I don't understand how this an often accepted and argued claim on the interwebs.

I mean, I can understand how some might have this opinion, but I'm not convinced.

Especially considering this is probably the worst generation for handheld consoles ever.

I realize the question of whether or not some's opinion on whether or not the Vita has been adequately supported is subjective, but the "Vita gets no support[that I want]" argument isn't really convincing the way its presented on the internets.

Vita has no support, that's a fact not an opinion.

>Looks at PSP titles during first few years

>Looks at PSV titles during first few years

Yeah, Sony jumped ship. Sure, it isn't doing well, but neither is the Wii U and that gets plenty of support. I love my Vita, but let's not pretend that Sony has given it adequate support. At this point, it's more of a PS4 companion machine than a dedicated handheld.

Sony didn't abandon it because they were never there for it to begin with.

That's the problem with comparing PSP and Vita though. The prior didn't have to compete with smartphones.

The Vita had to compete against 500~million smartphones that had been shipped that year from the starting gate.

http://mobiforge.com/research-analysis/2011-handset-and-smartphone-sales-statistics-worldwide-big-picture?mT

If we're starting from the release of the Iphone, thats a 4 year head start as well. That essentially renders the disparity of support between the two as virtually insignificant. Not to mention that the PSP was released in the lifetime of the PS2 vs the Vita being released in the lifetime of the PS3. I don't see how its even possible to consider how Sony could support the Vita to the level of the PSP considering the difference in circumstances.

Did sony ever support it outside Japan？

3DS had a ton of support, and it's going against the exact same competition as the Vita.

Well, its basically, you look at two low selling devices, the Vita and the wiiU... The wiiU has to compete with the ps4/x1 and its getting beat quite hard. Its sales have been piss poor, there is virtually no third party support and it will most likely be in third place by the end of the generation but that doesn't stop Nintendo from releasing its key games on it and giving the fans a fantastic Nintendo experience that they have been looking for.

You compare that with the Vita, each year, the # of games being released from Sony is going down massively... And on top of that, games like FF Type-0, which many fans wanted for the Vita, is being ported to the ps4 instead... Sony could have easily told SE and maybe paid a bit more to port it to both systems but instead, they are just porting it to the ps4... And not to mention, Sony has basically marketed the vita from this dedicated portable AAA experience to a niche indie ps4 accessory experience as well as many other things...

Granted it has smartphones as its competition but so does the 3ds and you don't see Nintendo backing out... Even before the wiiU became such a flop, Nintendo supported the 3ds like crazy and they are continuing to do so with ssb for 3ds just being released and Pokemon on the horizon. On top of that, they have said that there is a 2d metroid on the way (most likely for the 3ds) and they will continue to release more games in 2015

Yes, they did. They put their best brands - Uncharted, Killzone, Little Big Planet, and went to create new brands - like Tearaway and Gravity Rush. Overall i think they made more than 5 high budget games, even though they never got the sales to justify those. They were only made to push console, even when they were mostly financial failures. But Sony coudn't spend money without limit, if it didn't help vita to grow anyway. 

Wii U has much better software sales than Vita.