Sony is not sacrificing RAM to keep Vita price low

JAPANESE GAMES GIANT Sony has quelled rumours suggesting it will cut the processing power of the Playstation Vita, stating that the handheld console will have a massive 512MB of RAM.

Details of the system's main memory were revealed in a press release highlighting the new portable system's compatibility with several social networks.

Official whispers sparked voices of discontent, as industry representatives seemed to suggest the Playstation maker would halve the RAM capacity of the Vita from 512MB to 256MB to keep costs low.

Dani Sánchez-Crespolast, CEO of Spanish games developer Novarama, which was acquired by Sony in June, appeared to confirm the downgrade last month. When Develop asked Mr Sánchez-Crespolast if the RAM reduction would make its job as a first party developer harder, he said, "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."

However, today's press release detailing Vita support for Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and Skype and Sony confirms the new handheld with have 16 times the memory of the first Playstation Portable, which had only 32MB. On top of this, the Vita will also boast 128MB of dedicated VRAM.

The PS Vita is set to hit UK shelves early next year priced at £229.99 for the WiFi only model or £279.99 for the 3G and Wi-Fi version. µ