I was getting one but somehow got a iPad instead. I definitely made the right decision there. I thought tablets were stupid but now I see I was wrong. And I would get one this holiday but I am getting a wii u. So once Sony shows off a game I want on it I will probably jump in. Until then I will just play the consoles I have.

Japan: doesn't have games that push the system. Neither before, now or in the near future.

West: predecessor left market in shambles, handheld market changed a lot (and Sony's portable is the one that pays the price the price first, as its audience is the first to "move on"). And speaking of price.... price is high.

Tablets aren't stupid. They're just severely gimped for anything other than simplistic touch games as a gaming platform.

Actually I guess the main reason is its lack of games that attracts casual gamers.. Also, the vita got a better line-up than 3DS with the same price, Seeing that 3DS had similiar sales before the price-cut, I think the vita needs a similiar treatment.
Therefore, in Japan it's an other story.. Vita will survive there no matter what, it's just a little early for the system to have the attention of japanese gamers when the PSP is still making profit for 3rd Parties. And I'm sure that the vita will follow the same way !

Price is still an issue, I was just pointing out that smart phones are expensive in comparison. The problem is that the casual market SONY wants to sell the Vita to are willing to pay far more for a smart phone than a dedicated gaming handheld. Being more expensive than the 3DS when it is doing this well isn't helping either.

Price of the cards, the marketing and the games.

Needs system sellers. I think the system sellers will arrive in the form of 3rd party titles.

Wow, Kinect won last year... it won not only on Gaming Gadget of the year, but as "Gadget of the year" period.

There should be an option for preferring the 3DS. I personally like the Vita, but I already have a 3DS and simply don't need two handhelds.

It needs $100 dollar price cut. Or a $75 dollar price cut with a bundled memory card.

Currently in the US, if I wanted to play Gravity Rush I would have to pay $250 for system, $16 for cheapest memory card and $34 for game. $300 is WAY too high of an entry level price point for mass market consumption for this device, regardless of how good it is.

The perceived value doesn't currently match the price.

No question about it; the device is appropriately priced (until you add either a 16GB or 32 GB memory card), but it's not a substitute for any other device most consumers already own.

It's almost exclusively big gadget fans, big Playstation fans, etc. who are buying them and that's a fairly limited niche market compared to the overall mobile gaming space.

If more of the core franchises on the PSP (which were limited compared to those on the DS) transitioned over to the PSV, more current PSP users would follow, but this simply hasn't been the case as of yet. Sales in Japan show that there are simply more games still being released for the PSP currently (in the market where it sold best), making it a fairly pointless upgrade given the entertainment value/price ratio the PSP still holds.

And of course, the shift in the mobile games space towards low priced, downloadable games with less depth, but enough entertainment value for the average mobile gamer isn't going to change, placing the PSV in more or less the same position as the PSP five years ago as a smaller niche market device targeted primarily at the smaller pool of mobile gamers who want a deeper "console experience" on the go.

As an owner, I'm aware of the irony that the games I probably spent the most time playing on the PSV, were the smaller PSN titles best suited for shorter playing sessions, much like the one's I've been playing on the iPad. The thing is, the games on the iPad are still a lot cheaper than DD games on the PSV (even if the overwhelming majority of them still aren't as deep), and more importantly, I'm always using the iPad anyway for general purpose tasks that I used to do on the laptop, making it a lot easier to open up a quick game session of whatever on the iPad in between.

Do I prefer the additional physical controls? Absolutely. Am I going to carry a dedicated portable anywhere because of them? No way. At this point, the 3DS and PSV are the middle children; turned on only when I want to play a substantial gaming session for a game that's not on any of my consoles (which have laid dark more and more since this year). It would take a pretty addictive game to get me to take either device anywhere with me, and that's something currently lacking on either device.