I think no one is disputing the fact that casuals moved away, but the fact that Sony was incapable of tapping the gamer segment. The same segment that still buys 50m 3DS'.

I don't think it's just "casuals" that moved away. 14-30 year old males aren't "casual" gamers, but they are likely to be caught dead before buying a Vita.

I'm in that age group, all my friends had either a DS or a PSP last gen. I'm talking a good 12-13 friends of mine. This gen, not a single one has either. 

Why bother? A smartphone does 50 things and still plays OK games on top of it, a Vita/3DS can't compete with that and no one wants to carry around a fat second device just to play "hardcore" game experiences on. Especially not in the age of skinny jeans. 

3DS was better insulated to still maintain some marketshare because they can appeal to the traditional kids handheld market, but even that is now under siege from budget tablets, but at least early on the 3DS weathered that OK because a smartphone is a contract device and that's out of range for many kids and at least for a couple of years, tablets were expensive luxury electronics items. And in Japan, a lot of people basically use the handheld as their main "console", so Nintendo benefitted from that. 

In other words, if smartphones were a tsunami, then Sony was the guy who got stuck outside with no shelter, Nintendo at least was inside a shack. I'd rather be the guy inside the shack when that storm hits. You don't want to be either of them, but Nintendo was in the better position to weather the storm (some what). 

Thought experiment with me for a moment.

Lets consider a reasonable scenario. The Vita selling in proportion to the PSP with the DS.

That is 155 million DS to 81 million PSP, or a total market size of 236 million HH. PSP sold about 52% of what the DS did.

3DS has sold 54 mill LTD to 12 mill Vita LTD, cordin 2 vgchartz. Vita sold about 22% less of what the 3DS did.

To stay in proportion it would have to sell about 28 million or more than double what it has now.

This of course, assumes that the market size is at least 82 million.

Is 28 million considered succesful?

By non Nintendo handheld standards yes. However by any company wanting to put out a handheld device. No.

Youre absolutely right it had potential but sony was in arrogance mode again

Do we have data on kids being the primary users of the 3DS in America? I feel like this is possibly a misconception. Kids would actually be the first to abandon the market for more accessible, free games on their phones.

Adult gamers are the same people who "hate" mobile games are the same people most likely to splash out on an untrendy, unecessary gaming device.

OP: You're right but both are clearly to blame, you cannot ignore the shrinking of the market. Even if Sony played their cards perfectly with Vita exclusive like Final Fantasy, GTA, God of War, Kingdom Hearts, GT, Elderscrolls etc the roof for the systems success would have been lowered significantly as handheld games are no longer much of a relevant platform for the casual uninformed gamer.

I think the 3DS is operating close to its potential, add an extra 10m if it had a more impressive launch year, Meanwhile I feel the PSVita fullest potential would have been around 40m in sales.

Part of the problem with sony is that their software has never really been responsible for shifting their systems, especially not on handhelds. All of the big third parties that helped make the PSP a success, abandoned the Vita before it was even out.

not really. what might be critizisable is... sony should've known how futile it is to throw a high price handheld on the market though there never was a big market for those - nintendo learned that lesson too - and never will be and of course mobile devices like smartphones and tablets which flooded the market.

Nice article, I agree very much. Good points and well written too.

Vita's price point was never a problem, it was its perception that killed it. The 3G Vita was launched 2/22/2012 in the US for $299, and $99 for 32GB of memory for a total of $399.99. The iPhone 4S which launched in the US 10/14/2011 was $749.99 for a 32GB model. 

The 3G Vita was a very capable smartphone on day one, and had it took off as a gaming smartphone, it would have received the same level of support for apps that we see from Android and iOS today. Unfortunatly, like many Sony products, they failed to market it as the gamers smartphone, and the the 3G model sales under performed leading to the end of cellular enabled Vita's. 

This was a very decisive blow. Then when Sony launched the Vita 2000, and did not remedy the failure with a Phone and 4G LTE model, they effectively sealed the Vita's fate, and put themselves in to a tail spin at the tune of a 2 billion dollar loss in the mobile business. Sony basically killed their handheld business and their mobile business all by failing to deliver a PlayStation Phone. Now they are stuck with a Handheld that they don't support, and a Mobile line that has absolutly nothing that stands out against iphone or galaxey and they run on the ME TOO OS. 

Sony is basically in a hole that they can't get out of. They have a jet pack on that could propel them out and over any dager, but they refuse to use it. So yes, Sony killed the Vita, and they killed their mobile line as well. It is not to late to rebrand around PlayStation and make innovative unique devices that will steam massive market share back from apple and samsung, and bring handheld gaming to levels it has never seen. But, with every year they fiddle fart around with Me Too (android), and ignore their real mobile power house, the chances a return to some relevence in the mobile spaces get smaller and smaller.