Many have been wondering why Sony Computer Entertainment decided to move away from the original super-bright OLED screen of the PS Vita and to adopt a more traditional LCD screen for the new PCH-2000 model. Today Senior Vice President and Director of Business Unit 2 Yoshio Matsumoto explained the reason and the plans for the future in an interview on AV Watch.

Although it's said that OLED is generally more beautiful, the performance of LCD has been improved considerably. There's a certain "Strenght" to Liquid Crystal. It performs strongly in the sunlight. I also think that because it's used in a lot of productions, its durability (and availability) is very strong, as well as reliability.

He also promised that Sony would have not switched to the LCD if it felt that it would negatively impact the quality of the experience.

Of course, since the Vita's most important feature is its bright screen, it wouldn't make sense if the LCD deteriorated that quality. In that case we would have not adopted it.

Matsumoto-san also explained the future plans for the OLED-equipped PCH-1000 model:

The plan is to produce the  Vita 1000 as well, for them to coexist.

However, we must look at the sales reaction to the new Vita. If we see that users are rapidly shifting towards the liquid crystal rather than the OLED and that the demand for the 3G model isn't that high eventually we might have to think about it as a business. In regards to 3G, we're in a business collaboration with NTT DoCoMo, so we don't plan to stop production soon.

Personally, I'm keeping my old dear 3G/Wi-Fi Vita with the OLED. For now the option to chose either model seems to be guaranteed. Will it last? We'll have to wait and see about that, but if you're planning to get one and you're dead set on the PCH-1000, you may want to get it earlier rather than later. You never know.