Sony has remained tightlipped on when we might see their latest handheld the PS Vita, but retailer Blockbuster has it scheduled for a October release date.
The PS Vita will be released in staggered dates around the world with Japan thought to be the first territory for the new handheld.
A few months ago ShopTo.net listed the then name NGP for a UK release of November 4th - but today's date suggests that the handheld could be coming a lot sooner than anyone had previously thought.
Blockbuster are going 7 days better and putting up Sony's gaming gadget for an October 28th public launch.
One difference between the two listings is the price. With ShopTo.net listing the handheld for a pound less that Blockbuster, but it’s hardly a giant gulf between the two.
Sony hit the headlines last week regarding the Vita as they have confirmed that they will be cutting the RAM in half in a bid to make the handheld cheaper. But what does this mean for game developers?
Sony's decision to cut the RAM on its upcoming PS Vita hand-held console won't affect the games being developed for the platform, it has been claimed."¨"¨ PSP game developer studio Novarama told Game Developer Website Develop that even after the RAM had been cut, it was more than enough to run state-of-the-art games on the platform.
Novarama CEO Dani Sánchez-Crespo said that the cut down on RAM won't affect the developers building games for the yet-to-be-released console. Sony has not confirmed the RAM cut but several reports suggest that its brought the console's RAM down from 512 MB to 256 MB.
"No that won't affect us. It's actually good for developers to work under constraint. Generally for Vita, we still have a whole lot of headroom in terms of GPU power, CPU power and indeed RAM" Sanchez-Crespo said. "Remember the PSP had 32 MB of RAM, we have about ten times that now".
Sony has always said that they will have the PS Vita release in one territory by the end of the year, with many commentators predicting that Japan will be the first. So can expect we expect the PS Vita this side of Christmas – we think no, but you never know.