PlayStation Vita Has Extended Battery Peripheral, Sony Confirms

The PlayStation Vita handheld console has a variety of peripherals confirmed for it, but Sony has now revealed that an extended battery one is going to be sold, so that customers can enjoy extended gaming sessions without worrying about battery life.

Sony released a lot of details about its PlayStation Vita console last week, from the array of new games that will be made for it, to the promise that 100 titles are going to be available in its launch window, or the full technical specifications.

Alongside the latter, Sony also confirmed some battery figures, with the Japanese company saying that a fully charged Vita can support from 3 to 5 hours of playtime, while the numbers were to go up if the console is to be used for other activities, like listening to music or watching movies.

While that's pretty reasonable, especially since the Vita has powerful hardware that demands lots of 'juice', quite a few potential customers started asking Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide studios boss Shuhei Yoshida about what solutions may appear to extend its capacity.

Yoshida told IGN UK that, among the peripherals that will be available at the launch of the Vita, an external battery will be present, so that customers can enjoy extended sessions of using the handheld device without worrying about battery life all that much.

"If you have not noticed we just announced the peripherals for PS Vita as well, and one of the peripherals is the external battery. So if you’re flying from New York to San Francisco - or vice versa -you have no concerns if you have an additional external battery,” Yoshida said.

Among the peripherals confirmed up until now, there are things like pouches, car chargers or cradles, not to mention the pretty expensive memory cards.

For what it's worth, however, the regular battery of the PlayStation Vita can be fully charged, according to Sony, in around 2 hours and 40 minutes.

The PlayStation Vita is out on December 17, in Japan, and will appear in early 2012 on North American and European shores.