While we haven't found the PlayStation Vita's battery life to be terrible, it's certainly a far cry from the days when you could expect your Game Boy to keep on going well into the double digits. However, last year Sony announced plans to mitigate the issue with an accessory, and it's just been given a release date. The "portable charger" is essentially a 5,000mAh battery pack that should be good for one and a half full charges of the Vita, after being charged itself for around seven hours. While the Vita's power consumption depends on a lot of factors, we'd expect the combination of system and portable charger to last for at least ten hours in total. It'll go on sale in Japan on April 5th for ¥4,500 ($58.69).

Also announced is a ¥1,500 ($19.57) car adapter, which goes on sale from March 22nd and does what you'd expect by filling your Vita with power from a cigarette lighter socket. No official word yet on a global release date for these accessories, but we'd expect them to shortly follow the imminent launch of the Vita itself, if not sooner — GameStop is currently listing the portable charger for $49.99, with an unlikely-sounding release date of today.