It's pretty common to need to update consoles and handhelds as soon as you get them now.
PS3 - had a firmware update at US launch, had another firmware update at PAL launch.
360 - bought one 2 weeks ago, it went through the update cycle like 3 times...
PSP - First thing i did with my PSP-2000 was a firmware update
3DS - has had multiple firmware updates
Wii - first thing i did was the firmware updates, hell it even had game updates to fix problems in games i don't own (eg. twilight princess was patched via firmware update)
Why would Vita be any different?