Sony has slashed the price of the PS Vita in Japan, ahead of its conference on Wednesday, where it is expected to debut the PlayStation 4 console, as well as offer potential would wide price reductions for current-gen hardware.

According to Reuters, you can now get the 3G Wifi version of the Vita in Japan, for 19,980 yen (£138), which represents a drop of nearly £70.

It's often the case that when a new console is announced, already available hardware takes a price dip. This lets the manufacturer of said hardware, clear out old stock and ensure a solid install base of their last-gen hardware. Especially when you consider that new games are still being released for the PS2, it's obvious that getting as much of your hardware out there as possible makes sense – not even considering the fact that fans will probably buy a PS4 when it's released too.

With this in mind, it's likely that on Wednesday we'll also see worldwide price drops for the Vita and PS3, in line with what we're seeing now in Japan.

The Vita price drop could also be an effort by Sony to help combat contemporary tablet dominance in the mobile gaming sector.

KitGuru Says: I'm so far behind on mobile consoles. I'm still playing through a few favourite GBA titles that I missed over the years.

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