and Not the 3DS 

Sony is treating The PSVita mainly, as it would a Living room Hub extender, And Not as "just a HandHeld"

PSVita TV being released so Quick is proof of that, Just take a look at How fast it came out? When do you think Sony was working on the PSVita TV? Last Year?

How about 2 year's Ago!

You can call it concession, to Nintendo if you will for the crown of the king of Mobile Gaming, you would be right, but what is more important, is there may not be any dedicated Mobile Handheld Gaming Systems anymore of large size of market share strength, if Nintendo or Sony did nothing to stop smart device companies making devices to challenge this part of the market. 

Smart Devices by the very Nature of design, are already set for absorbtion of markets, they already done so with Dedicated PDA's, and Sony knows this 1st hand. This has happened already. 

when Sony 1st released info on the PSVita it was also on stage we 1st saw "playstation suite" or as it is known today as Playstation Mobile. Day and Date release along side of the NGP or as it is known today as the PSVita. 

If you stop to think about it, that's exactly what The PSVita was designed to do. 
An Will Do it effectively 
Many times i see more and more, people keep saying that the PSVita does not have a Game library to that of the 3DS, that come's out and Pop's and says to the Consumer, Buy me! while they keep Hammering Home how poor the sales of the PSVita are right now. and the fact that its a failure of a system. While I would say if you were just putting it against the Nintendo 3DS by itself, as the only system in the market to put it against than yes you could very well call it a failure to gain any real market share or Mind share. 

Though, the real truth of the matter is the Nintendo DS brand and the Playstation PS branded Mobile Handheld Game systems like the PSP are not the only two options from companies any more for Mobile gaming. 

Sony Purchase of GaiKai, is not out of the Blue, think about what the trends are current in Consumer Electronic's

Smart TV's , Sling Boxe's, Roku Box'es, Most of your DVD player's and Blu-ray Players are now shipping with built in smart Device functions built in from the Get Go. Add in Game console's, Media center boxe's, Tablets and Smartphone's with HDMI out.

Is it any Wonder Sony is Concentrating on Remote Play Access for the PSVita because by default it allows you to play most PS4 games anyway, So courting indie developer's are more important right now anyway.

The Truth for Sony, not only is the PSVita a winner for Sony in being ready for what is ahead for this part of the Market, but has in fact made by default, The only dedicated Game Handheld by its design and function to challenge and to keep a direct wall of impediment to Smart devices from an almost complete Absorbtion of a portion of this part of the market. 

While the Nintendo 3DS is a fantastic Handheld for gaming. The device it self is not designed to protect a part of this market from being over ran by smart devices, and Nintendo would have to make several new revisions to such of the DS platform to make such a direct wall for smartphone's or Tablets to be @ an impediment. 

This is where Nintendo and Sony both differ in the design of each of the Handhelds they produce in the core Direction on what the device is set for this part of the market, is being designed to do. 

Now many may say that this is just a fanboy, View of thing's and as a means to just defend Sony and Down play Nintendo's complete thrashing of the Sony PSVita with the Nintendo 3DS. That is not true at all, I full on agree that Nintendo has completely Dominated the PSVita with the 3DS in Market share and Mind share, that's not really the Point of what this piece is about. Some May say that every thing else does not matter, and that only Mind share and Market share is what really matter's. And while on One case that is completely Viable of a view, it is also not the only thing that matter's. As there is also other thing's that matter, and that market Dynamics change and in the mobile handheld space that change is Quick many times before you can change with it, and you may end up worse than when you start off, because you were not set with preparedness to offset such quick changes in the first place. 

Example:

The global handheld device market is becoming increasingly competitive -- just ask Palm. In the first quarter of 2001, they had over 50% of the worldwide personal digital assistant (PDA) market. Two quarters later, its share had shrunk to less than 30%, according to Gartner Dataquest.

During that period, Palm was not the only one who lost market share; all the majors -- Handspring, Compaq and Casio -- suffered at the hands of new competitors.

In the year 2000, handheld devices were selling like hot cakes. According to NPD Intellect, handheld devices were the second-fastest selling consumer electronics appliance in the US. Only DVD players outpaced them. 2001, however, was "annus horribilus." Demand dried up, causing excess inventory. A price war erupted between appliance manufacturers, the technology and telecommunications sectors hit rock bottom, and the economy went into recession.

As can be seen from the ABN AMRO data, the revenue in 2001 for the global handheld market was only marginally better than in 2000.

2002 should be a much better year. ABN AMRO predicts revenue in the sector to grow by over 30% from 2001, and it will continue to grow in the proceeding years to a market worth over $7.4 billion in 2004.

One result of the inevitable shakeout in the handheld market is that market leader Palm has had to rethink its business strategy. The realization of this change in direction came earlier this week when they announced they had successfully spun off its Palm operating system (OS) subsidiary. Instead of having to fight two battles from the one trench, Palm is now able to muster its forces to compete against Microsoft and co. with one army and the device manufacturers with another. During the announcement of this corporate restructure, Palm also announced that the total number of Palm-powered devices sold had surpassed 20 million worldwide.

Please Note :

Even with Number's Like that

http://www.pdacortex.com/PDA_market_share.htm

The Outcome for what has happened to the PDA market, Sony knows 1st hand what happened!

Example: 

Back before 1998 windows CE was the challenger to Palm OS. 
Palm OS had the largest # of PDA devices out in the market Powered by that OS. Microsoft in 1999 really hit its stride with Windows CE , or Pocket PC many devices Like the HP, COMPAQ IPAQ with its Pocket PC OS changed the direction of the market from mainly a Palm OS dominated Handheld Market to one of windows Pocket PC or Windows CE if you will, not just for PDA's but soon to be Mobile Phones. at one time, Microsoft's pocket PC OS or windows Mobile had over 80% of all smart devices at the time was powered by the Windows Mobile OS for smartphone's at wich point the smartphone absorbed the PDA market into itself while the dedicated PDA is still here today its delegated to very, very nich use's, than Apple and Google changed all that with the IOS and Android. 

Now Microsoft's Windows Phone OS has less than 5% world wide of the market with the OS as the main OS on smart devices. when at one time it was over 80% 

Nintendo, while having such a very large market share and Mind share of the dedicated HandHeld Game system Market % all to themselves, and Even though Sony has given concession to that Dominance by Nintendo, Sony's Dedicated Handheld Game system's are the 2nd largest in market share way behind NINTENDO. 

But it is Sony that HAS more preparedess AGAINST SMART DEVICES THAN Nintendo! 
And it is this preparedness, that Kaz and Company over at Sony is counting on, be that it work out or Not, Sony's Only Real Option is that At least they are going to try. 

What this is going to be Mainly about is Like Sony's Mistake they took to heart, about the Faults about the PS3, Sony also did not want to end up with no real Further Exit Point if you will to be Boxed in, if the Consumer is mainly going with Smart Devices instead of Dedicated Handheld Gaming systems with all your Gaming Content on the go for example: 

With App store Purchase, be that iOS, Or Android your same content can be on all your devices you own, buy Once its on any smart device that can run it that you own. Sony has taken that to not just mean that you have to be downloaded to every device and that you download it to each device, but that can be you can stream to every device you own all your content, Now that's of course Legacy owned Content my have problems, but forward on that can mean any content that be it made for smartphone or Tablet, or Living room Game console, all of it can be streamed to your device, no matter where you are as long as you have access to the internet. if you want just local streaming inside your house you can do that two. but all from the same device. 

Now with Nintendo, the WiiU does this with , the WiiU game Pad, but with the 3DS or the 3DSXL being in hardware not as robust, Nintendo would have release a much more expensive hardware DS to be able to do such the task required for such functionality. the Main Problem with that is , Nintendo's online structure is not readily accessible for such functionality just yet, while Microsoft and Sony's and most all Smartdevices with advanced Networks are example Uverse, Time Warner, etc are already investing heavy into remote Access streaming in this case Gaming being more and More invested into. 

but the thing is, Sony's PSVita is the Most readily prepared Gaming handheld, with the Hardware that would be needed for such functionality, that could handle much more intensive Game functionality that frankly, if you are wanting to take any game in your archive with you, the only other dedicated handheld that comes even close to the PSVita is the Nvidia Shield, and even than the shield does not have its GPU with 128 MB of dedicated Video Ram set aside for it. 

The PSVita Does! that's why, when you look at where the Market dynamic's are set for Change, if you were Kaz, trying to challenge Nintendo for the Dedicated Handheld Gaming Crown is pretty much a loss leader for Sony anyway, at this point, because the writing is already on the Wall. 

That does not mean, that the PSVita is not getting invested into by Sony or that Sony is going to leave it on the vine to die, it just means that Sony has to wait it out, Invest slow and steady, because the smartphones and tablets are as a main function to connect to your living room smart TV, sling box, for streaming content, many times your smart TV has the or will have the same app's as your smartphone or Tablet. What is mainly going on is more and more device companies are including such functionality from the get go into your device, which games like candy crush for instance is making over $620,000.00 a day!. Many 3rd Party Developer's are not going to ignore those number's, big publisher's are not going to ignore those number's, that is exactly why Sony is courting the indie developer. 

And Since the PS4 will be able to steam the majority of the PS4 games to the PSVita, many big time publisher only have to make the game to the PS4 Anyway. 

the Point being , Sony was left with a choice, invest into a handheld that over time becomes a extension by default to your living room, and becomes the best extended living room remote access point handheld to game on, or challenge Nintendo head on, and loose far more Investment $$$ to gather a small % of an every shrinking market share of dedicated Mobile gaming handheld share's when , just by sheer number's alone of device producer's far and away outstrip both Nintendo an Sony's 3DS+PSVITA distributed number's 10 to 1 in devices, and also in software sales. 

3RD party developer's are plenty on the 3DS, but there are far more 3rd party developer's in support of Smartdevices and tablets than there are for dedicated Game handhelds. Sony is at least trying to bolster dedicated Game handhelds as a viable choice to gather the 3rd party smart device developer's, that if they are going to choose to develop for a living room console to also consider the PSVita also while they are at it, Microsoft is also doing that with SmartGlass. Nintendo really does not have such an option. 

As more time goes in the next few year's Nintendo may be left behind wondering what has happened to the Dedicated Handheld Game console market as the smart device swallows up the largest chunk. Sony's aim is to slow down that process in order to stay viable in the dedicated handheld Market, Nintendo may have a very large leadership role, that could all go away if they are not careful. Sony has had direct experience with such, remember the Cliqe? they made many Palm OS PDA's and that got Absorbed, this time it seems Sony is not taking the Smartphone, or tablet threat very lightly. 

Nintendo on the other hand, it seem's is.

Okay....what? This article makes it seem like Sony is poised to succeed with the Vita as more than a portable console while the overall best selling console of the last few years is doomed. I'm sorry. I can't agree with that at all.

And even if the dedicated portable market were to dry up, what makes the author think Sony or the PSV is a viable option for consumers? It's a battle that Sony has lost before it's even started.

I don't have the time to read now, tagging it for later.
But the problem of the vita is that it only games.
Sony needs a hybrid HH for gen 9

Flip it anyway you want at the end of the day Sony is still selling garbage numbers each month. To be honest I would rather say Nintendo is my main competition at this point. At least then I would only be 10-1 on my sales and not 5000-1 if they are serious about contending with iPads and othe tablets.

Something everyone has to consider is both the psp and vita where poised to crush Nintendo and devs early on really thought this to be true; however, the opposite happened and now vita is far worse than psp was. Now 3 years from now when Nintendo releases their next handheld device I doubt devs are going to take sony's machine serious if there even is one. Which means more devs to create new games for Nintendo out the gate. Not to mention we have no clue what the next DS machine will be, but what I can say is I'm done with gaming on my iPad as is my 6yr old son(minus angry birds) maybe Nintendo will make a smart phone that plays all DS games ;) what would that be like even if just an addition to another handheld.

while i can see what you are saying, I really think you are still not grasping the real point's on exactly why this is not about the 3DS vs the PSVita, This was about The PSVita built against the Trends in Remote Access, of Mobile connection to Hub's with your content being accessed anywhere! You can Take the 3DS out of this part , because unlike the PSVita,  the 3DS was not directly designed for this. While the PSVita is.

Example: the fact you even pointed this part as your response, is why it seems you are missing the over all picture of the PSVita, of how its designed not as "just for being a mobile product" that's the Point the PSVita is not just a mobile product, it was designed as Hub extender. why do you think the PSVita TV is already put on the market. you do not produce that over night, the very fact that Sony had day and day Playstation Suite on the very day of the release of the NGP or IE: The PSVita, Means they were not just looking at the Mobile market as the way they looked at it durring the PSP, WHY DO YOU THINK THEY INVESTED INTO rEMOTE PLAY SO MUCH? the trends for remote Access are there, they have been for a while.

"This article makes it seem like Sony is poised to succeed with the Vita as more than a portable console while the overall best selling console of the last few years is doomed."

Think of it this way, why would you even need to Concentrate, on looking at it as "just a mobile game system" when as a platform it is at its very core, can extend all your living room console systems Games to any room of your house, or through the internet anywhere.. the Sling Box , Uverse Time Warner. The fact that Sony started with the 1st PSP and the PS3 and the PS4 Games can kick to the PSVita and the PSVita TV. to any room, or throught the internet. Take your games in your archive on the go anywhere.

the fact out of any handheld device , name another that can run games of advanced graphic's as well as the PSVita remotely from a hub to a mobile device and play it through the internet as well as what the PSVita or PSVita TV can for Games. The only other Handheld that even comes close is the Nvidia Shield, and even than it does not have 128 MB of dedicated Ram set aside for its GPU. that means in very Blunt Terms, the PSVita GPU is the same GPU with higher clock rate and is the same as the iPad III's GPU but the PSVita has 128 MB of ram set aside for it, now even in the next 3 to 4 year's, do you see Nintendo or any other company making a handheld with that much ram set aside for that handhelds GPU. even on smart phones or Tablets? 

Im pretty sure there will not be.

Because its going to cost quite a bit more, than the PSVita, and most likely not have the resources invested in to Remote access that Sony has invested into, it's like Microsoft's where they invested into Kinect, when it comes to remote Access, Sony is clearly the leader in investment into remote access Hub extension for gaming right now , because they have clearly concentrated on it, would you agree with that?

Adding in Gaikai to that Mix, is why challenge Nintendo directly head on, when the cost's to do so would be less market share for more cost's of investment, than when pretty much all PS4 Games 1st party or 3RD PARTY by default will be playable on the PSVita or PSVita TV anyway. thus DO YOU REALLY THINK 3rd party are going to expend more, money on investing into the PSVita as if it was a handheld or as a PS4 extender?

when the cost's of not just team Size, is large but also expense in time 12 to 18 months on a single Game.

you state this:

"Flip it anyway you want at the end of the day Sony is still selling garbage numbers each month. To be honest I would rather say Nintendo is my main competition at this point. At least then I would only be 10-1 on my sales and not 5000-1 if they are serious about contending with iPads and othe tablets. "

they already are! that's the point, Smart Devices, are already  competition at this point, Sony had no choice, and its also direct  competition at this point just as much for Nintendo! That's the main point, Nintendo cannot ignore this part of what smart devices Absorbtion, and if you look at what Nintendo is doing with the handhelds they are designing for the market, they are while doing very well the system's is not geared to defend against smart devices Absorbtion of this part of the market.

Ok yes you can flip it any way you want it, lets do exactly that name any other Dedicated handheld Game system produced , by any other company that has more market share than Nintendo!

There is none right? Right they are the 1st place, Now name any other company that makes a dedicated Game Handheld system that has more MARKET SHARE that is more than Sony's by any other company other than Nintendo? there is none!

So that puts Sony in 2nd place, right? right! and yes that number may be small, and that number is no where near Nintendo's but there is a real problem in just looking at it the way many are looking at this. And you may not want to admit it, but when it comes to handheld devices for gaming now, smart devices can not be ignored now, not because we may not consider them "Game console's" but because they have disrupted this part of the market! its not if : it has already been disrupted!

Before Apple''s iOS and Google's Android,  almost all windows Mobile and Palm OS did not have App Stores only a very select few even had such a store and the app's selection was very limited, right now consumer's from young and Old are groomed, right from the devices desktop on handheld PDA's like those before, were not set up for that type of software distribution environment like it was for the DS AND psp.

Now that is no longer the case, smartphones have absorbed the PDA into its market, and slowly but steady the same thing is happening here, If you look at what the main development investment by 3rd party developer's and publisher's are concentrating on for mobile development, its not Nintendo or Sony anymore, yes there is a good number of 3RD PARTY DEVELOPMENT SOFTWARE still BEING in Development for the 3DS, but the reality of the Situation unless you are Nintendo, the Lions share of Mobile development is for smart devices, that even outstrips the Handhelds made even Nintendo.

Do you really think Sony did not see this?, if so explain how the PSVita TV was produced So Quick after the PSVita was released! do you really think Sony did not have that in the works until recently, or did they have it planned for a while?

So Sony's PSVita is set as a platform for the market, of now what Nintendo is concentrating on, but on the area where investment of Mobile smart devices is heading for not only Game development but game network distribution!

Smart Devices are making a direct play not for the Mobile space, they are already there, they are making a play for the living room , because many consumer's already use those devices more often than not to check email, look at movies waste time anyway, what's adding Games to the mix, any more of expense to invest into. AT&T, TimeW. both are investing heavy to not just movies and TV shows but Gaming also.

the Living room is the HUB, ie: all these next generation living room consoles, are built to be Hub's included in the very foundation of the design, the Nintendo WiiU, with its Tablet controller , and Microsoft with Smartglass..Apple with Apple TV. GOOGLE With Google TV.

Notice even without the PS4 in the Picture, is if someone was to get a PSVita TV instead, you can still use functions that allow you to take the games on the Go with a Mobile PSVita anyway. Even without the PS4 in the Picture

PS4+ PSVita = unifies game on the go with the living room 

or

PSVita TV+ PSVita = unifies game on the go with the living room

or 

One PS4 in the living room + PSVita TV in every bed room or a PSVita = PS4 extended to every room of your House thus unifies again the game on the go.

it was about unifying Playstation as a platform, its no longer just about making just a handheld anymore that's not going to cut it anymore,

Because the Smart Device is making sure its not going to cut it anymore! there is a far greater chance for this part of the market to be absorbed, into smart devices than the other way around. Sony has had 1st hand experience, Nintendo has not.

Many consumer's want the same Apps, on the go be they in any where in your house or in the case of Sony's playstation anywhere you are as long as you have internet or Not "in the case of Home" you could use remote play without even having internet!

Once again , many it seems are still looking at this as "only from a Dedicated handheld game market Only" which is fine if you want to view it that way, but its not the primeary 3rd party development platforms for game development for mobile devices anymore that, now is the smart device.

If you want to be Honest about it, while i full on admit Sony is not doing very well sales wise with the PSVita, i also know that Sony is does indeed have better preparedness in defense to market Absorbtion by smart devices than Nintendo, right now and as i was pointing out, because of this, Sony's PSVita has a higher chance to be success, maybe not in anywhere near the market share in the dedicated Game handheld Space as Nintendo, but they sure will or could indeed retain the 2nd Largest market shere in the dedicated Game Handheld space, and since the PSVita has a higher clock rates iPad III GPU with More dedicated Ram, Sony can retain more profit without having to release, a change in hardware for quite a while. Since right now even within some regions the PSVita is net profit return even on hardware by itself, and many are at break even.