Did You Know? PlayStation Vita Was Designed By The Same Person As The Original Walkman

Turns out that the man behind PlayStation Vita's sleek design was none other than Takashi Sogabe, a man that's spent 27 years working at Sony on products such as the very first Walkman.

Sogabe told the PlayStation Blog that Sony went through numerous iterations before happening on the PlayStation Vita's final design, including a clamshell and a sliding back similar to the PSPgo. He also revealed that the design team wanted to give the PlayStation Vita a metallic case, but that proved impossible due to the antennae required for the Wi-Fi and 3G connections.

Fascinatingly, one of the original PlayStation Vita prototypes used touch-pads in place of thumbsticks. Sogabe said that this feature was scrapped because sticks provided the most accurate controls. We can all breathe a sigh of relief over that decision.

Let's hope that the PlayStation Vita can achieve the same mainstream success as Sony's famous portable music player.