Shigeru Miyamoto said:“It’s obviously a very hi-spec machine, and you can do lots of things with it. But I don’t really see the combination of software and hardware that really makes a very strong product. When we launched the 3DS hardware we didn’t have Super Mario 3D Land, we didn’t have Mario Kart 7, we didn’t have Kid Icarus: Uprising. We were striving to have all of these ready for the launch, but we weren’t able to deliver them at the time, We were kind of hoping that people would, nevertheless, buy into the product, but looking back we have to say we realize the key software was missing when we launched the hardwareâ€
Vita was doomed for failure from the get go, a dedicated handheld at that price and with few worth while titles was a stupid move on sony's part, especially considering the situation they are currently in.
Keep in mind that when they started production they were in a much better position financially - with none of this crap from Anon hanging over their heads, no security breaches, no earthquake/tsunami whoppers - none of these factors were in play yet. All of that came at crunch time - just before/after the Vita released, and Sony either had to release, or sit with a massive investment that had nowhere to go.
I'm not saying it would have sold any better, no matter what factors you look at it's an expensive toy - but not shipping a finished product would've been an even worse move.
They'll drop prices eventually, they have to. With current estimated sales at 1.8 million world-wide, I wouldn't go as far as calling it a complete failure. I suspect that once they have a couple of good exclusive titles shipping sales will pick up again, although I doubt they'll hit their targets.
TBH they should have learned with the PSP, although doing good enough the DS(much weaker specs) totally outsold it... why?
Games on the DS was unique, fun and just plain epic.
This time around their hardware is again totally killing the 3DS but we'll see in time if they're software makes up.