Sony’s Playstation Vita To Hit Japan On December 17

Sony is currently holding a press conference in Tokyo where the company said that the Playstation Vita, its new handheld console, will hit stores in Japan on December 17, just in time for the holidays (this decision was kind of announced last month actually). For the 3G connection, Sony partnered up with Japan’s biggest mobile carrier NTT Docomo and laid out 3G pricing plans for the first time, too.

Japanese Vita owners going for the 3G model will be charged 980 yen (US$13) for 20 hours of pre-paid or 4,980 yen (US$65). In the US, AT&T will be handling the 3G service for the Vita.

Unfortunately, Sony Computer Entertainment Japan President Hiroshi Kawano didn’t go into details about the Vita’s launch outside Japan, so we’re still stuck with “sometime in 2012”.