How much juice does Playstation have as a brand, if this is the talk regarding the Vita? It is part of the Playstation line. People on forums like this go, "Playstation forever!" and whatnot.

This. lol

A portable system is a console, it's just that the TV it is connected to is part of the case. The output is inside of the machine instead of external.

If not what's this then?

@Chark

This is the sales forum, and I shouldn't need to explain a concept as fundamental as retail overhead to anybody. You really should have a working understanding of such things. Retailers actually lose money when merchandise doesn't sell. Sales are how they cover the costs of overhead. Retailers have to pay taxes, employees, utilities, insurance, investors, and to maintain their facilities.

When a product takes up real estate it must cover the overhead for that real estate. If the product doesn't sell well, or worse doesn't sell at all. That means the retailer is spending money to keep it on their shelves. Right now based on the sales there are a lot of retail locations losing money by carrying the Vita. When they could be using that space to sell something that well actually sells. At this point it is simple deductive logic.

If the sales don't pick up enough to cover the overhead. Then the retailer is going to go through a series of steps to try and make it a profitable venture, and if none of the steps do the trick. Then they will cut their losses by putting the device on clearance to remove it from their inventory. Your arguments beyond this point are entirely specious, and based upon your own feelings rather then logic.

It doesn't matter if Sony can go it alone, and make money off of the Vita. Which I assure you it can't the majority of sales still take place within physical locations. That wouldn't matter to retailers. The only thing that would in truth matter to them is that they couldn't make money off of the product, and that they were losing money by carrying the product. They couldn't care less if Sony took its toy and went back home.

Sony needs these retailers more then need Sony. Retailers have a lot of choices when it comes to the products that they are going to carry. Behaving badly isn't going to help Sony sell retailers on carrying Sony products. All that would do is make their business rivals look more professional. Yes is business demeanor matters if your rival is equal to you on all accounts, but they do a better job of getting their arguments across by being more hospitable. Then chances are they will get the sale.

I would like to say that Sony would never behave so irresponsibly, but if they were to do so then they would start to suffer terribly for doing so. You don't smart off, or insult people that you need to do business with to survive. I don't think you should have even floated that idea.

As for this whole what makes a console debate you all have it wrong. The origin of the name is what matters, and not the wordy definition a dictionary fabricated. A game console can be found on a television console. The name comes from where the device is located. The origin of the term is colloquial, and not technical in nature. So the definition that takes precedence is the colloquial one. Colloquially speaking we don't consider portable gaming devices to be consoles. We call them portable devices.

I'm not actually well off with that. Well it seems you are under the impression that I've not seen what the 3DS and Vita actually do. In my previous post I never mentioned current iOS/Android games look or play better than any of the similar ports on Vita or 3DS. It's a matter of time how iOS/Android platform starts incorporating/customizing some of the features of the current handheld consoles. You CAN'T ignore that possibility.

Until there are at least basic control inputs put on an apple product you effectively can ignore them for actual portable gaming, you can state that there are more and more people with "gaming" phones out there but I'll be honest with you, I think I played a lot more on my nokia 5110 back in the 90s when that knew what it was, it had snake on it, and 4 buttons to control where he went it worked, trying to do a DP motion with an on screen dpad you might as well be trying to control a space shuttle with an old atari joystick it doesn't work.

I'm not for a second btw disputing that a good few people who own smart phones buy a few games from them that cost .99cent - 2.99 and there are a great number of little games that do work when they are built around the limitations that the lack of controls allows but what is it something like 60% of the apps on the ios store have never been downloaded even once? I don't really think this sort of market being flooded with such a massive pile of.... Explicit words :D would really rustle the feathers of nintendo or sony, it wont be having them thinking, is that guy at the bus stop who just spent .99cents  on a game where you tap the screen to bounce from one side of a tree to the other, is he not buying my 250euros console with 50euro games because of that game he got.... NO he bought it cos it's a euro and he's bored, he wouldn't magically have 300euros to spend on a vita if that option wasn't there, he would just sit there bored for 5 mins waiting for the bus.

have a ps2, psone and gc all with built on screens to them. are they not consoles? is a notebook not a pc? how about the other way around, when I use my psp with it's tv out is that a console then, or when you have gaming consoles in stores are they breaking the law by selling them as consoles as they don't have tvs connected to them inside the boxes?

Handheld gaming console, it's a console. People just don't tend to go around referring to their Xbox or Ps3 as a Floorbased gaming console. where it resides doesn't effect what it is or what it does, try it sometime, pick up your playstation in your hands, see if what it is changes.

Geesh, I was just matching your prediction with another outrageous one. The biggest sales period for the game industry is about to hit along with a good number of big titles. Even the thought that all retailer support would go away during that time is preposterous. That and you are meerly speculating that the overhead cost for selling the device isn't making up for it in sales. I imagine the console itself has a low profit margin, but what about the games, the accessories, the memory card? They dont' take up that much space and retailers can always limit it down to a few square feet of display. Sometimes retailers themselves need to attempt to encourage sales and there isn't any indication that they are taking extreme measures. Extreme measures being an attempt to bolster sales not clear out stock. If a scenario like you suggest would happen it would be a more drawn out process, not something that would happen by years end and especially not during the most lucritive time of the year while strong support is being seen by the manufacturing company. PlayStation isn't some toss away brand either, PSP, PS2, and PS3 are prominent at most gaming retailers and have been for years. Retailers aren't going to benefit by cutting themselves out of future hardware success.

If something crazy like that ends up happening, my scenerio would be Sony's best bet since brick and mortar places would essentially be screwing over "people that you need to do business with to survive." It's a two way street.

" FAR better than the 3DS. For gaming.... "

I lol'd

On the heldheld/Phone discussion.

Most people on them jailbreak or only get games free look up all the quotes on this.

Usually on the big guys make good money IOS. 

I fully believe 4ds should have a phone add on this should have happen by now.