Soul Sacrifice’s Japanese release set for March 7, 2013; demo to drop on PSN sometime in 2012

Earlier today, Sony Computer Entertainment announced that Soul Sacrifice, the 4-player co-op action title (reminiscent of Monster Hunter) it’s co-developing with Marvelous AQL for the PS Vita, is now set for a March 7, 2013 release date for the Japanese market.

Along with the release date announcement earlier today were details of a “PlayStation Vita Soul Sacrifice Premium Edition” bundle (29,980 yen including tax, includes all of the accessories you see in the images below), and a double-pack deal where gamers could take home two retail copies of the game for 7,980 yen instead of paying the full 5,980 yen price for just a single copy.

The game will also be sold digitally through PSN for 4,900 yen.

As it turns out, however, the Soul Sacrifice price and availability announcements earlier today weren’t everything that SCE had planned to share on the action title today. Nope, Sony had actually been saving an itsy bitsy nugget of information – the juiciest part – in store for a “PlayStation Awards 2012″ event that they were organising this afternoon.

Moments ago, Sony Computer Entertainment Japan announced at the tail end of its “PlayStation Awards 2012″ event that PS Vita owners won’t have to wait till March next year to be able to experience a portion of Soul Sacrifice for themselves (for those who didn’t play the demo at Tokyo Game Show, anyway).

A Soul Sacrifice demo – a prologue chapter of sorts – will hit the PlayStation Network by the end of the year, Sony said at the event. Exact details as to what this prologue demo would cover, or when exactly it’ll go up, are to be announced soon.

How soon? Well, sometime within the next 28 days, that’s for sure.

Note that although it’s been confirmed that Soul Sacrifice will see a global release, the announcements today are meant specifically for the Japanese market.