After months and months of rumors and speculation, the PlayStation Vita from Sony finally has a release date! We’ve known the Japan release date (December) for awhile now. But yesterday, Sony revealed that they’ve got one for the United States, too—February 22, 2012. Yes!

For those who aren’t familiar with the Vita , it’s basically a PSP on a serious cycle of steroids. It’s not quite a phone—the Vita can’t make calls—but thanks to Sony’s partnership with AT&T, it can connect to 3G networks as well as WiFi networks to give you a completely new gaming experience. Now, you can play games against people in the same room just as easily as you can play against people on another continent. Pretty cool, if you ask us.

Don’t just take our word for it, though. To help you understand exactly why the Vita is so cool, we put together a list of the 5 reasons you should be excited about it. You can’t start pre-ordering it just yet. But at $249, you’re gonna want to get your hands on one of these as soon as possible this winter.

1. It features a 5-inch multitouch OLED display that’ll literally change the way you play games.

Gosh, it seems like just yesterday that we were pushing buttons on our Game Boys and happy as can be that we could taking our love for gaming on the road with us. Look how far we’ve come now. The Vita allows you to navigate through it by using the touchscreen, which is big enough and bright enough to keep you right in the game without forcing you to squint all day long.

2. It has front and rear-facing cameras.

The word is you’ll be able to Skype on this. So that’s cool if you’re a big fan of Skype. But you’ll also be able to use the Vita’s cameras to chat with folks on the fly, which will be ideal for setting up games against fellow gamers.

3. It was designed to provide the ultimate comfort for gamers.

We won’t be able to tell you if this is actually true until we get an opportunity to play with the Vita. But it has reportedly been designed with hardcore gamers in mind, meaning it’s lightweight, easy to grip, and slim so that it’ll fit in your pocket without any problems.

4. It has the same dual analog sticks as your PlayStation 3.

The problem with most mobile gaming devices is that the games that are included have to be tailored to a special set of buttons that limit how much you can do in a game. That’s not the case with the Vita, which features the same basic controller design as the PS3. So you’ll have no trouble catching on to how to control games.

5. And, best of all, it integrates with your PlayStation 3.

This just might be the coolest feature of the Vita. You can play a game on it all day, come home, and then keep playing all night—on your PlayStation 3! Likewise, you can play PlayStation 3 at home all day and then, if you need to head out for a few hours but you’re not quite ready to stop playing, you can simply load your game up on the Vita and continue playing. Seriously, how cool is this thing? February 22 can’t get here soon enough.

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