I was invited out to Sony’s Holiday Season sneak peak and among the items being shown was their all new PS Vita. Unfortunately, I was unable to take video of the unit head on, but we spoke with a bunch of Reps concerning new titles for the PS Vita so check out the vids below as we update them.

I did get to check out a few titles first hand and most importantly, to hold and feel and caress the device. Here are my thoughts.

Hardware:

From a Hardware perspective, the device takes you back to the moment you first laid eyes on the original PSP. It’s slick and visually appealing. It looks better in person than you thought, and has sexy curves. I was surprised by how big it was. That 5 inch screen is totally satisfying and quite beautiful, though I did squint a bit in light even though there wasn’t much of it around as I was in a room with all the windows shuttered. The unit was much thicker than I was expecting, however, it was thin for it’s size if that makes sense. The front and rear facing cameras where there and they were a welcome addition. The rest was standard stuff that you know already – dual analog sticks, 3.5 mm headphone jack, L/R Bumpers, two speakers, etc. I did note two ports on the top of the device. One seemed to be for an SD card, however, I couldn’t make the other one. Seemed to be proprietary. I suspect it will be how Sony plans on selling physical copies of their titles, but we’ll see.

Titles:

ModNation Racers: This game is shaping up to be a pretty fun title. It’s a racing game at heart, but it gives you the ability to create maps on the fly. Using the touch screen capabilities, this is a lot easier than fumbling around with an analog stick and cursor! An added bonus is Vita owners will be able to play PS3 Maps.

Ruin: If you like dungeons and Dragon type games then this title will definitely tickle your fancy. Pulling a page from Microsoft, the game designers allow for seamless play between consoles meaning you can pause and start exactly where you left off between the Vita and the PS3.

WipeOut: This classic title gets the Vita treatment and it looks great. The game designers used the accelerometer to allow for motion control and the touch screen for different uses such as attacking or charging. They also utilized the Vita’s camera for online game-play.

Hot Shots Golf: One word – “Fun”. We took a look at this title and its looking quite good. Your still playing golf so things haven’t changed that much, however, they have also made changes to take advantage of the Vita’s feature set. You can use the touch screen now to position your player when teeing off as well as some motion control.

Reality Fighters: Really interesting title that doesn’t take itself too seriously. The real kicker is the level of customization you have over your character. You can take a picture of yourself using either of the two cameras and create your character based on your likeness. You can change your appearance to super muscular or super…unmuscular. You can choose different weapons, clothes, facial expressions, and even fighting styles. They haven’t sacrificed too much on gameplay either as the fighting techniques look very polished. You can even play in an augmented reality setting.

One last gem was for the PS3, but definitely worth mentioning. The game was called “Journey“. You play a floaty thingy and you meet up with another floaty thingies to get to the top of a mountain. Sounds bumish, but it’s really quite fascinating. The game is really very visually pleasing. You can go it alone or you can team up with someone and take the journey together, but the clincher is you never know who that person actually is. No gamer tags, no chat, no nothing. Just you and that other person on a journey together. And at any point that person can simply walk away.

Wrap-up

This coming Holiday Season is warming up with all these fresh titles in the pipeline. I’ll be in line for my Vita when it launches. The specs are solid and if they can keep innovative games coming, it will easily be the king of portable game consoles. It ALMOST has me wishing it was already the Holiday Season…Almost. I’ll still take as many days of summer as I can get!