PixlBit

it's more like the Atari Lynx of gaming. 

ah, but seriously I do love my Vita.  

Nah, it doesn't need 6 AA batteries. :p

Love my Vita, too.

They need to fix the memory card pricing issue and then I think it will be a no brainer to go all digital for the Vita.  I only own 3 physical games for the Vita because Sony keeps adding games free to PS+ and discounting the rest of them to must buy prices.

The memory issue is the main reason I don't buy as much digitally as I could. It's a real pain having to transfer or re-download stuff, even on a 32GB card--but the 64GB cards cost something like $120 dollars. Ugh.

I have about 8 GB left on my memory card, but with the awesome looking sale that is starting today, I should probably kiss that space goodbye.

You sir for president, I'll vote for you! that makes insane sense and is very true. It's not that I ve never enjoyed games on my I phone (dead space for example was awesome) it's just that I want actaul buttons and a d pad for percision. As cool as dead space was I continually thought 'this would be so much better with a d pad and buttons'. I also love my beat em ups and the Vita is a bastion for them, I already have street fighter alpha max 3 (the best SF title in my opinion) Blaz blue, injustice, MvC3, Playstation all stars, guilty gear judgement and the PS one original, SNK classics such as samurai showdown and King of Fighters and Soul Calibur...........

Vita's are awesome because they are truly for hardcore gamers and ironically I think that the I pad etc are a good thing because of that. It's just a shame that less interest equals less titles but hey you can't have everything!

I just can't get into most smartphone games I've tried the way I can with games on the Vita. Getting premium titles on a device designed for gaming first is something that simply can't be matched on a touch device IMO.

I'm not sure that any of the people playing Candy Crush and Angry Birds on their tablets and Smartphones actually bought them for that purpose. I'm pretty sure though that if all the Vita and 3DS had available was 2 minute timewasters like the aforementioned games they'd be selling a lot worse than they are.

In fact the 3DS may not be selling as swiftly as the DS but 42 million plus is nothing to sneeze at. I'm sure the Vita's sales will improve at some point.

The thing that keeps me from owning a Vita is purely financial. I'm itching to play the games that PSN+ has provided me with but I just can't afford one.

Yes, but that's just it. Smartphones are useful enough on their own for games to just be a bonus, and aren't designed as gaming machines first. It's being able to have fun on a device you already have, without needing to spend another $200 just to have games on the go, that's the real issue here.

Yeah, people don't buy phones for Candy Crush and the like. But if they're satisfied with Angry Birds on their phone, it'll take a lot to convince them to spend another $200 to play games that cost up to $40-$50 on a separate device--not to mention with the exorbitant price of memory in the Vita's case. Dedicated handhelds aren't the be-all-end-all in the portable gaming space anymore, and their market presence is only going to shrink further as time goes on.

Generally speaking, the people that play Angry Birds, Candy Crush, or the countless dress-up-your-paper-dollie-in-cute-dresses games on their phones were never going to buy dedicated gaming devices to begin with. The audience for these games are otherwise nongamers who only need a paper-dollie-dress-up-game to occupy their minds while they're sitting on the toilet. Just sayin'. 

And while iDevices are improving in displays and processing power, the market largely holds down the quality, and iDevice games will not advance appreciably in quality or complexity no matter how powerful an iPad or Galaxy Note gets. It's easier for mobile developers to sell cheap freemium or 99-cent toilet-sitting games, and that will keep the market for anything of better quality depressed on mobile.

As a more involved gamer, I find my 3DS to be far more enjoyable of a gaming device than my iPad. The lack of a physical interface and the huge flood of dreck with no real quality - even Infinity Blade, vaunted as a "hardcore mobile game" is nothing more than QTEs, and I thought it was a dull piece of shit - kills mobile gaming for me. I like my iPad, but a gaming device it ain't, and iPhones and Samsung Galaxy phones are an even bigger joke as gaming devices. Nintendo will never sell 9 million Game Boy/DS-type devices in one weekend. So be it. Even Nintendo, whose sales projections for the Wii U have been overly optimistic, to put it mildly, understands that, and they've accepted it,  Gaming is not, and will NEVER be, a mainstream activity like movies, and gamers and game companies need to accept that and tailor accordingly. It will always be a hobby of a small but dedicated fanbase, and as long as there's profit to be had, the games will be there.

Companies that know and understand the market they are selling to, whether they're selling a freemium dress-up game or a $60 epic like The Last of Us, are the ones who stand the best chance of survival. There are just as many companies losing their shirts in cheap-to-make mobile gaming as there are in "hardcore gaming." Just ask Zynga.

 Sorry for the wall of text, man.

I'm right there with you, buddy.

No touchscreen game has ever been able to match the stuff I've played on the Vita or PSP--or even my old Game Boy. Not having physical controls limits what games can work on phones and tablets, and there's no push to offer a standard set of buttons to that end. Plus I love games let you sink your teeth into them over time, rather than being quick and dirty time wasters like Fruit Ninja or something.

And frankly, the whole mobile market is looking real 80's Atari right now. It's trading more on volume and hype than anything else; it's gotten so bad for indies, for instance, that they've been seeing sales just as good on the 3DS and Vita despite the massive install base disparity. There's simply too much on the App Store and Google Play for all the good games to stand out, and most of it is shit. It's not anymore sustainable than the ever increasing budgets in the AAA space, TBH.

But there was a more casual market on dedicated handhelds before stuff like the iPhone came along. Stuff like Brain Age and Nintendogs sold a metric fuckton of copies on the DS, for instance, and helped push the device as much as staples like Mario and Pokemon. Neither of their 3DS successors did anywhere near the same numbers; indeed, 3DS software sales in general are lagging FAR behind the DS's in the same timeframe. And the less said about the Vita compared to the PSP, the better. -_-

Between that and how Vita/3DS games are more expensive to make, it's no wonder most third parties have pretty much abandoned those platforms outside Japan. Sony, meanwhile, has shifted it's focus towards the PS4 and mobile phones, letting the Vita wither and rot on the vine. It's hard to be too hopeful about the long-term prospects of handhelds in light of that.

Chalk that remark up to Sony hyperbole. However, I'd make an argument, in terms of quality, for the 3DS being the "iPod of gaming", even if it doesn't sell 9 million units opening weekend. The 3DS right now, has better breadth and depth of content than any other system, plus it has a comprehensive digital back library. I still buy cartridges for the big 3DS releases, but the 3DS is quite a jukebox of actual good games rather than the dress-up-paper-dollies-while-you're-on-the-pot games.

By the measure of "content", given that the PSV can play whatever PS1 or PSP games are available digitally, I could see Sony's remark being somewhat true, although it certainly doesn't have the ongoing stream of current content the 3DS does (some sectors of Japan seem more interested in it of late, however) and I don't think Sony meant to imply that the Vita was as huge a success as an iDevice, but even there, the 3DS fits the bill a little better in terms of games and apps.

I would love a Vita or 3DS, but I see what you're saying. I am a "core gamer," I guess. You should tell 2013 that, though. I don't think it knows. 

LMAO XD

That he's trying to liken the Vita to an Apple product says a lot. Clearly iDevices are taking over the portable space. My neices and nephews don't have DSes or Vitas. They have iPads and iPhones. The games are even easier to play than handhelds for kids. Swipe and tap gameplay is litterally a no brainer. I just noticed the other day when I went to look up the game of the movie The Lorax, that I was sure was out for consoles and handhelds just like kids liscenced products always are, is only out on iOS. That's the way it's going. Development costs are probably less too. Heck, even I'm looking at upgrading my iPod Touch to get the newer games. My Vita is not becoming an iPod, my iPod is stamping its life out.

 Vita is the ipod of gaming?  That's a stretch.   

Well you can play music on it... :p

Though I'm not quite sure about the "Ipod of gaming" concept, I don't quite count out the handhelds just yet. When I see most of the games they are just time killers. Sure there are a good number of titles that I would consider "non-time killers" but I'm still seeing more and more of those kind of games on my handheld offerings.

I still keep my devices separated when it comes to their functions. Smartphones I use mostly for calls and internet, the rest like games is just gravy. If I want to truely enjoy gaming I'll stick with my PSP. Sure I have some of those time killer games on my tablet, like angry birds and that cookie game, but when I really want to get into the portable game I whip out my PSP and actually game as I scoff mockingly at the guy next to me with his cellphone.

Vita is the ipod of gaming? Please, Vita is just a handheld gaming system period! I want to say this artile sounds like a bait article to push the handhelds for better market share but I'm not sure.