t blame them for pushing the media to check it out at every opportunity.

Next came Ruin which is a an action RPG. It does look like PS Vita’s answer to Diablo which is no bad thing as long as they get the looting aspect done right and make sure the combat doesn’t become too repetitive. The developers, San Diego Studios, were keen to point out that other players can suddenly appear and not just help you but instead become your rival. It seems you’ll be able to influence the level design and thus a dungeon you went through could be different for another player and vice versa. It also sounded like you would have a lair and successful defending of that lair would allow you more loot and expereince. Finally you can resume gameplay on the PS3 thanks to cloud technology. Ruin looks like the game for those with a dungeon crawler itch to scratch.

Modnation Racers was also shown and while at first it may have looked to be a port or remake, we were told that this was not the case at all and instead it was a new Modnation Racers game built up from scratch. The main selling point was the touch controls being used to make track creation more efficient and quicker and it really did look like it would do the trick. Now if the power-ups are improved then Modnation Racers could become an essential purchase.

The last game to be shown was quite a surprise as it was Street Fighter X Tekken with Yoshinori Ono himself providing a demonstration. We know this was being available for the PlayStation 3, but we got a shock when it was announced that a PS Vita version was also being made, which included simple command inputs allowing for the quick and easy way of launching special attacks. But that wasn’t the only surprise as Ono announced that thanks to a deal with inFAMOUS creators Sucker Punch, Cole MacGrath would be an exclusive character! So I guess that means Blanka won’t be included this time. Cole looked pretty badass and fitted well with the characters in Street Fighter X Tekken.

Other games being mentioned included LittleBigPlanet, which hopefully the PS Vita version will be just as comprehensive as its PlayStation 3 brethren (and judging by the trailer we saw, That will be the case) as well as Wipeput 2048, which will have a feature called crossplay which will allow 8 players to face off against each other using either the PS Vita or PS3. Sony announced that 80 titles were being developed for the PS Vita. This should mean that soon after launch, we’ll be seeing an impressive amount of first-party and third-party games.

In terms of availability and price, the PS Vita will be available this holiday season (hopefully a worldwide release) and pricing is $249.99/€249/¥24,980 for the WiFi only model and $299.99/€299/¥29,980 for the 3G/WiFi model.

The PS Vita is shaping up to be one hell of a portable games machine and hopefully we’ll get a lot more details on the games that will be released at the same time or just after it’s release. As more information comes, we’ll keep you posted here at Push-Start.