Just from the Europe perspective (as this is where I live so this is what I see in our market), Nintendo were late to reduce the price, however from a £229.99 launch price in February, by May, UK retailers were selling the 3DS for £159.99 it's launch sales were so slow with many of the launch titles reduced from £34.99 to £19.99.

It was certainly a very steep launch price (for comparison, PSP was £179.99 at launch). I think actual cost of entry has also been a major hinderance to the Wii U, but that is for another topic.

i own a vita but for me I think one of the biggest turn offs for the unit are the overpriced memory cards

Didn't have good games. Not rocket science here.

Still the best handheld gaming device I've owned. Unfortunately, it entered the market just as mobile gaming began to hit its stride.

I lived through the nascency of mobile gaming in 2007-2008 when decent games were far and in-between, being developed off the $.99 model that eventually gave way to the free to play/freemium model.

I've all but stopped playing mobile games since, but the iPhone I always have on me would take care of that if I were inclined to play.

I was never a huge PSP user although it did much of what people use smartphones for now before they were ubiquitous, minus the all important phone/text/social media.

The 3DS saw extremely reduced use after the first year, partly because of the PSV. Still a good game platform, just not a daily use device as it's really only for Nintendo style games.

As much as I liked the PSV (still like it), I simply had no reason to carry it around anywhere since I was really only using it for PSV games and the odd classic PSP/PSOne game. That right there essentially made it an orphaned device as it never became a regular part of my daily life the way the "Vita" was envisioned by its developers. I had an iPhone and I still have one as that is my daily use do all device.

The PSV's fate was essentially sealed simply due to the installed user base following the first year.

I didn't have a problem with the games.

The games by in large have been great. They aren't killer app, must buy games (there were a handful of those in the first year or two at which point these higher budget games were going to a tiny audience of PSV owners) but certainly a lot more worthy of gaming time than the typical mobile game. I just don't think the difference in price or more importantly, having to carry around another device on which to play them merits using one on a regular basis.

If I had one jarring complaint about the PSV, it would have been the proprietary memory card, which I fully understand exist to subsidize PSV hardware sales. Unfortunately, it's hard to come to terms with having to pay that much for storage on top of the price of the games themselves, which are priced the same as the retail chip based units.

The irony with the memory card pricing is that if they were cheaper, I would have bought far more games as it became quite a hassle to juggle which games I wanted to keep on memory cards.

The end result; unless I want to delete one game, it's either buy a retail copy or don't even bother at all since must play games on the platform are quite rare.

The same goes with apps and media. Since storage comes at such a premium, why would I use it for storing and watching media content? The answer is I don't.

1) Smartphones.

PSP days were when the iPhone 2G was the coolest thing ever launched.

Vita is living in a mobile battle where smartphones have 2k resolution, 4k video, and so on.

2) Memory

Nothing I need to add on. Sony could've been smart and simply use micro SD cards, but instead they screw up.

3) Not necessary.

What must-play games are on the Vita, but not on the PS4? Nothing. Reason why 3DS has good sales is because many games on it can't be played on Wii U.

And the DS came close to the PS2 cause they marketed it to the casual audience. Not really something to praise.

The 3DS still got a 32% price cut though. At $170, it was the same price as the DSi at launch and the DSi XL at launch. With inflation, it's the same price as the GB and cheaper than the DS.

Not confirmed but Nintendo talked about it for a reason. And I don't think they can afford to make a dedicated handheld console.

The market changed.

With better support (1st and 3rd) Vita could have certainly sold better, but Vita was pretty much a failure from the start.

You and I are the same.  I bought a 32gb memory card  for $100 the day before the Vita released.  I decided to save card space by only buying Vita games via physical media.  I also got a "free" 8gb memory card with my Vita carrying case.

The 32gb card still filled to capacity in virtually no time and the 8gb card never got used because switching cards (at the time) would cause my carefully organized games to scatter like dust in the wind.

In the end, it almost feels like Sony didn't want me to buy games! When my carrying case filled up (16 physical titles) and my 32gb card filled up, I was done.  Not a single song or movie because there was simply no place to store them.  

1. I agree. We can use the PSP or GB if you want.

2. Yes, they were. 57.79M DSes were sold after their release (not including the first holiday when the DSi was released). Also, don't forget that following the price drop, it was cheaper than the DS and GB.

3. Personally, I think that they cannot afford to do that. Development costs are too high to have to create separate games for 2 systems.