The more I think about it the more I think you are wrong! The ipad has a great selection of games, and franchises. It could probably beat out the Vita gamewise at least for the moment. It has a lot of big names; Mass effect, Metal Gear, Megaman, Dead Space, Civilization, Minecraft, Mirror's Edge. and Final Fantasy. As well as a couple ios only franchises. The controls take a bit of a learning curve but they aren't bad by any means. I don't see any reason why it can't be considered competition to the 3DS and Vita 

I use my ipad purely for my education, work and possible sketching. Gaming is absolutely abysmal on the thing. Even when core games such as GTA3 are on it, the controls are a mess and make the experience void of any satisfaction and enjoyment. If you love the touch controls for more traditional games such as GTA3 then you're arguably a masochistic individual. Even tried playing one of my favourites Shining Force since it was a dollar, all I'll say is tactile buttons are a necessity for certain games.

Touch controls can definitely complement games, and you can have purely touch based games such as say Canvas Curse, but a device that has no tactile buttons can't provide you with a well rounded gaming experience. Vita is clearly for gaming and the ipad is clearly for more professional functions with gaming as subaltern. Whether one enjoyed Infinity Blade for 1000 hours is irrelevant in this distinction.

Considering the fact that tablet and smartphone games are cheap, developpers won't spend a big budget so they can't do better graphic than PSVita.

Smartphone and Tablet  can"t compeate with handheld in gaming domain.

And if it was a smartphone that lost none of its very capable gaming aspects?

If you could buy one for $200 on contract like all other smartphones? (or less on sale as it defintely would be soon)

w/ built in 16gb and a slider form factor or course.

If I were in your shoes, I'd wait. The only difference is visual clarity really. CPU is the same and overall feature set is the same.

I agree with this guy.

superchunk i would just like to say that you have not pointed out how the PSV is being overlapped by tablets tec wise.

The ipad 3 just got announced and the PSV is stil the most powerfull mobile device around. To me that is amazing as apple are usually the leaders when it comes to releasing new tec. Im going to bet apple will release a quad core ipad in the next year. Only then will they be up to scratch with the tec in PSV. Thats a year of being on the bleeding edge of mobile technology! Im pretty sure most people wernt expecting this. And just to reiterate what i said in my previous post most tablets are using nvidias tegra 3 tec, which is relatively new from nvidia. And is no where close to the power of the PSV. So really only in the next wave of tablets which will be next year round about this time will we see manufacturers surpass the PSV in terms of tec.

That is a year and half of relevance with an additional year of being in the same ballpark as others. Only then in the following year will the PSV really start to show its age. Im basing this on the current trends, when many have predicted things will begin to slow down in the coming years.

Not to mention the exagerated growth some tec companies are touting...nvidia failed dismally to meet its required performance with tegra 3.

I know you said this wasnt the focus of the OP but i just felt i should comment on this again.

Actually, Android OEMs have put out more powerful hardware before iDevice over the last few iterations. Android already has quad-core phones and tablets announced and releasing... cpu and gpu. Androids also generally have more RAM. Difference is Apple is still king of developer support.

In the next few months Vita will be matched on the hardware front, from both new Android devices and iPhone 5. Do a little research on upcoming phones/tablets and you'll easily see this.

Then take a step back and see where the tech is going, you'll easily see that from YOY increases, by 2013, Vita will be less than all launching mobile products... high end of course.

At this point, mobiles will have PS360 level games in their libraries and the only difference will be controls. Then depending on the player, will they want to purchase a dedicated game console for another $300 or $40 for a bluetooth controller they can sync with their device. I'll definitely snag one of my PS3 controllers for my Android device. Additionally, the game may be somewhat cheaper due to digital distribution. So maybe $40 vs $50/60.

I have done the research. You do know that tegra3 has a quad core cpu based on the same cpu as vita but doesnt really come close to overall performance of the PSV/ipad? I dont get your emphasis on core count, it says nothing of actual performance. Actually im pretty sure the tegra 3 has a 12 core gpu as well! Other competing technologies like the S4 from snapdragon are mostly dual core cpu's this year as well, and are in the same ball park as tegra 3 in terms of gaming performance (tegra 3 gpu> most adreno based gpus). Its not all about core count.

Those are the prominent technologies at the moment in highend android smartphones/tablets, and if you look at the roadmaps of nvidia and qualcomm, their next iterations are due next year only. And even then, the promises that they make in terms of performance gains or even release dates is not a sure thing. AS we see with tegra 3 underperforming.

Im not saying the PSV is waaaay ahead of the rest, but what im saying is that it is ahead at the moment (especially in terms of gaming performance), im also saying that in the next year the PSV's chipset will stil be relevant, id imagine quad core cpu/gpu combinations will only become the norm then. And in the following year the psv will be overtaken, possible in that same year. My main point was that your statement about tablets already overlapping psv tec wise is simply not true at this point in time. Hell the new ipad hasnt even released yet.

Really I never use it. My iPhone does everything my iPad does, and a little bit better. Everyone I k ow who has owned one either never uses it or has sold it for a laptop. iPads are pointless for the average person. Some people it does help in thier jobs, sure. My phone or my vita are both better devices than an iPad. At least they are more comfortable to hold while laying in bet browsing the Internet. I wish I'd gotten a decent laptop instead of the iPad, money better spent.