Sony's backing the Vita's US launch with a $50 million marketing campaign. The company is, as you would expect, bullish on the system's future here, with CEO Jack Tretton estimating a big impact in terms of launch window sales.
Speaking with Reuters, Tretton said he would "be very pleased" if the PlayStation Vita moved half a million units in the United States in the next three weeks. Even though the Vita moved 321,000 units in its first two days on sale, it took over a month for the Vita to hit 500,000 in Japan. The cheaper PSP is still popularin that region and moves thousands of units each week. North America, however, is a much larger market.

Instead, launch sales of the PSP in the US may be more indicative of what the PS Vita will do. The PSP launched here on March 24, 2005, for $249 and sold 500,000 in its first two days.

Source: joystiq

It is possible. I have seen a lot of advertisement and the commercial are actually pretty good. It could definitely happen and I hope for the Vita's future it does. I'll most likely be one of those people buying the Vita within the 3 weeks.

Saw an article today saying they'd sold out all of the first editon pre-order bundles! Wonder how many that was?

Only half a million? That seems pretty low

500k in the first 3weeks of a system IMO is rly low. They did 300k first week in japan only, so I wouldnt be surprised if they beat that number easely and then they will say ''omg, vita is so awsome, it exceeded all our craziest expectations!'"

Aiming low.

I wouldn't be surprised if it did - a larger market means more early adopters.

I also wouldn't be surprised if it tanked out like it did in Japan either.

Sony has tempered their expectations with Vita sales, which I think is a good thing. They don't have the brand name strength or the game lineup of the 3DS and they're competing with Apple on the multi media front. I doubt they're expecting huge numbers in the first year and they seem to be mainly appealing to their prime demographic (young males) with the Vita. In the end, having sustainable sales over the course of several years and being profitable with the system overall is vastly more important. Sony can't afford to engage in a price war with the 3DS right now.

I hope it does better in the united states than here in Mexico, my local video game store(gameplanet) had 0 preorders and have sold the huge amount of 0 units since launch :/

Selling 500k in 3 weeks should be piece of cake.

On the other hand, if they can't (which I don't believe), then they'd probably be done for with this piece of hardware.