14 DAY TRIAL // Specialist video game retailer GameStop has revealed the price that gamers will have to pay in order to get their hands on the proprietary memory cards that the new PlayStation Vita handheld from Sony will use when it is launched early during 2012.
The company says that the smallest of the memory cards will cost 29.99 dollars (22.5 Euro) and will offer 4 GB of extra storage space.
Other possibilities include a 8 GB card for 44.99 dollars (33.9 Euro), 16 GB for 69.99 dollars (52.6 Euro) and the biggest memory card offers 32 GB of space for 119.99 dollars (90.3 Euro).
The official prices for Japan are in line with those in the United States and the official pricing for Europe has not yet been announced.
Sony has said that the memory cards that will be used by the PlayStation Vita come in a new proprietary format and that third party alternatives will not be officially supported.
The cards are needed because the new device will allow gamers to get a lot of content from the PlayStation Network and the internal memory might prove unable to accommodate all the digitally distributed content.
The price of the memory cards is pretty high, considering that the Vita handheld itself will cost 249 dollars (188 Euro) for the Wi-Fi only model and 299 dollars (214 Euro) for the one which also offers 3G connectivity.
In Japan gamers will be able to buy the Vita on December 17 while those in the West need to wait until late February to get their hands on the new platform.
Sony hopes that the Vita will show that there’s still a big market for a dedicated gaming handheld and that smartphones have not delivered the death blow to the market niche.
The device will get games like Motorstorm, Uncharted and Little Big Planet on launch.