I said this before and I will say it again. Sony never had a clear strategy on what they wanted to do with the Vita.

-It was western centric at launch when we know the biggest handheld market is in Japan.
-at the beginning of its life cycle, 3rd party devs and pubs in Japan was still making games for the PSP instead of the Vita.
-Sony tried to push thier big 1st party titles on the Vita but they didn't have any middleware games between big title releases to keep the ball rolling.
-Then they stopped releasing big titles and started turning the Vita into an Indie game machine. So they solved the lack of middleware games problem and replaced it with a lack of big titles releases.
-Now it has become a niche Japanese device (not that I'm against that) but the lack of western support broke the balance again.
-3rd party Vita games are likely released on the PS3 and PSP in Japan which eats up sales for the Vita.
-Vita TV/PS TV was released without making all Vita games compatible. I think its doable with the DS4.
-Negative messaging from Sony themselves. The final nail in the coffin was when the white flag was raised.

Yeah, I was pretty sure there were other threads on this topic. I wanted to make sure, but the search function only goes back 90 days.

I've been to many forums where, if you posted something even remotely similar to another thread, you would never hear an end to "There's already a thread like this! Stop posting!"

Most of the people here aren't making a big deal about it though. So kudos for that!

A single Vita owner's anecdotal evidence proves that Vita owners buy loads of retail games digitally. Okay.

If there's one thing I proved for sure, it's that Zackasaurus's one statement was incorrect. He claimed that over 50% of Vita game sales are digital and I provided a source showing that the figure is 48%. And then you said 49%, which must be a typo.

People often use this statistic to argue that Vita game sales are greater than they appear (as Zack was doing), or that the Vita has a much greater digital:physical sales ratio than other platforms. The figure provided by Sony doesn't support either of those claims. First of all, the Vita, with its access to PS Classics and PSP games, has a very large library of titles available digitally. Factor in that the system is much more popular among indie devs than it is among major retail publishers and it's obvious that the Vita should have a lot of digital software sales.

Of course Vita game sales are somewhat greater than they appear on VGChartz due to digital sales. That is the case for all games released on modern platforms. But there is no evidence to suggest that the Vita has a greater digital:physical sales ratio than any other system.

As a side note, I find your claim that "Vita customers buy digital AAAs a lot" amusing, because I don't think I would categorize any Vita games as "AAA." I suppose you might consider a port of a AAA console game to also be AAA?

In short, 3DS. I mean, it is the same reason Wii U is being beat by the PS4 and Xbone. There isn't enough support for that system. Wii U gets no 3rd party support, while the 3DS gets it all. And it isn't like the Vita has no 3rd party support, the support that it does have really doesn't help because they are games that generally don't sell well.

Happened. 

No older teenager or adult would be caught dead carrying around a gaming handheld today. 

The kids market is also under full assault. Nintendo is able to survive because they throw all their AAA IP onto their handheld and they also have a stronger foothold with the kids market, and kids generally still don't get a smartphone until they're teenagers, so Nintendo has some cover there. That and the 3DS is effectively replaced home consoles in Japan, so Japan is a safe haven in effect for them.

Sony has none of those things going for them, basically the smartphone tsunami happened, Sony is stuck outside with no shelter, Nintendo is inside a little hut. Both are taking a beating, but Sony's situation is worse. 

The Vita's hardware was the source of all of its problems. Sony should have used significantly less powerful hardware in order to cut costs and provide an affordable system. Additionally, they should NEVER have used those proprietary memory cards.

If they had launched a pared down Vita a full year before the 3DS (it's not like they had to worry about cannibalizing the PSP's rapidly declining sales) at a lower price without those insanely overpriced memory cards it would have been far more successful than it was.

Edit: At launch the Vita plus a game, memory card and taxes would have cost me over $400. How is Sony still in business when decisions like these are being made at the highest levels?

Why would an adult buy such a device though? After smartphones came out it doesn't matter if the price was $100, it's $100 more than anyone wants to spend. No adult/teenager wants to carry around a bulky second device when they already have a smartphone. 

With regards to the kids market -- would they have Mario Kart, Mario, Pokemon, etc.? No? Then they were always losing to Nintendo no matter what. 

The whole "lets aim for older teens and adults" tactic that Sony uses for consoles doesn't work for handhelds and they don't have the IP to make any headway with the kids crowd. 

This is the right answer. More games like Golden Abyss, good, solid spinoff fare from their main franchises which helped keep PSP steady, and which basically don't happen anymore.

Sorry but humanity is not homogenious, some people have different opinions and preferences. Smartphone gaming blows as far as I am concerned and I want a proper handheld (guess what, I'm an adult). Sure, the dedicated handheld market is clearly shrinking but that does not change the fact that the Vita was grossly overpriced and too late to the market. If Sony had not bungled up the Vita's specs and launch so badly it would certainly have been more successful (there is no excuse for such an abject failure, regardless of the competition from smartphones).

PSP didn't have to compete with smartphones/tablets. That makes all the difference in the world. If there was a big market for games like Golden Abyss on the Vita, Sony would make those games. And they did try with other games like Killzone, Gravity Rush, Tearaway, LittleBigPlanet, Playstation All-Stars, etc. 

There just isn't an audience for this device, honestly ask yourself what demographic this product is made for. The adult/teenager who just cannot go 30 minutes outside of the house without playing a watered down version of a FPS or action game? This market audience simply doesn't exist. 

Even "dudebros" gamers are fine just leaving their Calladooty at home for their 50-inch TV, if they need to burn some time on the go, their smartphone takes care of that, not only with a few cheapo games, but a dozen other things it can do that the Vita can't.