Sony has today announced that Vodafone will initially be the “preferred provider” of 3G connectivity for PlayStation Vita in the UK.
The partnership will also apply to Ireland, Italy, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Australia, New Zealand, The Netherlands and Vodafone’s Partners in France (SFR).
The PlayStation Vita 3G/Wi-Fi model will come with a Vodafone SIM card so that you can immediately take advantage of the handheld’s social gaming features such as “near” and “party” when you’re not at home.
“near” will allow you to discover the games other PlayStation Vita users are playing in your surrounding area, and also enable location-based gaming features such as ‘gifting’, where you can share and leave virtual items, such as costumes and treasures, at the various locations you have visited.
“Party” will enable you to enjoy communication features during online gaming or internet browsing. In addition to that, you will also be able to keep in touch and update your gaming status via dedicated applications for Facebook, Twitter and FourSquare.
The PlayStation Vita 3G/Wi-Fi model will be available for purchase through all the normal retails channels, but you will also be able to pick one up directly from Vodafone, both online and in-store. To add to that, if you connect your PlayStation Vita with Vodafone you will receive a PlayStation Network voucher for WipEout 2048, which will allow you to download the game from the PlayStation Store for free. Not bad, eh?
Jim Ryan, President & CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe stated the following:
“With social gaming and connectivity at the heart of PlayStation Vita it is important that we partner with a market leading network provider, to ensure users have a high quality 3G experience. Partnering with Vodafone will enable PS Vita users in the selected countries to always be connected with their PlayStation life, friends and games, wherever they are.”
Patrick Chomet, Vodafone’s Group Terminals Director added:
“We want our customers to have the best choice of devices and PlayStation Vita is a great addition to our range. We know from our application downloads that games are hugely popular with our customers, so we’re delighted to be SCEE’s preferred connectivity partner for 3G Vita devices sold across Europe and other selected regional markets. Using the device over Vodafone’s high-performance network with extensive 3G reach and market leading download speeds brings a reliable ‘anywhere anytime’ dimension to gaming, which customers in our initial ten launch markets will be the first to experience.”
The PlayStation Vita will be launching in PAL regions on February 22nd 2012. Sony has stated that data plans will be “flexible and meet “the needs of all”. They also added that additional details about Vodafone data plans and pricing will be announced by the company at a later date.
Will you be getting the PlayStation Vita 3G/Wi-Fi model? If so, are you happy that Vodafone are the “preferred” 3G provider in the UK and selected other countries? Be sure to let us know via the comments section below.
