Sony's first major video game console launch in six years hits stores February 22nd and it has the gamers buzzing at the prospect of owning more than just a traditional handheld portable console.

In a gaming era now seemingly dominated by the rise of online, social and mobile games, Sony has done their best to temporarily keep legacy game publishers in the mix. The PlayStation Vita allows you to transfer your PS3 and Playstation Portable games to your handheld console so that you can play your favourite games away from your TV-locked PS3.

It even has all your favourite social networking apps, frontal and rear touchscreen abilities, and is even sensitive to motion like the Nintendo 3DS so you'll want to get a little bit of arm room wherever you may be in the world. 

I'll go into some more depth about a number of cool features after the jump as there are many, so follow along.

The more the arctic melts, the quicker it is becoming a geo-political hot-spot.  In 2008, the U.S. Geological Survey published the Circum-Arctic Resource Appraisal, effectively putting arctic politics on the desks of every world leader whose coast touches the arctic circle.  The report stated that the Arctic could hold as much as 30% of the world’s undiscovered gas, and 13% of undiscovered oil.  This tension, is the premise of a new game Naval War Arctic Circle, by Paradox Interactive.

The Great Gamification Debate held February 2nd at the VFS Cafe in Vancouver produced great insights on what is gamification, and how it can be used in product design. If you weren’t able to make it to the event, Ayogo, the host of the event, have already announced they’ll be producing a 6 part video series on their youtube channel in the near future.

The first debater was Michael Ferguson, the mastermind behind Ayogo games inc. which focuses on using gamification for social causes. His opponent was Steve Bocska, founding president of PugPharm Productions which has created an adaptable gamification system. Moderating the debate was Joe Nickolls Executive Producer at Microsoft/Big Park.

Chris Wright, the CEO of Games Analytics is 14 months deep into his new company focused on maximizing online game revenue. He gave away ten tips to the audience at Game On: Finance a couple weeks ago. He believes you can get a 20-30% uplift on monthly revenue on average by following his tips. 

Microsoft has big plans to become a major media player in 2012, a fact they discussed at this year’s CES technology trade-show.  Some of the media partners mentioned are understandably for an American only audience, such as Comcast’s Xfinity TV, Wall Street Journal, AT&T’s U-Verse, and Fox News.  

That being said, there will be some wider audience entertainment channels as well, such as IGN and Fox, so you can keep up with shows such as New Girl, Family Guy, House, and Glee.