"[...]end up being an indie machine"? It already is and has been one for awhile. Your gifs confirm this.

I think they should cater to the audience that does like it. At this point significant investment seems a bit of a waste.

Wow, a actual vita owner! What's it like?

It's a secret.

I love my niche JRPGs, so I wouldn't mind them just supporting localization a bit more.

We all saw what happens when Sony tries to go AAA on the Vita *cough Borderlands 2 cough*

It can still be saved. I think the first step would be to actually send stands with games to shops. Literally flood shops with games. When I go to a shop, there are barely any games on the shelf, whereas there are meters of games for other platforms. This creates a the notion that there are no games for Vita. The least they could do is make a deal with the Media Markt & Saturn chain to get some space for a nice stand and fill it up with Vita games. Put every single good game released on Vita there. Seriously, a stand with stuff like: Uncharted, Assassin's Creed III: Liberation, Killzone: Mercenary, Borderlands 2, Ys, Persona 4G, FF X HD, NFS, FIFA, Football Manager, Batman, Tearaway, Soul Sacrifice Delta (yes, make a f***ing retail release for it - the least they could do), Tales of Hearts R, Daemon Gaze, Conception II, Minecraft, two Rayman games, Gravity Rush, Unit 13, History: Legends of War, Resistance, LEGO games, LBPV, Danganronpa, Virtue's Last Reward, Oreshika and some others would draw some attention.

Just send such stands to the 1k shops this chain has in Europe and see if it changes people's perception on the console. Once people saw a nice stand yielding under the weight of so many great games, they would realise that there is actually a big number of games for it. All it would require is 1k stands and a couple thousands of copies of these games. Is that really such a huge investment for Sony? I think they could take such a risk and it wouldn't hurt them even it didn't change much. They could also send a couple of hot hostesses to the largest shops in the biggest markets to spice it up ;)

The next step should obviously be one last offensive with good, big time games. But for the first time - no bullshit. Vita needs a GTA. Vita needs a MGS. Vita needs a CoD (even just a port). They should secure these games and a handful of other known games and schedule their release in a short time period, couple it with a couple of their own bigger games (Gravity Rush 2, InFamous Vita, Gran Turismo, Killzone: Mercenary 2, a new God of War, maybe another Uncharted or a TLOU game). Just one last push. Short and sweet.

To sum up, what Vita would need is exposure and a couple games with big names in a short period of time. I think this could revive the platform in Europe, where it sold just a bit less than in Japan so far. I have no idea how to fix NA, it's probably dead there already, but Europe is still up for grabs, they just have to start doing something.

Yea, but when VR comes out, I think Sony will advertise that more than the vita's remote play cause I am sure Sony would rather sell that then the vita... Oh well... I guess its time to the handheld die (Kinda messed up the gif but don't feel like fixing it loll)

Hmmm, as i see, Handhelds have smaller life cycles.
Vita already spent his first 3 years dying, and those should had been the best ones, since the handheld market is shrinking and it will only get harder from now on.

If Sony wants to be profitable again someday, this seems the kind of investment they should avoid.
Maybe investing on localization, which i believe is not that expensive and trying to milk this niche market for JRPG and alike.

No. It's: if they make an investment, it should be a full-fledged one, not as half-assed as this was. Release great hardware with incredible potential and... keep on pumping games for the PS3, which they were going to kill in a matter of months with PS4 either way. Sony has killed Vita when they decided that they want to keep on supporting PS3 instead of building a solid new platform for themselves - an epicly foolish move. Vita would be earning them money for ages, while the small PS3 boost gave them nothing. Instead of supporting early adopters, who spend the most money on games and are willing to spend $60 on a game, they've decided to be more attractive to extreemely late adopters, who rarely buy games either way, and most of them are used or cost next to nothing. Just how stupid do you have to be?

If Ni No Kuni, God of War: Ascension, The Last of Us, Puppeteer, Beyond: Two Souls, Gran Turismo 6 and Rain all came exclusively to Vita on top of Killzone: Mercenary, Soul Sacrifice and other games, the platform would be vibrant and selling like cupcakes and 3rd parties would actually find a viable market for themselves on the Vita, which would allow Sony to focus on PS4 with a clear conscience. This call - supporting PS3 in 2013 instead of supporting Vita is what killed the Vita and what will cost Sony millions.

This is one of the biggest mistakes in the PlayStation history.

this. don't really want "AAAs" for the vita for the most part. 1 or 2 in one year is enough.