To state the obvious, The 3DS is selling decently, the Vita not so good. Many people attribute this to Sony making fundamental mistakes, pricing issues, lack of games etc. But is it fair to say that Nintendo may have poached potential Vita buyers? Nintendo have stated that they are trying to win back the hardcore crowd, and i feel the 3DS has gone some way to addressing this, even people i know who are not really interested in Nintendo seem impressed with what the 3DS has to offer.

Although the Vita is more powerful, and is very capable hardware, the 3DS is no slouch either in the visuals dept. Resident evil Revelations shows off exactly what the 3DS is capable of and now hardcore gamers arent going to be put off by "sub par" visuals as they may well have been in the past. Also Nintendo have made great strides with their Nintendo network online service and the E-shop is going from strength to strength, now offering full reatail downloads, as well as demos and original content such as pullblox,Dillon, Zen pinball etc.

With 3rd party content also improving, first party offerings as good as ever and some decent exclusives in the pipeline. Do you think the 3DS is an attractive proposition to a hardcore gamer who has never gone down the Nintendo route before, give me your thoughts?

Why would they care about appealing to a handful of gaming journalists?

The only game that indicates such a shift is Monster Hunter 3G. Otherwise, just the same old Nintendo titles seem to be what people are buying the 3DS for. If I had to guess, the PSP hasn't really had much of a base outside of the Monster Hunter and non-game-buying crowd for years, so the Vita's low sales are only natural.

Mario and co are still what shift 3DS systems no doubt about that. But i would imagine some fans of Resident evil or Kingdom hearts may have taken a punt on a 3DS because they are fans of those franchises and those games appeal to them over Mario. Like i have mentioned, i have a friend who isnt exactly struck on Nintendo, but is intrigued by Kid Icarus Uprising. He would never purchase a 3DS on the strength of that game, but with Monster hunter, Kingdom hearts and Resi evil on offer too, he picked up a 3DS XL.

I don't think they're stealing much of the PS3 / 360 / PC crowd, the games are still very Nintendo focused. The 3DS still has quite a few hardcore gamers, but mainly in the form of Nintendo fans.

Absolutely. Although the bigger size of the success is given to Nintendo first party titles, the hardcore part of the success is bigger than previously. Titles like Resident Evil, Kingdom Hearts, Monster Hunter, Splinter Cell, Tekken, Street Fighter, and many others helped with it. It's important to say that the system was launched less than two years ago and already got many titles of quality/AAA.

Hardcore Nintendo fans?

Get the fuck outta here with your crazy words

Imo it's almost impossible to attract the 360 and PS3 crowd to a handheld. Even the Vita which is a "hardcore" handheld can't do it. It's pretty simple, those people prefer to play on the big screen, it doesn't matter if a handheld game have a console type experience like Uncharted or a quick play like Mario 3D Land. 

The Wii U is the one that should gather the "harcore" audience, not the 3DS.

I'm not so sure about that. I do hope that Sony will do a PS3-type-turnaround with Vita next year by announcing a list of big games and the inevitable price cut. The Vita has huge potential and core gamers (especially PS3 crowd) would surely buy it, but it needs more AAA games. Or to be painfully genuine, it needs any AAA games... So far it has only Uncharted, AC-Liberation and LBP, and maybe Gravity Rush. Not enough to justify the purchase of such an expensive console at least in my eyes, but we'll see in a year. Software sells hardware and there simply is no software on the Vita. And the memory cards cost an arm and a leg... I still believe that this console may succeed, but Sony needs to work hard to do it. I hope they do, cause I want to buy it next year.

Ha Ha Ha Rol, Brilliant and straight to the point as always :D