You can't forget about digital sales. Every Vita game is day one on PSN so this could make up anywhere from 5% to 95% of total sales. Also even ignoring digital sales, Vita games are still selling much better than you think. An extreme example is Rayman Origins. On PSV it sold 144,000 in Europe while on 3DS it sold only 12,000. Launch title or not this 3rd party game did much better on Vita than 3DS. For another example look at Fifa. On Vita it has sold double compared to 3DS. Yeah Vita game sales aren't as amazing as you want, but they are better than you act like they are.

Having used iphone, ipad, android phones, nexus 7, etc. None of these compare to the Vita. Even the 3DS beats the crap out of phones and tablets right now and that's saying something from me who abhors dual screen and 3D. Maybe next gen if the 3DS cripples the Vita enough that it is still not very profitable for SONY then SONY bows out of the dedicated handheld market, leaving only the one contender, which will by then likely either go further crazy with weird gaming mechanics or dies itself finally leaving us with no dedicated gaming device.

At that point I wonder if mobile gaming changes completely and we are forever lost to $9.99 games with little depth.

Resident evil should have sold more and yet capcom said it met their expectations despite the fact they save locked it? If it met their expectations it shouldn't have sold more. Would be nice to sell more but it met their expectations and that is what counts.

Its obvious these guys are making a killing by how they flood support. And marvelous are actually getting their profits from 3ds it was revealed about 3 days ago.

If these incredibly poor sales continue, the Vita will probably be killed by Sony in under a year and a half's time.

If Sony wants to reassure people that they have games, they should reveal them; right now they sound like some obviously virgin teenager who claims to everyone that he has slept with dozens of girls, but refuses to reveal the names of any of them. Later on people will be asking where the games are? Others will still think they're coming until even after the system is canned.

I can't believe the creative ways in which people try to spin the Vita as having good software sales. O.o

The Vita doesn't need just a price cut.

The price has to actually be slashed so that the Vita is cheaper than the 3DS to have a snowball's chance in hell of selling more in 2013 than 2012.

I've said this before, but if the Vita continues to sell terrible than Sony is more likely to go all digital than to stop the Vita. The Vita is a profit machine for Sony. The hardware is at cost or better (3G Vita definetely) and every single title is day one digital. If sales are still low and retailers are looking to stop efforts Sony can pull the physical plug and push hardware sales themselves, though I still think retailers would hold on to hardware and especially accessories (they do it for Apple products and those are all digital). Vita can fall back on PS Mobile for that matter, the incomming hundreds of games and apps could sustain the system. Down the road they could even add phone functionality after reducing energy consumption and size.

These are possibilites for a system like Vita. It isn't the physical only days anymore. The Vita isn't limited to one outlet for software. It has physical, digital, digital only, classics, and PS Mobile. When PS4 launches Vita will increase in functionality and new games will be created on a PC like architecture which to me sounds like PSN game compatibility between the systems.

Digital capable handheld systems are far more durable than a typical console. The manufacturing cost are lower, the shipping cost are lower, and profit margins are higher. It doesn't make much sense for Sony to terminate the system with the profit margins they are achieving right now is enough to keep it going and the potential to turn the system around is worth all the effort.

With a price cut and enough games to finally appeal to the core gamer I could easily see it doing 2/3 times what it did this year. This requires that the games they have announced so far are only the beginning (Soul Sacrifice, Tear Away, PSO2 and Killzone).

Hopefully it will get some killers games shown at E3; GT, GTA, Final Fantasy and I'm still hoping for some PC ports or spin offs; Left for dead, Minecraft, Portal etc. I don't expect to see Bioshock Vita till 2014...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSP_Go

Joking aside I see what your saying but if the vita doesn't pick up at christmas they would be better off just bailing on handhelds. I know there are possibilities but if it isn't going anywhere they are better off forgetting it. They already admit to struggling to get their studios ready for ps4 due to releasing games on 3 platforms. Since ps3 is the one likely to go further in the long run they should milk that. I wouldn't count vita out just yet but if the worst came to the worst they should drop it. Focusing too much on that can make them lose sight of the ball for ps4.

That's the thing though. If they drop the Vita they are taking a financial loss while if they keep it going, even at this rate, they can make back their investment after a few years.

A system't cost is not merely just the sum of its parts, but also the manned factories which produce the hardware, the factories which assemble the hardware, the quality assurance to make sure that those facotires aren't producing defective goods, the shipment to warehouses, the warehouse expense, the distribution to retailers, etc. I don't think Sony will maintain that infrastructure just to support a few digital games that barely have a market.