Great start to the new year and I for one will be getting a Vita on day one!

@Bulecrew: Angry Birds is available on the apps store, and I'm not even interested in it anyway. Why would I want to play games that are "like" PS3 games when I can just play actual PS3 games. The only game I ever got for PSP was Peace Walker, and now that is going to be available on the PS3 with the new MGS HD Collection. So that was a waste of money. PSV is bound to be the same. No interesting games - and by that I mean no games I am interested in personally. WCK619: Even that isn't racist, nor is it even insulting. And who knows whether they predicted their own end or not? They may have, but knowing something is going to happen does not necessarily mean you can prevent it. Anyway, it's not about the world ending - it's about the current cycle ending. Mayans believed that the Earth runs for a certain amount of time and then a global natural disaster will essential "reset" the world and a new cycle will begin. There has already been 2 mass extinctions - one that came prior to the Dinosaurs and the one that wiped them out. There is bound to be more in the future, it's just a matter of when. 2012 is as good as guess as any.

I plan to get a PSV when it comes out. I do think, however, that handhelds are going to lose to phones and devices like iPad.

if any of that was racist it was the part about the Mayans predicting the end of life. They didn't predict that at all. Racist people made it up and I have no idea why anyone's listening or perpetuating it. How could the Mayans predict the end of the world when they couldn't even predict the end to their own civilization...

@Scorpion1813 because the games are more like PS3 and will also have PSN games probily like Angry Birds

Handheld consoles are practically redundant with the iOS, Android and other such devices that let you do more than just play games on them. I personally prefer having real buttons to press than having a touch screen. Which is why I usually play games on my PC or PS3. But when it comes to being out-and-about, I already have an iPod Touch that I can play games on, why would I need to buy a PSVita?

I am waiting until it launches in middle east in feb22 so i can put my hands on the ps vita

lmao at the outtakes

I don't think Land of the Rising Sun is racist also, I bet.... Blizzard Entertainment will get Fallout MMO.....lol

I don't recall Mayans predicting the end of the world in 2012, but rather their calendar simply ends this year.

I really enjoy my fallout from the PC to the xbox360, I hoper that companies end that trouble and made a fall out 5 Bendiciones

Huh......the PSV is more expensive? I just looked on Amazon.ca, and you can get the first edition PSV. It comes with a 3G PSV, a 4Gb memory stick, a limited edition case, and little deviants. You also can get it one week earlier than everyone else. All of that together costs $300, the price for the base 3G model. I don't know about you, but I would suggest buying from amazon instead of anywhere else, even from a different country.

VITA does look amazing, but IMO Sony are not reading the market properly. I believe the success of IOS and Android platform games is down to them being cheap (or free), addictive 'dip-in dip-out' games with mass appeal. If Sony want a slice of that market then that's all they have to do - I mean any console stands or falls by the appeal of its games, right? It's not about graphics etc.The Uncharted game on VITA looks awesome - but for me personally, I would play that kind of game on the PS3, with my giant telly and surround sound etc. On a handheld I would play Angry Birds, Professor Layton, and the kids like farming - don't ask me why. But to be honest I wouldn't buy a handheld just to play Angry Birds. I guess that means, in short, that the VITA has no appeal for me, no matter how great it looks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=LRFlciRDDHA#!

VITA is an amazing system..... but i think the only way sony can compete in he portable gaming market is by making the system backwards compatible or atleast allow downloads of already purchased games with a discount of some kind..... the best thing that they can do is make the PS2 games compatible with this system..... or maybe the abilty to use VITA as a PS3 move controller!......

As I see it, Smartphones aren't the reason behind the decline of the handhelds. It's the discrepancy in game prices that is making life hard for handhelds. Both devices cost around the same, sometimes smartphones are more expensive, but int the end games on the handhelds are still miles ahead of whatever casual stuff is released for phones. Sony always does a great job in it's hardware but it lacks the innovative push to really make its device flourish. And that is where Nintendo and Apple succeed. For now, let's see what the world-wide market has to say....

3DS has really been the focus in the big electronic-stores in japan the last couple of weeks with lot of focus on monsterhunter, supermario 3D-land and mario kart 7. :) The japanese has deffinitely not put their feet up, as the last couple of visits I've had to the game-department on yodobashi camera, have been extremely crowded, but the vita is deffinitely not the focus point in the stores at the moment. ^^' it's 3DS all the way. And here in japan, streetpass is actually fun! yay!

Handhelds are dying out now because of smartphones. Why have a phone AND a gaming system, when you can have both in the one gadget?

The handheld market lost ALLOT of steam when the iOS and Droid platforms started creating some pretty great titles for a mere fraction of the money. Great games like Infinity Blade selling for well under the $20 mark while the newest handheld games will set you back just over $40. I also think the handheld genre is in trouble adding so many gimmicks like touch screen interfaces. It really detracts from immersive gameplay when you see your fingers glide across your on screen character.

the era of handhelds is over, Vita seems nice but it's just not right

$250 sounded nice but the price of the memory cards ruins that. So I think price point is the problem for it, just like the 3DS just went through.

The vita is already in the market??? I think the core of the problem seems to be playstation haven't being promoting it like it should be. I live in portugal and we dont have even a cloe that vita exists! Bad marketing sony.. But any way, of course its selling really bad I mean, the economy is terrible and its a world wide crisis, the families that have the money to buy such toys are the ones who belong to the medium/high class, and even them are struggling and arent going to spend money on such expensive console.

Vita is way over priced, it's got a release price of over £300 (about $400) in the UK and the Australians are getting charged even more! Anyway with IPhones, IPads (or Knee pad as my 4yr old twins call it :) ) and Android phones / pads, I really beleive the days of a dedicated hand held gaming machine are numbered and definately at the money they are charging on release. If you do plan on getting a Vita, wait till they slash the price in less than a year.

Guys, I set my PSP to download your episodes through wireless but since 9 December it can't play the videos it downloads of start select. Has the mp4 format changed after 9 December somehow??

Handhelds in trouble? Not likely. The Vita may be lacking, but even school teachers know what a DS is.

arregedry.. that IS racist. LMAO

Gameplay>Graphics! Thats freakin true. But each person have different personal opinions and choices. Like myself, I dont really like games like Mario for a handheld, so I'll go with the Vita for some games. Opinion matters.

I hope the Vita can bounce back. We need proper handhelds because as much as mobile gaming has increased, it's mostly the same 3 games being played or just a bunch of casual games. I want games like Peace Walker, Persona and Valkyria Chronicles on my handheld and you can't get that on your cellphone.

non-innovative product doesn't sell? oh em gee!

i suppose thats caz smart phones provide lots of free games these days. So many of the casual gamers don't feel like paying so mush for games.

when it comes to handhelds you'd be a fool to bet against Nintendo.

It's over for handhelds as they get relegated to devices that only Core Gamers snap up - casual gamers no longer want hardware that only plays games and little else. Microsoft have been canny to avoid the market (pity they can't sell any Windows 7 Phones). Next up in the World of Fail is Nintendo's Wii U which looks like an Etch-a-Sketch compared to an iPad 2 being mirrored on an HDTV. Unlike the Wii, the Wii U offers nothing we haven't seen before. Without even trying, Apple have done an amazingly disruptive job to the gaming industry.

I had already wrote on a previous start/select that the Vita would not make much money.I got a lot of negative responses that time.Well looks like I was correct....

Let's hope Vita bad start is due its ridiculous price and need of accessories to get running. Sony will need to balance things

Not gonna hold my breath on a fallout mmo, we might actually see the apocalypse before then.

Also,with reference to 2012,on Jan. 1,2013,I'll be looking up all the believers in my area and knocking on their doors.Hopefully they won't all have committed suicide.I'd love to see what they had to say about 2012 not being the end.That is...... ....IF IT ISN'T!

Handhelds are not finished. Nintendo just proved it by bouncing back from a terrible year with the 3DS struggling to sell. Sony will likely have the same problem at such a high price point.We live in a bad economy. People find it hard to drop $300 on what is essentially a toy.I think with some killer games,and perhaps,just perhaps,some sort of price drop or special bargain(free game maybe?),the Vita can enjoy the same success as the 3DS.

Fanboys' furies aside, handhelds are so gimmicky today that is kinda hard IMO to buy them and fully appreciate the game's library when everything seems to spin around touch screens, 3D and such. What deserves more attention: the game's qualities or the system's capabilities? Put that in the equation, developers!

I really hope that they would stop making handheld consoles. They have their pros and cons but sadly the bad sides are way too much there.

how hard is it to say "alegedly"

is it me or his goatee on his left is detached ?

I highly doubt handhelds to be in trouble just yet, but I do believe the Vita price point is way to high for the North American release and it may suffer the same fate of a sudden price drop just after E3. On the other hand Nintendo's 3DS is a magnificent handheld and the software to come out in the next few months is worth the $169.99 blanket price. I will be picking up a Vita in hopes it does not suffer the fate of the PSP, because has anyone been to a local GameStop recently? The software is just pushed in the corner of the store with a dark cloud over looking Sony's last handheld, so if your looking to buy a Vita, trade in your old PSP "ASAP" before you get practically nothing when the Vita comes out.

Awesome :)

I can see the PS Vita probably being one of the worst selling handholds ever mainly because the market is already over saturated with handheld gaming devices. The only people who will be touching this are hardcore gamer's as the games library, price point and features won't interest anybody else.

how I hate that british accent... kill it with fire

why dont Bethesda and Interplay join forces and create the next fallout?? throw in Obsidian and you got yourself the three reason we have the amazing game series. stop spitting the dummies out guys and create good games!!

i just put comment because johnny love feedback !!

@Cyberbyte727 - nothing pleasant about my mother, I'm sure...

@thribs Actually the calendar doesn't even end in 2012, it's just the end of one of the longer cycles. It starts again immediately so you're right - the Mayans said nothing of the sort. Then again, this is the only chance any of us is going to get to enjoy panicking about having an ancient zombie sacrifice us all on a big stone altar...

dont need happy new year... keep it for yourself!