3DS is more expensive than Wii but is doing reasonably well for itself. People expect newer electronics to be more expensive, the matter lies in the fact that PSVita is attempting to be PS3-lite, whereas DS nor 3DS were or are Wii-lite.

It'll go down in the next months. March is not the slowest month and Vita is still experiencing "launch" numbers - it's decreasing 20k per week in Americas and maybe there's adjustments in Europe too, judging by this thread.

So it all depends on two things where it'll stabilize and if there's price cut or not.

I don't buy that whole theory that people don't want it because its "console-like".  All that means is it is powerful enough to compare to a console. That can be said about the 3DS, that can be said about the DS, that can be said about the GBA. The only difference with the PSP and PSV is that its comparable to current gen consoles, but is the 3DS that far off from the Wii? That's "current gen" right?

What's the appeal of non-console-like? What does that even mean? Are people looking for games that don't use dual analog? 2D graphics. What? It doesn't make any sense.

20k per week? Have you checked this past week? It went down 16% or around 5k, it went down 30% or 15k the week before. The drop is slowing down. I'm just using USA data but that's the bulk of it and I doubt the rest of NA is on a vastly different projectory.  I'd guess the lowest point either the US or EA will go is around 20k, probably with EU being the higher of the two.

Oh and 8 million is what I expect, 10 mil is what I'm hoping.

You are wrong here, Mr Khan. Monster Hunter isn't tailor-made for handhelds. It's only successful in the country where home console-like games are fully accepted on handhelds, so using it as an example for a game that was made for handhelds is definitely wrong.

You are also wrong on a previous point. While the 3DS isn't trying to be Wii-lite (how could it, a handheld can't replicate motion controls and pointer functionality on any sufficient level), it has been trying to be GC-lite for too long. That's why its sales in the Western markets are so lacking. In rough terms, the American and European market are both about twice as big as Japan. So if the 3DS can sell 60k units per week in Japan, it should push 120k units in America and Europe individually. It's not even close to that.

There is also a lot of confusion in how to describe what kind of games work on a handheld on a global scale. When somebody says home console games don't work, it's often countered by saying games on Nintendo handhelds were on home consoles too. Both statements are correct, but what they don't account for is that home console games have gone through a transition over the years. Modern home console games usually have very complex controls or are about experiencing a storyline while home console games of the past were direct descendants of arcade games. And those were games with simple controls, yet hard to master. They were games that had to be addictive, so they constantly challenged the player.

When somebody is taking a bus ride or whatever, a handheld's job is to kill boredom. And games that pump up your adrenaline level by constantly challenging you do this better than anything else. You only have 10-15 minutes to play, so a game better gets straight to the point and gives you what you need.

Of course, there's also room for other games to be successful on handhelds, because people don't want an adrenaline rush all the time. What's the most important point to make a successful handheld is to cover as many bases as possible, but with arcade-like games taking priority, because that's what most people expect from handhelds.

In Japan, almost everything can be put on handhelds and be successful, but nobody should expect this to happen in the Western markets. Not even Nintendo's iron grip on the handheld market will change this, even they have to obey the consumers' wishes. The 3DS needs to be transformed into a true DS successor and stop to be GC-lite. Kid Icarus is bound to flop and Luigi's Mansion 2 will follow.

I wouldn't label Monster Hunter's appeal as a handheld thing. The main draw is multiplayer. In general, it doesn't seem like Japan is embracing online gaming, so the PS2 Monster Hunter games weren't set up to become huge hits.

It makes me wonder how a four player splitscreen MH game on a home console would do. While I doubt that it would surpass the popularity of the handheld games in Japan, I would expect a notable boost in Western sales, because local multiplayer makes it much easier to get more people into the Monster Hunter series.