30w ago - Following up on the previous update and their initial announcement, Sony has officially released PS Vita System Software Update v2.00 today with details below.

Download: PS Vita Firmware 2.00 Update (US) / PS Vita Firmware 2.00 Update (EU) / PS Vita Firmware 2.00 Update (JP)

Alongside the addition of PlayStation Plus functionality, PS Vita Firmware 2.00 includes a quicker browser that can also be used in-game and a new e-mail application.

Below are some recent Tweets from Sony's Shuhei Yoshida (via twitter.com/yosp/status/270429820712783872), as follows:

One welcome change in tomorrow's PS Vita FW2.0 will be the web browser becomes a "small...

78w ago - SCEE Blog Manager James Gallagher has shared an interview today with Sony's Shuhei Yoshida on the present and future of PlayStation Vita below.

To quote: As you may have seen from the photo gallery, I spent last week in Tokyo, Japan covering the first launch of PS Vita and finally getting to see this stunning new hardware in gamers' hands.

While I was there, I met up with Shuhei Yoshida, Vice President of Sony Computer Entertainment and President of Worldwide Studios, to talk about what PS Vita is set to deliver in spades: great games.

PlayStation.Blog: Many view the PlayStation Vita launch line-up as the best in our company's history. How long have you been planning it for?

Shuhei Yoshida, President, Worldwide Studios: Full development of PS Vita hardware started in Spring, 2008 when the semiconductor was complete. The great thing is that we [Worldwide Studios] were there right at the beginning to express our thoughts and reactions to the hardware that was being proposed.

We were there at every stage and with every prototype, and we developed game builds to prove and, sometimes, disprove how each new feature was going to make for a great game system.

91w ago - Recently Sony's Shuhei Yoshida confirmed that PlayStation Vita will be region-free, and over the weekend GameSpot (linked above) did an interview with him discussing PS Vita's US / EU launch slated for early next year.

Previously, we reported that PS Vita is scheduled to hit Japan on December 17, 2011.

To quote: "Currently, with the PlayStation 3 and PSP, physical media is released region-free, allowing games published in one country to be played without hassle in another.

However, Sony's digital strategy restricts content to the region in which it is released, with access being determined by the region of a user's PlayStation Network profile.

As announced earlier this week, the PS Vita will launch alongside 26 games in Japan on December 17. Sony expects to release its newest gaming hardware in Europe and North America sometime in early 2012."

245w ago - Bet you never thought you'd hear the day that Sony said they'd like the XBox 360 to succeed in Japan, but they recently have said so.

Shuhei Yoshida, Sony's President of Worldwide Studios, expressed the respective thought as if the XBox 360 sells well, then this will further push the concepts of High Definition gaming to local consumers which can only be a good thing for all companies involved in the gaming market.

To quote: Sony's president of Worldwide Studios, Shuhei Yoshida, has said that he wants Microsoft's XBox 360 to succeed in Japan in order to help push the concepts of high-definition gaming to local consumers.

With Nintendo's Wii the most popular console in the Japanese market, Yoshida would like both the PlayStation 3 and XBox 360 to sell well in order to convince punters of a more sophisticated take on next-generation gaming.

"I like to see people here in Japan showing interest in high-definition gaming and more sophisticated gaming experiences," offered Yoshida.