The New Year hangover will officially be cleared by Thursday.
Sony is inviting journalists to a London event where it will – I'm certain – reveal its launch plans for the new PS Vita Slim in the UK. An invitation from Sony to journalists reads: "Following the biggest launch in PlayStation history, join us for an introduction to the slimmest."
The overwhelming likelihood is that the western world will soon finally know when they'll be able to buy the new PS Vita Slim. Right now the hardware model is only available in Japan, where it launched in early October.
The New PS Vita Slim specifications
We'll get to why we think this could well be Sony's last ever handheld console, but first - what's different about this model?
Well for a start, compared to the original PS Vita which first launched over here in 2012, this system is about 20% thinner and 15% lighter.
Sony's new handheld comes in six colours (white, grey, yellow, pink, brown, and black) and then, the original's proprietary charge input will be replaced with the common Micro-USB port.
Battery life is said to be noticeably better, though Sony's legal team can only guarantee it lasts an hour longer than the original model (in most cases, it'll run beyond that).
One of the key reasons for the extra battery life is that the PS Vita's gorgeous OLED display has been replaced by a more inexpensive and energy-efficient LCD. Sony insists this won't reduce image quality, though personally I find that hard to believe.
As a bonus, the PS Vita slim also carries 1GB of internal storage memory, meaning you won't have to pay for one of Sony's inexcusably expensive memory cards, at least for a little while.
The PS Vita is currently in a rare predicament. Its owners describe it as a wondrous, beautifully designed handheld with a growing list of amazing indie games
Along with this, it comes with the usual PlayStation Plus bonuses (including two free games per month) and the surprisingly functional Remote Play feature, which allows you to access PS4 games through the handheld via a Wi-Fi connection.
Yet, paradoxically, no one seems to be buying the Vita. In fact, you'd have to go all the way back to last January if you're looking for the system's most recently disclosed sales figures. Back then, Sony revealed that Vita had a paltry installed base of 4 million, and ever since, the corporation has willfully masked the sales figures in its investor reports.
It doesn't inspire confidence, but it's not much of a shock either. The very concept of handheld gaming has been endangered ever since Apple and Google began to offer an ocean of games on their app stores for a fraction of the cost.
Mobile devices to kill handheld
Shuhei Yoshida, who runs the PlayStation hardware division, recently admitted there is "no question" about whether mobiles have hurt handheld sales. Considering its predecessor, the PSP, sold 76 million units, it's not unreasonable to believe the whole business has fallen off a cliff.
In fact, unless there's a dramatic upsurge in sales, I wouldn't be surprised if Sony abandons its traditional handheld business by the time PS Vita comes to an end.
The numbers are simply unsustainable from an investment standpoint, and Sony probably shouldn't hold out for the explosive growth of mobile games to end anytime soon.
So the new PS Vita Slim, presuming that's what this Thursday's event is all about, could be the final dedicated Sony handheld ever. A marvelous system that has fallen victim to the merciless speed of change. A premium system in a run-of-the-mill age. The last of its kind.
The difference between mobile devices and handheld are OS and sim-card support
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