Very good point, the 3DS took it's time to take off as well taking a nearly first-seen-ever early price cut. The same could go for the Vita, but it's target audience is so much different, I don't see Vita's rolling over the counter to kids, and that's where it's missing the bulk of large sales numbers. With it's much larger appeal to a broader audience I never doubted the 3DS was going to pick up more sales than the Vita.

I can't remember a single time Sony even said it expected to compete with 3DS sales. Sony made a premium product, and premium products will always appeal to a relative minority.

To say the Vita is a failure because it hasn't sold as well as the 3DS is like saying Denon products are failures because most people would never buy a premium sound system.

It's hard for me to say the Vita is a complete failure when I've seen virtually no advertising for it. Meanwhile, I've seen a lot of advertisement for 3DS.

Also, for what it's worth Waltz, I'd bet my hatstore full of hats that if you polled every iOS/Android user out there, very few would list gaming as the sole primary reason for purchasing a device, since those devices excel at so much. Meanwhile, I'm pretty sure most people are buying 3DS's and Vita's primarily for games (although the Vita does has some pretty nifty features that don't have to do with games). It doesn't make much sense for them to outsell multi-media devices, since those appeal to many more people.

@Gioku

That's cool I can't say the same about school though because I graduated in 2007 from high school lol. Almost wish I was in school just for streetpassing. Keyword there: ALMOST lol. I got around 25 streetpass tags all together.

@Bankai

Yeah I wish people would knock it off with the phone games because it degrades actual gaming like the consoles & handhelds which were made originally for gaming in general.

Happy Gaming! (^_^)

Lots of people play 3DS in my college. Never see anyone with a Vita tbh. As much as I want P4G I won't justify it to buy a Vita

Oh... I see my rival has come up with a clever Japanese user name such as myself... Darn and here I thought the opposite of pride was envy
Anyway the difference between the 3DS and Vita sales are... It took 6 months for 3DS to take off and the Vita has been out for OVER a year
@Barbie I've learned to stop trashing phone games to Waltz since he defends them like they were gods

There are good quality phone games out there. They're just buried under piles of crap like Angry Birds and Doodle Jump. And as I stated before, the selection is a bit more limited with a lack of buttons (Gunman Clive will be the easiest comparison since it's on both 3DS and iOS/Android). Certain types of games like visual novels and some types of puzzle games work better on iOS though. No matter how you say it, the Vita is a financial failure though. And I don't care about this "premium system" shit that you play off the Vita as. As a console itself, I really respect the Vita, the OS and the design. It's definitely a hell of a lot sleeker then the 3DS. But it's at a competing price, it's considered a competitor (with people calling it the "3DS killer") and they're both considered part of the 8th generation of gaming, which smartphones are not. If the sales pick up later, that's fine, but as is, it's sold 3 million units in 10 months. And please don't compare it to expensive sound systems. If studio-quality headphones at $299.99 sell less then cheapo headphones for $14.99, then you can talk about premium systems. An even crappier analogy, if less people eat caviar ($300) then fried chicken (about $3), then you can talk about premium quality and all that fanciful stuff. These prices are not too far off, it's completely different from a "premium experience" like an expensive sound system.

@Raywood your caviar and fried chicken thing is a metaphor for iOS and other handhelds well it could be like this
Candy .99
Lobster $40
Of course more people are going to pick up the Candy, but the Lobster is sooooo much more satisfying

Depends on the candy

@lz true, I love me sushi and pocky

I differ. Lobster is quite disgusting imo.

Well I guess what I'm saying is, that just because people buy candy doesn't mean that the lobster business is doomed. That's the part that makes me mad, when people say apple will make Nintendo their you know what or use Nintendo for their own gain. (actually Nintendos using apple by releasing those apps to advertise, not compete)

The New Englander in me wants to smack you for saying that blasphemy.

I'm not surprised. The 3DS just generally has better support and games at the moment, and has the type of games that work well and actually sell on a handheld system.

Sony needs to learn that gamers want handheld games to be different from home console ones and that a portable PS2/PS3 isn't the way to success in that market.

And with Monster Hunter now a 3DS rather than PSP series, I suspect the Vita will never recover (that series was what helped the PSP not completely die out in Japan).