The Sony PlayStation Vita (PS Vita) (PCH-1000 series) will use proprietary memory cards. A user by the name of onQ123 on the Neogaf forums posted a picture showing four sizes of the planned chips: 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, and 32GB.

While they look very much like a standard SD card, they have an extra notch that clearly distinguishes them. This is very unfortunate because it means you will not be able to use any of the SD cards you already have: you will have to go out and buy a Sony memory card if you want additional storage on your Vita.

This sad news follows the great news from last week, when we learned the PS Vita will be region-free. Region-free simply means that you can purchase a game and system from any two different regions and they will be compatible.

Sony is promising that the PS Vita will give a PS3-level experience with a quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor and a multi-core PowerVR SGX543MP4 graphics chip four times faster than the PSP's. The device will come with a 5-inch OLED screen (950 x 544 resolution), two micro-analog sticks to simulate the Dual Shock experience, front and rear facing cameras, and two-finger multitouch pad on the back of the machine. Sony is hoping the front and rear touch screens will offer new three dimension-like motion gameplay experiences never before seen on any device through "touch, grab, trace, push and pull" finger motions. A Sixaxis equivalent with a gyroscope and accelerometer is also available to let players control games by moving and tilting the system itself.

In terms of connectivity you can expect built-in 3G in addition to Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, as well as GPS support. The PS Vita will come with a pre-installed app called Party, which lets you use voice chat or text chat when gaming, using other apps, or browsing the Internet. Another app, called Near, will let you share your game information with other users and add them as friends.

The Wi-Fi model will be available for 25,000 yen (including tax) in Japan, $250.00 in the US, and €250.00 in Europe, while the 3G/Wi-Fi model will be available for 30,000 yen (including tax) in Japan, $300.00 in the US and €300.00 in Europe. Exact release dates are still unknown, all Sony has said is that the PS Vita will launch globally at the end of this year.