Sony trimmed PS Vita from briefing to save time

LOS ANGELES--The PlayStation Vita was largely absent from Sony's Electronic Entertainment Expo media briefing, taking a backseat to news of the PlayStation 3 and Sony's other gaming initiatives. In an interview with VG247 after the event, Sony Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida explained the recently released system's lack of time in the spotlight.

"It was our fault for not spending enough time on PS Vita content. We have 25 new games on the show floor, playable during E3…So we could have shown more during the press conference. But I observed that the PR team's one big focus was to make the conference shorter this year. We have been criticized for having a long conference in the past. So this year's focus was let's make it very compact and impactful."

During the nearly 90-minute E3 briefing, Sony dedicated only short segments to portable games like Assassin's Creed III: Liberation, PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, and Call of Duty: Black Ops Declassified. It also announced a new hardware bundle for Liberation, and confirmed that PSOne Classics support would be added to the system this year.

The PS Vita launched in Japan last December and in North America and Europe in February. By February's end, Sony said the system had sold more than 1.2 million units worldwide.