It's almost been a year since the Vita has been released on Japanese shores and as many of you know, the performance of the Vita has been lackluster to say the least. Furthermore, it seems that the Vita is trailing behind Sega's Dreamcast - http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-10-16-roundtable-saving-ps-vita

One of the main reasons is the unattractive price point and the lack of compelling software. Call of Duty Declassified and Assassin's Creed Liberation were an attempt to revitalize Vita’s underperforming sales; however, the reception of both titles has been dull to say the least. Call of Duty Declassified for example has earned a rating of 29 Metacritic and is named one of the worst games of 2012 according to Yahoo games - http://www.ibtimes.com/call-duty-black-ops-declassified-playstation-vita-deemed-embarrassment-884246 . As shown through its hardware sales, even with the release of AAA exclusives, the Vita is not selling accordingly.

The future does not bode well for the handheld and yet what scares me the most is that developers seem to have little reason to devote resources to the Vita. This does not paint a bright future for third party support for the Vita which could in turn affect software investments for the PS4 seeing as the Vita was not successful. As a result, publishers may overlook the PS4 due to Vita’s shortcomings and Sony’s neglect towards affordable pricing.

What do you guys think? Will Sony be able to save the Vita and entice third party publishers for developing games on the Vita and PS4? What is needed here.

I hate when people say Vita's price is problem..It isnt. People are willing to spend anything as long as the value matches or xxceeds the asking price. Look the Apple devices. Vita has lots of problem being a very very small target audience. Removing kids from the equation was a big mistake. No, PS4 will not suffer. Alot of developers are wedging there bets on PS4/360. They cant survive not supporing PS4 and Wii U

No. Western devs aren't developing for Vita because it's a handheld. Japanese devs aren't developing for Vita because there is a much more enticing, much more successful alternative.

One possible result of this is Nintendo strengthening ties with Japanese devs due to their support of the 3DS, especially Capcom and Square Enix. This could lead to Nintendo scoring more support for Wii U. But I don't see it affecting third party support for PS4.

Sony has never been good at handheld consoles, in my opinion they should stop producing them and focuses only on home consoles.

PS4 will be as good as 720 regarding third party support.

1. How can 3rd parties be damaged by poor vita sales when no 3rd party developer has put a decent game on the vita in the first place? Most of the vita games that have been released have been by Sony, their secondary studios., or even smaller niche studios. You have a couple games that sold decent but would have sold about the same no matter the platform.

2. For all intensive purposes, the PS3 itself has been a pain to develop for, evident by game cancellations by SquareEnix, high costs from Capcom, and sloppy ports of game from platinum, bethesda and a lot of the FPS, and I can go on and on. If anything, the PS4 should be easier since Sony is already making a conscience effort to move away propitiatory cpu and gpu to something more conventional. Most of there 3rd parties are coming out with super expensive next gen game engines and most likely cant afford to not release games for the PS4 unless PC gaming comes roaring back and the next iteration of xbox becomes a hit in japan.

No... Vita prices is not a problem, the game is.
Okay vita have uncharted, resistance, cod, assassin creed, etc2 that's not enough for me (at least).
But after what happened with ps3 slow start sales, I'm really sure sony really what they need to do with vita.

Your links are broken.

OT: PS3 is still getting amazing support, no reason to think this won't carry over to a much more developer-friendly PS4. Actually I think PS3 support might the thing that could hurt the PS4. When is time for developers to move on? Can Sony's 1st party PS4 exclusives move enough hardware to make 3rd parties move on from the PS3? It's all up to Sony.

Vita is failing miserably right now. I think the reason for this is that many devs are too busy developing for multiple platforms. 3DS + DS + PSP + PS3 + 360 + PS4 + 720. They just don't have time for the Vita. So they end up releasing games on only a 5-month development cycle. It will get better over time for Vita.

Has the poor third party performance for the PSP effect the PS3 sales...(checks sales) nope.

No, no one, uncluding 3rd parties, expected Sony to ever dominate in the handheld market. If anything, they'll realise that its futile to support the Vita and focus all the more effort on the home console market.

No, because there's no correlation between third party support for home consoles and handhelds. Additionally, next gen development will be expensive, so third parties will go multiplatform by default. Multiplatform as in Nextbox and PS4, because the Wii U is filthy.