Sony Exec: PlayStation Vita Will Be Region-Free

[News Portal]

Shuhei Yoshida, president of Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios, has confirmed via Twitter that the soon-to-be-released PlayStation Vita will be region-free.

In other PSV news, Sony has announced that a add-on battery pack will be available separately for the console, for those who wish to play for more than the estimated standard battery life of '3 to 5 hours'...

Read full article by James Cottee

[Scared]

I was hoping for this. Sony have certainly got that (region free-ness) right of the PS3 and Vita.

[flabcab]

An additonal battery pack so you can play for longer then 3-5 hrs eh. Wonder how much it costs.....

[shlaimon]

wonder how its gonna be plugged in or how big it is?

[PalZer0]

In related PS Vita news, Sony is going to use a special memory format for storage.

The PlayStation Vita is launching on December 17 in Japan, while those of us in North America still don't know when it will be appearing on store shelves here. Sony has announced that 26 games will be available for the system at launch in Japan, along with a wide array of peripherals... including proprietary memory cards. Keep in mind, the system has no built-in memory, so if you'd like to use downloadable games, movies, or music, you're going to need to buy into Sony's proprietary format.

Battery life has also been shared via a press release, and if you didn't like the 3DS in this regard you'll be just as happy with the Vita.

Here are the sizes of the memory sticks that will be available, next to the price in Yen and then an approximate value in dollars. Buckle up.

Memory Card 4GB ¥2,200 $29
Memory Card 8GB ¥3,200 $42
Memory Card 16GB ¥5,500 $71
Memory Card 32GB ¥9,500 $124

One step forward, two steps back.

Way to go Sony.

[Scarshi]

Why is battery technology always so far behind in this age of mobile devices? Are we reaching too far ahead or are the battery companies holding back due to profits off limiting their products? The latter seems more true.

[bundyraider]

Why is battery technology always so far behind in this age of mobile devices? Are we reaching too far ahead or are the battery companies holding back due to profits off limiting their products? The latter seems more true.

We've reached close to max with current tech on reasonable cost batteries.
Super Capacitors based on carbon nano-tubes sound real promising. Same energy density, but instant charging.
The only other answer is to not cram so many high performance technologies into the device and hold back on power usage. ....like thats gonna happen!