Not really.  It doesn't hurt anything, but it isn't a particular factor in play.

Perceived market and potential profits are what will affect any localization decision.  

How many resources is it going to take to localize a title?  How big a market is it likely to hit in the west?  What's the availablity of the licence to a third-party localization house?

If sales meant titles were getting localized, then many of 3DS' bigger titles in Japan would've come across by now (i.e. Puzzles & Dragons Z; Dragon Quest VII; Taiko no Tatsujin).

And just for comparison, here's 3 games localized by the same Japanese developers of the above: Ragnarok Odyssey; Theatrhythm; Project X Zone)

Note the Japanese sales of each of those games.  None of them are anywhere close to the first 3, but they all got localized.  Why?  Easy titles without a whole lot of text.  Worldwide appeal.  International history for the latter two titles.  Certainly not their sales in Japan.

Puzzle and Dragons: SME is coming to the West.

Okay.  What does that have to do with what I just said?

Well it refutes one of your examples.

Without good sales in Japan localization is unlikely. But yeah, it's not the only factor of course.

If we've conceded that the majority of the games are ports (perhaps not the "vast" majority, but still a majority) then arguing against the exclusives the console is getting seems easily explained by the bit I added which wasn't in the post you quoted:

Even if we break down every exclusive Vita is getting, it boils down to that.

I mean, biggest exclusive game Vita is getting in Q1 is Digimon from Bandai Namco.  Now given that they released 23 3DS games last year to Vita's 12, it can't really be said they're not supporting the market leader

(Worth noting, too, that by my count 20 of the 23 3DS games were exclusive, while only 5 of 12 Vita games were)

Digimon is somewhat of a special case, because I believe their aim with this title is to go after the nostalgic crowd who played the games in the 90's and they've chosen Vita for that.  They tried Digimon on 3DS and it sold alright:

Certainly nothing Vita isn't capable of achieving, though.

What else?  (That I'm capable of deciphering what it is anyway).

Ukiyo no Roushi.  From Spike Chunsoft, who released 1 original game for Vita and 1 original game for 3DS last year.  They've already announced that one of their biggest franchises from PSP is now going to 3DS.  

And if you take the case of Ukiyo, it's a dual-title of sorts with PS3 that seems to reuse a lot of assets.  Given that they're chasing after the Way of the Samurai crowd with this title, which has most recently been on PS3, it's not a massive surprise.

So what's left?  A tonne of otome stuff and visual novels.  I could certainly see you making the argument of "they should be on the market leader because it's the market leader" and sure, they could, because it has an audience of ~30k or so that these games need.  The Vita also has an audience of ~30k or so that these games need, and they've decided to go there.

I've a feeling Sony actually had something to do with this, given that they announced a pink PS Vita alongside a load of otome games at TGS this year.  But even besides that, 3DS has shown it can support about ~10k buyers of otome titles:

As has Vita:

Given that most of the rest of that 39 (which seems to actually be 37) list is made up of games like these, then it brings me swinging back to my previous point:

If you buy into Kotaku's line of thinking then yeah, sure.  Only examining numbers on the surface and nothing else about what's going on behind the numbers will lead you to that conclusion.

The whole level of support thing pretty much boils down to "Vita is getting a certain type of support".  3DS could support these titles equally as well, but they're not going there.  Maybe Sony was more proactive than Nintendo.  Maybe the ease of porting from PSP -> Vita for the older titles meant they chose that.  Who knows.

But this certain type of support tends have lots of titles released, as opposed to what 3DS gets, which is titles aimed at attracting a bigger audience less frequently.

I don't know what else can really be said about it other than that, to be honest.

There isn't much of a correlation, or else why is it like pulling teeth to get Dragon Quest or Ace Attorney localized when it seems like every other Vita game comes over? If anything, it seems like if a game sells a whole lot in Japan the developers are often satisfied with those sales and focus on churning out an immediate sequel rather than prioritizing a localization. And if it doesn't do well, then they're as likely as not try to get some return on their investment by foisting it off on western Japanophiles who will buy anything.

I also get the feeling that it's like eating shit to some of these publishers to see their vaunted Dragon Quests or Monster Hunters shift so many units in Japan only to be borderline irrelevant in the west when they are released here. It's like they'd rather not bring it over at all than to suffer the humiliation of mediocre sales.

Puzzles & Dragons: SME =/= Puzzles & Dragons Z.  They are two separate games.  

Same game reskinned basically.

That Xbox One vs PS4 disparity is part of the problem for Microsoft in Japan. It seems so obvious where they really messed up.

Eh?Sorry samus aran isn't right?Yokai watch and not only the game are coming in the west this year!If YW wasn't a huge success in Japan would it be localized?