Sony has announced the new PS Vita Slim will come to the UK, having previously been a Japanese exclusive in the form of the PS Vita 2000 series.

Originally, the PS Vita 2000 series was only destined for Japanese markets, but Sony has now revealed it will arrive in the UK as soon as the PS Vita Slim.

The PS Vita Slim news was announced during a special PlayStation briefing, just two months after the launch of the PS4, which has increased PS Vita compatibility including Remote Play.

Sony has revealed the PS Vita Slim can be pre-ordered today for a release date on February 7. It will launch for around £180, £50 less than the original Vita’s RRP.

“Retains unique features that are key to the PS Vita, but it’s also had some changes made to it.”, said Ben Law, Senior Product Manager for Hardware at PlayStation UK

PS Vita Slim Features

The new PS Vita has been redesigned to be slimmer, lighter and longer lasting than the original PS Vita.

Design-wise, the new PS Vita looks very similar to its predecessor, but it is 20 per cent lighter at 219g, and at just 15mm thick it is also 15 per cent thinner.

Sony has also kitted it out with 1GB of internal storage, meaning you can store a few Indie games or other small titles directly on the PS Vita itself rather than having to immediately fork out for one of Sony’s proprietary Vita memory cards.

The biggest change between the PS Vita models is that the latest edition swaps the original OLED display for a cheaper, LCD display.

This will mean a reduction in display quality, but that should be made up for with a price drop.

Sony has also redesigned some of the PS Vita’s buttons, removed the back lit home button in favour of new LED lights at the top and improved the battery life by an hour to around 6 hours of continuous gameplay.

The proprietary PS Vita charger has also been ditched in favour of a microUSB port, which should reduce your charger load when travelling.

The new PS Vita only comes in black for now, unlike in Japan where there are alternative colours available.

Speaking to TrustedReviews, Ben Law said: “We’re just looking at the black model at the moment. Hopefully we’ll have some news in the future about the full colour range.”

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