I don't know. lol

A GTA game would do the trick.

I think at this point, there is no reason to try to save the Vita. Any efforts to try to turn it around will just lose Sony more money. I think it`s better they just ride it out now to the end. I agree with many points though. The console was just too pricy, it lacked great exclusive games, and the memory cards were just too pricy. Unlike Ninten, who changed the price quick to get sales going, Sony remained adamant about their price for too long and I think it cost them in the end.

The Vita sure wasn`t an impulse buy, that`s for sure. It was too expensive with too many issues to justify the price, and with a 2nd game rumored to leave the system, Sony is just showing how not to handle a portable product.

First party games, ANY first party games would help, even ports or remakes. It's unbelievable that sony isn't releasing any games for it, they should support it! There are several games that can be ported like Team ICO collection, Puppeteer, Maybe a Patapon Collection, or Locoroco collection, or porting Floklore, or early PS3 games...

Nope. Get your own. :P

Mostly due to smartphones Sony can't do anything to save the Vita sales wise (though it's far from dead for me personally as I often enjoy Minecraft, Sly, Rayman, P4G, Killzone, Spelunky, Resogun, etc.).

However I think Sony could've done some things differently before Vita's launch. Some of the things would've been expensive but I'm sure they would've improved sales a lot.

1. Sony should've bought Level-5 prior to Vita's launch. While not developing many AAA games Level-5 develop a bunch of great AA games with relatively short development times which would've been perfect for the handheld including Dark Cloud + Dark Chronicle, Rogue Galaxy, Yo-Kai Watch, Danball Senki, Jeanne d'Arc, White Knight Chronicles, Ni no Kuni, Professor Layton, Inazuma Eleven, etc. I know it's easy to say in hindsight but imagine every Vita being bundled with Yo-Kai Watch from launch.

2. Sony should've secured more 1st and 3rd party AAA games. Top 10 best selling PSP games include GTA, GT, GOW, FF and Monster Hunter. GT and GOW for Vita would be easy since Sony own the IPs and even though an exclusive GTA, FF and Monster Hunter could be expensive I think it'd be worth the cost (personally I'd love a Diablo/Torchlight port as well). In this way they could've showed potential customers their huge commitment PRE LAUNCH and made it clear that their handheld would offer unique experiences not available on smartphones. This would cater to the huge group of core and casual gamers that bought PS1+PS2+PS3+PS4.

3. Sony should've ensured more attention and visibillity for their Vita in stores similar to the home consoles and Nintendo's handhelds. If every big western store had a blue wall with some Vitas to try surrounded by its 30 or so best retail games (like in big Japanese stores, see picture) I think it would do a lot better. I'm sure a lot of Vita's titles could attract attention from the mainstream customer.

4. No gimmicks. Sony should've provided their handheld with L2 and R2 triggers instead of the back touchpad.

5. No cofusing name. PS Vita should've probaby just been called PSP 2. It's like they went with the codename. PS4 was "Orbis" and PSP 2 was "Vita" (circle of life).

6. Built in storage and cheaper memory cards. Vita should've at least 16GB built in memory and if micro SD support would be the only way to ensure cheaper storage so be it.

7. Sony should get those cheap (but great) smartphone games on their handheld. All the best smartphone games + exclusive and high quliaty AAA and AA games = win. Now I'm NOT talking about shitty (imo) apps like Candy Crush, Flappy Bird, Jetpack Joyride, Temple Run, Angry Birds, Farmville, etc. but rather those few gems like XCOM, World of Goo, Hearthstone, Monument Valley, The Room, Oceanhorn, Dead Space, Mass Effect Infiltrator, Deus Ex: The Fall, COD: Strike Team, Modern Combat, Shadowgun, Sonic CD, GTA 3/Vice City/San Andreas, SW KotOR, etc.

Without physical controls a vita successor would do worse off. At the same time the amount of people that would buy a smart phone with joysticks on it are extremely limited. I've shouted from the mountain that a vita phone would repeat the failure of the vita handheld, but for entirely different reasons.

For the current iteration, I believe the best they can do is ride out the gen with the 3rd party support while releasing key 1st party games the next couple of years to appease the markets outside of Japan (because let's face it, they're still getting tons of support). Honestly unless they get a really good idea, its worth abandoning portable gaming entirely and just making an accessory for the Xperia line that allows the phone to plug into a shell that has all the physical buttons you want. Development costs are kept low, you retain the Android platform, and every Sony game you could want would be available via PSNow. Realistically look at the situation - they have a game streaming service and they produce smart phones. That's the best combination you could ask for that will retain mass market appeal.
The two major hurdles I see with this are
A) Battery Life
B) Data consumption

These both can be mildly offset via better compression algorithms, in fact I bet they could squeeze enough battery out of the Z4 to make it worthwhile. Its the data plan that's going to be tricky to figure out.

XPERIA V(ita) that has android and the Vita OS in the same device.

The Vita don't need to be "saved".

It got most games than 3ds since 2014...If the Vita is near death, what is 3ds for me ? A zombie ?

If (and you'r probably, i hope) talking about sales, nothing can be done, it's way too late now. Once the mementum start, it's very hard to change it, sony only did it once with the ps3, and it wasn't easy.

So what buttons will this phone have? Is it candy bar style? Clamshell? Slide?