The magic touch

One of the most talked-about features of Sony's upcoming Playstation Vita handheld system has been its rather unique rear touch pad. But in an effort to keep production costs down, this feature was very nearly cut out completely.

In a recent Famitsu interview, Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studio's Shuhei Yoshida talked about how Sony was initially hesitant to include the rear touch pad due to the additional cost and questions over whether or not it would offer up an enjoyable gameplay experience. Of course, shortly after giving the touch pad a try, they decided that it brought more than enough to the table to include

We too were sceptical about the inclusion of a touch pad on the back of the system at first, but after taking Little Deviants and LittleBigPlanet, two titles that both make use of the rear touch pad, for a spin, we quickly realised that it was well worth the time and cost to include this rather innovative feature.

[source andriasang.com]