Sony announced at its Tokyo Game Show press conference this week that the PlayStation 3 now has a worldwide installed user base 51 million and revealed the launch date for its new hand-held, the PlayStation Vita in Japan - along with the line-up of titles Japanese gamers can expect to buy at launch.

The PlayStation Vita will make it Japanese debut on December 17 and will come in several formats including a 3G version. Vita owners will be able to buy 20 hours of pre-paid online time for ¥980 or 100 hours for ¥4980 (£41). The 3G model will also come with 100 hours bundled free. For launch the Vita will be supported with 26 titles on day one, with around 100 to be released by March 2012.

The Wi-Fi model of PlayStation Vita costs ¥24,980, while the 3G model will cost ¥29,980. Pre-orders for the system will begin October 15. The Vita will have a battery that supports 3-5 hours of gameplay, approximately 5 hours of video playback and 9 hours of music. To charge the battery to full will take around 2 hours 40 minutes.

North America and Europe won't see the Vita hit retail until March 2012. Games available at launch include BlazBlue Continuum Shift Extend (Arc System Works), Project N.O.E.L.S. (Arc System Works), 3gokushi touchbattle (AQ Interactive), Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (Capcom), Nature of Night of Kamaitachi - 11th visitor - A Suspect (Chunsoft), F1 2011 (Codemasters), Dream C Club Zero Portable (D3 Publisher), Niconico (Dwango), Fis Oh (Kadokawa Games), Katamari Damacy (Namco Bandai), Ridge Racer (Namco Bandai), Disgaea 3 Return (Nippon Ichi Software), Virtua Tennis 4: World Tour Edition (Sega), @field (Sonic Powered), Uncharted: Golden (Sony), Little Deviants (Sony), Minnato Issho (Sony), Hot Shots Golf Next (Sony), Yuusha no kiroku (Sony), Monster Radar (Sony), Shinobido 2: Tales of the Ninja (Spike), Army Corps of Hell (Square Enix), Lord of Apocalypse (Square Enix), Dynasty Warriors Next (Tecmo Koei), Dark Quest (Ubisoft), and Michael Jackson: The Experience HD (Ubisoft).