For years I've wanted a PS Vita. However, my gameplaying habits have slowed extremely. I have a 3DS that I enjoy, but there are a few games on Vita I'd strongly consider (any and all FF titles, the collections of some of Playstations more recognizable series - Jak, Sly, etc.). 

Amazon has some certified refurbs for $149 which I think is pretty competitive and cheaper than my 3DS was. My real concerns are:

-Sony discontinuing the Vita line soon

-Sony coming out with something similar in the next year (should I wait?)

I pretty much would like to hear from Vita owners and how much they value their Vita and if they think it'd be worth buying one now? Are there any common issues with them that I should know beforehand? Sorry if there's a recent thread on this, I didn't think to search and I have this typed out already. Thanks in advance!

Dont forget the memory card

Its a great little device for jrpgs. But I havnt used it since forever considering the games are coming out in other platforms

Try to get a device below 3.61 or 3.63, update to 3.60, go to the Henkaku website - win.

It was great, it wasn't supported well, it still has some titles, but 90% is being ported to PC, PS4 or both and recent games have not run that great on the device, if you live in Japan I might say yes, but I think its time to say NO tot hte Vita, I don't like the switch much, but as a dedicated handheld at least it will get first party support.

Even tough third party support is essential for me, no first party is even worse...
Maybe if you can pick one up pre used it might be worth it but im sticking with no :P

I bought a vita recently, it's my Ninja gaiden, gravity rush & Persona golden machine. That's valuable for me. But there are more games, you should do a research, if you find a good quantity of games that you wanna play then go for it.

If you like Japanese games like JRPGs and visual novels, it's the best console available and you should buy it. If you don't like JRPGs and visual novels and want shooters or big western games, don't buy it.

I love mine, play it quite frequently, but if you waited 5 or so years to purchase it, there's no way you should be surprised if sooner or later Sony will release a new handheld (even though it's not looking likely).

It gets plenty of games, way more than the 3ds for sure, which doesn't mean they will be blockbusters. RPGs and other Japanese titles, if you like those, then you'll probably enjoy it a lot.

If you had PS+ and were collecting all the games that were released there, then you probably already have a huge library, so it would definitely make it worthwhile.

Let me echo that the memory card is a must and is a thorn in the side because of its cost.  Go with a minimum of 16 GB.  You might want to consider the PSTV provided that the games you want are PSTV compatible.  Out of the 20ish games I have for the PS VITA/TV, 3 are not compatible with the PSTV.

Here's a vid I posted in a previous thread.  check it out.

Great, thanks for all the responses so far and I'll take it all into consideration.

I'm a Vita fanboy for sure. Can't recommend it enough. Downsides to buying it now would be that it if you like physical copies, you're largely out of luck, and you will have the new, inferior LCD screen as opposed to the glorious OLED. I have, and have played, a huge number of games for it. If you have PS+ it of course adds value to your subscription. So yeah, go for it.