A PlayStation Vita prototype surfaced on YouTube over the weekend.
The video, which has since been taken down, came from YouTuber Assembler Games. It shows the system’s sliding face design, which looks almost exactly like the PSP Go with its controls that slide out. The prototype has two analog sticks, four face buttons and a standard d-pad.
The Vita prototype also has HDMI output for television play and a standard SD card slot instead of the proprietary Memory Stick Pro Duo that everybody hates, which greatly added to the cost of storage. The bottom of the system has a protruding device, but it’s not clear exactly what it does (most likely for developer use only).
The video shows the YouTuber booting up the prototype with an early version of the PS Vita’s firmware and taking a picture with the camera.
It’s interesting that Sony considered going with a design similar to PSP Go, which largely failed to catch on in the US. The PSP Go was a redesigned PSP that featured a sliding face. PSP Go was digital only due to its lack of a UMD slot for games.
