Even if Sony did something different the decline was always going to be massive, that's easy to realize now. However, Vita with the current hardware and functions could have sold millions more if Sony would have really pushed or even funded Minecraft Vita port earlier. Let's say Minecraft would have released holiday 2013 and Sony would have made a bundle immediately, that alone would have reversed the trend which again would have meant more game support. This move was something that was actually very doable unlike the hardware modifications.

Has it, though? The 3DS started out poor for the followup to the biggest handheld ever. It was selling so poorly, Nintendo had to do a permanent fire sale and drop its price by $80 dollars. Then it did well for a couple of years, but is now back to where it started, with only a few bumps here or there. It won't even pass 80M, maybe not even 70M. Something that even the GBA was able to do, even with the highly popular DS launching only 3 years after it. The dedicated handheld market is dying, there's no other way to look at it. Even Nintendo knows this, hence the hybrid NX.

Before I begin, i never said that the mobile market had anything with it.It HAS eaten a portion of the handheld market, and anybody who says otherwise is just fooling themselves.But if you say that is the only reason the vita failed is simply wrong.

The Vita was plagued by a mirriad of mistakes.Expensive memory cards, lack of support after 1 year, expensive launch price, lack of good third party(more mainstream and compared to the 3DS), and many more smaller reasons.The point I am trying to make is that the shrinking of the market alone didnt make the Vita fail this bad.I mean, look at the 3DS.It didnt perform like the DS or the original Gameboy, but it is very likely that it will end selling over 70 millions(It already passed the 60 million mark according to Nintendo, and that was more than 2 months ago.VGchartz numbers are wrong), landing somewhere near what the GBA has done.And with that number, it will have been a successful console.Now, is it wise to launch another handheld console?Most likely not, since the smartphone market probably grew even larger and ate a bigger share of the handheld market, but by the time the Vita launched, it could have been more successful, if the right choices were made.I mean, its not PSP-successful, but I would argue that it could have reached the 30-40 million mark.Maybe even more, who knows.

I understand if he listed that reason as one of the reasons the Vita failed, but as the sole one?They are just trying to push the blame to others, when part of the blame is on them.

The one and only problem the Vita had, was that they did not offer it as a phone.

Had Sony offered the Vita as a phone, the price would have been half of every other phone on the market. If the Vita was a phone, millions of people would have been satisfied carrying it around, and forgoing an iphone or android, especially in 2011. If Vita would have had a phone option, people would have been using it more, which would have lead to more companies wanting to be part of it, which in turn would have brought more software of all kinds, and easily would have seen iphone apps ported to the device for everything people expect from an iphone today.

So, no, the Vita was not to late, it was the wrong product. It was what happens when you do not evolve a product with the times, and it is exactly what will happen to PS4 if Sony does not make sure it competes with Apple TV, Amazon Fire, and the rest of the disruptive products which are brining the smartphone experience to the TV.

Hopefully Kaz understands what really went wrong, and gets to work ASAP, on broadening the app support on PS4 to offer word processors, banking and trading apps, image and video editing, health and lifestyle app, and so much more. While also continueing to bring a wider range of products to the PlayStation ecosystem, based on the PS4 architecture. If they can bring us Tablets/Laptops, a handheld, and a Phone based on the PS4 hardware, and running on a modified PS4 OS, with full PSVR support, then the future of PlayStation should get stronger and stronger. But, if they refuse to eveolve and change with the times, the same thing that happened to Vita will eventually happen to PlayStation home consoles.

He's right. Had they got the Vita to market in 2009 they might have pulled it off inspite of memory cards etc. The biggest problem was it was perfect for a market that had barring us dedicated lot who appreciate the console functionality already moved on.

Even the 3DS needed CPR to stop it being DOA.

I'd be curious to know which strategy was ultimately more profitable. (Haemorrhaging money and neglecting Wii U development to shore up the 3DS install base or leaving it do whatever it does, not continuing to spend on first party development and not taking losses on much lower hardware sales, profits from memory cards and 3rd party royalties with bugger all promotion)

i think the key word is FINE, he didnt say 3DS has sold amazing/great/spectacular, just fine.

VITA doesn't have enough of games to keep most of us occupied, outside of RPG's. That's at least why i got rid of mine.

If only the Vita had a word editor and could edit images, all while allowing me to sort out my bank account and pay my taxes....

The lacking first party support, along with the expensive memory cards and the mem card system itself didn't do the system any favors. Sony just didn't push it hard enough. Didn't help that they also replaced the OLED screen rather than simply refining and sticking with it.

"Games sells hardware"

Sadly Otakus and weeabos can't keep the system at least half of what the PSP did. 

You are saying that they stopped supporting it just because they wanted to. They stopped supporting it because it wasn't selling. They didn't stopped supporting it after one year, stop saying this BS. I bought mine exactly one year after the launch when they did the CoD and Assassin's Creed bundles when these games released, also launching LBP. It was almost two or three year after launch that they launched Killzone and Tearaway. 3 year after launch they did their last resorts: Freedom Wars and PS3 collections such as GoW Collection. Nothing worked, so they quit.

Even if they were more efficient, they wouldn't reach even 25M. The PSP's demographic market was oriented to older gamers and teenagers. While some kind won't have phones, teens and adults will surely have, so the impact is even greater.

Also mind that GBA isn't a good measure for 3DS "success" because Nintendo killed it prematurely with the DS after just three years. The 3DS has more than 5 years without any sucessor to kill it early. Even 70M seems unlikely after it did 7M last year and is tracking for 5 this year. With a successor in the next year, it will struggle to do half of it, so things aren't looking bright.

What you have to understand is that he is correct because even if they did a stellar launch, support and product, it would still fail in the end. Why would they expend money and time if it wouldn't help? They just cut support on something that wouldn't work to focus on their winning horse.