PlayStation Vita

The PlayStation Vita (officially abbreviated PS Vita) is a handheld game console manufactured and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It is the successor to the PlayStation Portable as part of the PlayStation brand of gaming devices. It was released in Japan on December 17, 2011, with releases in North America, Europe, and other worldwide regions starting on February 22, 2012. It primarily competes with the Nintendo 3DS, as part of the eighth generation of consoles.

The original model of the handheld, the PCH-1000 series includes two analog sticks, a 5-inch (130 mm) OLED multi-touch capacitive touchscreen, and supports Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and optional 3G. Internally, the Vita features a quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore processor and a quad-core SGX543MP graphics processing unit, as well as LiveArea software as its main user interface, which supersedes the XrossMediaBar.

In October 2013, a redesigned PS Vita model, the PCH-2000 series, was released in Japan, featuring better battery life, more internal storage, thinner and lighter, among other improvements. It came to Western markets starting February 2014. In November 2013, the PlayStation TV allowing players to play PS Vita games on a television was released in Japan (as PlayStation Vita TV), and worldwide starting October 2014.