The Vita will not have a price drop any time soon. Its already being sold at a loss.

1. psp was less sucessful then DS (ie more nindendo fans)

2. Memory cards sold out for vita 

3. People tend not to buy stuff for themself around holidays and since vita launched barely a week before christmas alot of people probably held off

4. People waiting for firmware update before buying

5. 3DS dropping the price so quickly makes people think vita might so they hold off

6. Monster hunter tri port launch on 3DS

7. Has direct competition where 3DS had none. 

I think these points can easy explain a 50k difference

The Vita launched pretty late in the holidays. Not only that but it had a lot of competiton, the 3DS had tons of momentum with a lot of its big games released in time for the holidays. The fact that Vita came so close to 3DS launch numbers is really impressive.

1) Will the PSP become more successful than the DS in the next 3 months? So that point does not support your claim that, despite doing worse in launch week, Vita will do better during the next 3 months.

2) What, Sony shipped 500k copies of the hardware, but only around 300k of a required peripheral? In all honesty, I'm not going to believe this unless you provide me with a reliable source.

3) I'm sorry, but that makes no sense. Look at the current hardware sales of all the consoles and handhelds. Christmas is a period of higher than usual sales, not lower. Look at the front page, the 3DS just sold 1.5 million units in a week.

4) No, the number of people in this world who wait for firmwave upgrades are statistically insignificant. As a general idea of how many people there would be doing as you say. 99% of the population have no idea what the word firmware means. Back in the day, people kept saying that when the PS3 had this or that firmware update sales would skyrocket. There was never any change in hardware sales associated with firmware updates.

5) As with 1, this point will be as true, or maybe even more true, for the next 3 months. This is not a reason why Vita will outsell the 3DS in the next three months even though it didn't in the first week.

So you have 3 points that prove my point, 1 that proves no point, and 1 that (assuming it is true) does give some reason to think that Vita might make back a bit of ground.

Well this isn't that big of a deal, PS Vita to dominate first 3 months then 3DS to dominate rest of gen?

If I was Nintendo I would be happy with such a prediction lol.

It launched in the 2nd best week of the year for sales. Launching late in the holidays is the best way to improve your first week sales, whilst doing the least to help your first 3 month sales. This infact just proves my point.

As for competition, the 3DS is going to be around and competing for the next 3 months, so that doesn't help your point at all. You need to find reasons why Vita will improve, not just excuses as to why it's not outselling the 3DS.

1. It's an advantage not an auto win. 

2. Alot of People bought 1 psv and 2+ memory cards... here's an article http://www.destructoid.com/ps-vita-did-not-sell-out-in-japan-but-memory-cards-did-218167.phtml

3. Yeah but not when the thing just launched a week before. It's usually higher then average because everyone is buying something for someone but vita has only been out a week. When something launches everyone who wants it goes out and buys it but they can't do that a week from christmas since they might be getting it as a present. I'll simplify it gets the holiday bonus but loses the launch bonus.

4. They don't need to know what it means, they just need to know vita has bugs that aren't fix yet. 

5. I never said it was, the more time passes the less people who think this is true. 

PSV will sell more over the 3 months, because 2 and 3 will be a non issue soon enough, Sony will fix 4 which will help the word of mouth and it still has better games then the 3DS does and is getting better games then it did.

1. There are no nintendo fans... PSP vs DS does have nothing with the ne gen on portables... No one bougth 3Ds because are fans of Ds and o one are buying Vita because own a PSP Just the game line up is a reason for buying a new console.

2. I think that he's trying to say that the low retails sells are because most people bougth donwloables games... I did read that the hardware-softaware (retail) ratio was 0.90...  that's less than one game per console...

3.You're saying about the total of 3Ds sold worldwide... and vita only sell on japanse market currently... BUT the 3DS and the Vita itself got a very good week for cristmast in japan... i'm with you in this...

4.Lame excuse... i'm with you... but people waiting for price cut is probable...XD

5. I don't trust patcher... but  I think that vita could outsell 3Ds but 3 months after the Western release... the japanases release was aerly and Weak in term of software that match tthe japanese tastes... I think Vita looks more atractive for westerns consumers than eastern now aday... Is just wait and see... There's already a Gundam announced for Vita and  before 2012 2nd semester there will be more games announced for vita... this is JUSt the begining..

I think it will be close, but the first 3 months sales is not important. With good 3DS games being released and more solid titles coming I think it's a lost war for Vita.

nd I can still remember Mr. Pachter insisting 3 years ago the WiiHD upgrade was coming. It got to be ridiculous almost like a rude child.

3ds launched in japan and NA/Europe only a month apart. The Vita has a 2 month gap between Japan and Europe launches.

But cmon patcher.......Vita has a 169 3DS with amazing games out and coming out, coupled with the ever present smartphone market penetration.