If you were one of the many hoping for a shiny new PlayStation Vita to be gifted your way this holiday season, today's news from Sony will probably require a bit of alternate planning on your part--unless you live in Japan, of course.

Americans and Europeans will have to wait until 2012 to do all of their rear touching.

According to a report from AP, Sony's newest handheld will miss the 2011 holiday season, and launch in North America and Europe sometime in early 2012. According to Executive Vice President Kaz Hirai, the system will make it out in Japan before the end of the year, which effectively reverts Sony's plan from its most recent "worldwide launch" to the "phased global rollout" the company had initially touted.

Hirai chalked up the change in schedule to a desire to have solid launch games lined up for the respective regional launches, though he gave no indication as to what the Japanese launch lineup might look like, compared with other regions.

Elsewhere in the report, Hirai went to great lengths to specify that the Vita would not be seeing any price drops in the foreseeable future, irrespective of what Nintendo has chosen to do with its 3DS handheld device.

"We packed so much into the device and made it very affordable," Hirai told reporters at Sony's Tokyo headquarters. "There is no need to lower the price just because somebody else that happens to be in the video game business decided that they were going to lower their price."

When it does eventually launch in North America, the Vita will retail for $249, with a $299 3G-enabled model also available.