Sony sent out a flurry of announcements on Wednesday, including news of a slimmer PlayStation 3 model coming later this fall, as well as launch timing for its PlayStation Mobile platform, which is for select Android devices and Sony’s own PlayStation Vita, and the upcoming mobile version of its PlayStation Plus premium subscription service.
Dedicated content for PlayStation Mobile is coming to nine countries next month: Japan, US, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Australia, according to Sony (via The Verge). In Japan, the service will offer games for between 50 yen and 850 yen ($0.60-$11) and will work on PlayStation Certified devices, which includes smartphones and even tablets from HTC and Sony, as well as the PS Vita.
The company also announced that the list of certified vendors is expanding to include Fujitsu and Sharp. As such, PlayStation Mobile, which was originally called PlayStation Suite when it was announced early last year, will soon come to Fujitsu’s ARROWS line of smartphones and tablets and will work its way through Sharp’s smartphone lineup.
In November, Sony will roll out the PlayStation Mobile SDK to its developer program across 11 countries (which includes the aforementioned nations plus Taiwan and Hong Kong). Developers can pay $99 per year for access to the SDK and will be able to sell their software on the PlayStation Store.
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The other piece of news from Sony today is that the PlayStation Plus premium service for the PS Vita is coming in November and will include its own Instant Game Collection. PS3 owners who are already members of the service will automatically get access to all the mobile benefits, assuming they also own a PS Vita.
Benefits include:
- Instant Game Collection: Unlimited access to a regularly refreshed selection of the full versions of games as long as your membership is active.
- Discounts: Take advantage of exclusive discounts on games and DLC for your PS Vita.
- Online Game Storage: An additional 1GB of online storage for game saves for PS Vita games and downloaded content.
- Automatic Updates: PS Vita will automatically start up at a designated time to download and install select game demos and game updates as well as system software updates and start standby mode upon completion.
- Automatic Trophy sync: Trophy information will be synched to PSN servers automatically via the PS Vita.
Image credit: Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images
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