According to vgchartz home page vita is now over 16m. Most likely it's final ever milestone. While this is much higher then some predicted it's also far lower then the 20-25m some thought it would hit a few years ago. Sonys last ever traditional handheld and you can see why. 

I thought it hit 16m here several weeks ago. Whatever though. Congrats to the Vita.

It's a shame the handheld fight is now going to be between Nintendo and the mobile market, they are so different that there is no real competition between them, and so no real improvement will come from the clash.

i don't think Nintendo's handheld's are also gonna survive against Mobiles

3DS is also bad saleswise compared to the HUGE DS sales

It worked out for Sony, for the most part, during the PSP days. While the PS3 took a step back, the PSP was able to bring in a pretty solid install base, even if the DS install base was much bigger.

It's just the Vita had as much going against as much as it had going for it. While it was more powerful than the 3DS, a nice design, and potential for remote play, it launched at a pretty steep price point (not to mention the expensive memory cards), the Western third party support was ok at best initially and then fell off completely, and Sony really didn't put in the effort it needed during its second year of release (marketing, games, features, etc.).

The 3DS was hit badly by mobile, that's the reason the Swich puts all their eggs in one basket to play in both console and handheld leagues.

No improvement? The switch is power wise the biggest step forward from one gen to the next in the handheld market. The fact that you can play it at home is icing on the cake. Nintendo doesn't stop innovating just because there isn't a direct competitor.

It's really too bad. I loved the PSP and it continues to be my favorite handheld but it had a troubled lifetime and the Vita suffered those problems ten times over. The Vita never had a GTA for the west or a Monster Hunter for Japan so this was to be expected.

Issue with the ps vita was 3 things...
1. The Xbox Era, the playstation brand lost a lot of mindshare. The psp came after the ps2 which was a cultural icon and the playstation brand being high in everyone's mind.

2. The name... Ps vita... Jesus, psp had cultural significance, it was pretty popular and people knew what it was... Wtf is a ps vita most people who owned a psp ask.

3. Mobile gaming, Era of the smartphone... Nuff said...

The switch does show, however that even in the mobile Era, a portable console can still sell with fun games and great controls.

Agreed with all apart from hating their handhelds. I didn't hate them but not for me. Have to say though it's great having Sony fully focus on the ps4 and next up ps5. Happy days.