It's in that spot right now where it's too powerful to make the best looking games for.  They're expensive to make, and then, not very many people actually have a Vita.  So, I was thinking about what the successor to the 3DS might be like in relation to the Vita.  Would it be safe to assume they would be compairable?  I don't see why Sony would bother making a vita successor that is more powerful than it, and create the same issue of problems the vita is dealing with right now.

Would it make more sense to create a new model for the Vita to go against the 3DS successor when it's released?  Shouldn't development for the Vita be cheaper in the next 3-4 years?  What if the console picked up momentum in the next two years or so?  I just wouldn't see a point in the next nintendo handheld being much stronger than the vita, if the games would become too expensive to develop.

If the Vita could be called a double-generation console, then the PS2 should also be considered one.

The Vita's support is only going to drop from here. And that saddens me, actually. It had so much potential...

Could stay still 4-5 years in the market. In the next years will Grim Fandango, Gravity Rush 2 and maybe a new Uncharted come! So who said that the Vita will not longer be supported? :D

Doubt it... No one would want to develop for a handheld who would be lucky to do 15 million units sold after 5 years when they could easily just develop for a much more successful and popular handheld which Nintendo's next handheld will be... They won't waste time and development resources porting it at all imo. Sony did a terrible job with it and it deserves the low sales for the failings of the parent company

If it was selling aswell as 3DS I would say yes it could go 2 gens but its not, its selling terribley and will stop being sold in the west before the 3DS is. Its likely Sony's last handheld with the focus moving towards PSNow and Remote Play and support of the Vita will be dropped even before the 3DS support is.

sony should just rename it an relaunch it.

Why not? It has the power.

It should be a single generation console at first to do that.

By then the mobile tech in it would be obsolete.. Don't think any of the chipmakers would spend precious production time on that, by then, dated tech..

Not really. The GB was a double generational (it lived with the SNES and the N64), and its key to success was a cheap price and a variety of games (with a bit of help from Tetris and Pokemon, to be fair). The Vita is more expensive than the 3DS (including console, memory card and PS subscription), and it has way less varied content than its competitors (both 3DS and mobile).

I can see the 3DS and N3DS living until 2020 if Nintendo play their cards really well, and even that is really doubtful. The only way the Vita is going to be crossgenerational is if Sony decides not to make another handheld, and keeps selling the system until all of its support finally dies. Which, to be honest, is a very possible outcome.