Over the weekend, Sony’s highly-anticipated PlayStation® Vita gaming portable hit shelves in the world’s gaming capital – Japan – for the fairly reasonable starting price of just 24,900 yen (~$320).

Its aim? – To try and take over the portable gaming market.

According to Sony Computer Entertainment CEO, Andrew House, the device is off to a great start.

‘Pre-orders of the device in Japan had sold out as customers lined up at retailers to make reservations.’

The base model of the portable handheld arrives with support for Wi-Fi 802.11 (b,g and n variants), also carrying on board with it both a front and rear camera, six-axis motion sensing system (three-axis gyroscope, three-axis accelerometer), three-axis electronic compass, built-in stereo speakers, microphone, an OLED display which measures in at 5 inches – (960 x 544, 16:9 resolution) – and has the ability to display upto 16 Million colors.

Of course, if you wanted to add support for 3G connectivity into that mix, so you have the ability to game wherever you are – (network connection permitting), it’ll cost you an additional 5,080 yen (~$65).

PlayStation® Vita, which arrives just 7-years after the initial introduction of the Sony PlayStation® Portable, is now expected to go on sale in other parts of Asia by the end of this year, with a launch across North America and Europe scheduled for next February.

The gaming device arrives as a very physical response to the increasing market surrounding Sony’s competitors and their gaming “app” markets, (Apple and Google to name just two). The firm is now in hope that – (due to the device launching with its own selection of specially-designed “apps”) – its new portable gaming console will at least reclaim the dominant share of the mobile gaming market currently held by Apple.

Exactly how much market share Sony will be able to grab back from Apple by selling PlayStation Vita units, (compared to the millions of iPhones and iPads Apple manages to shift per quarter), however, remains to be seen.

[via AppleInsider]