Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (who also cover New Zealand and Australia) unveiled the social networking facilities of the new handheld PlayStation Vita at their Gamescom 2011 press conference over the weekend. Facebook, Twitter, Skype and Foursquare applications will be available on the PS Vita, as well as some social features exclusive to the platform.

Vita owners will be able to locate new and existing friends around them and find out what they are up to, what they are playing and what they have been playing. The handheld also sports voice and text chat across games and applications.

SCEE President and CEO Andrew House says, "PlayStation is about games and PlayStation Vita is a breakthrough portable entertainment system that will thrill gamers."

The more technologically minded may be interested in the Vita's internals which, it seems, actually are almost on par with the PlayStation 3. The Vita is purported to run on an ARM Cortex A9 4-Core CPU with 512MB of RAM and 128MB of graphics RAM (compared with the PS3's 256MB of RAM and 256MB of video RAM). The lower video RAM is understandable as whilst the OLED screen outputs an impressive 960x544 resolution, it's not pushing as many pixels as the PS3's (potential) 1080p.

Not wanting the follow Nintendo's 3DS misstep, Sony are going to great lengths to assure potential PlayStation Vita handheld purchasers that they will have plenty of quality content come launch-day.

Sony's SVP of Worldwide Studios Europe Michael Denny has gone on record as say that the upcoming handheld will have 'the strongest launch line-up ever on a PlayStation format'.

With that pledge and those specs, Vita gamers should expect a true portable PS3-like experience from the device, with launch day first-party games including Uncharted: Golden Abyss, LittleBigPlanet, Ruin and Little Deviantsm, as well as six Ubisoft games including a new Assassin's Creed title, Rayman Origins and Michael Jackson: The Experience.

Go here to read our story on Sony cutting the price of the PS3.