Seriously? Vita had a fuck ton of games day 1. The launch lineup alone was godlike. UC, Wipeout, Lumines, Rayman Origins, Mutant Blobs Attack, Super Stardust Delta etc. Later in the year it got other great games like Unit 13, Gravity Rush, Littlebigplanet, Sound Shapes, Sonc Transformed among others. Vita had a fantastic lineup of games in 2012. COD and AC being shit didn't change that.
But did Sony advertise it? Show it off a lot at there shows? Space there Vita library well enough so there aren't months of game droughts? Have a competitive pricing model to the 3DS (which at the time, just got its steep price cut from 250$ to 179$)?
Sony had the games in 2012.....the issue, was that they didn't space them out enough. The same issue happened in the Wii U's first year; lots of games at launch, but not much afterwards.
If Sony made the launch line up shorter and only had 10+ games instead of 30 games, then they could have spent more time polishing those other 20 games and made sure they had a strong release set up. I mean, if the launch was just this:
-Uncharted
-Wipeout
-MLB The Show
-Rayman Origins
-UMvC3
-Mutant Blobs
-Plants vs. Zombies
-Super Stardust Delta
-Dynasty Warriors Next
That would have been more then enough to entice the buyer. Then the other games could have gotten more polish and gameplay fixes (Katamari could have had more content, Army Crops of Hell could have been a bit better, Dungeon Hunter Vita could of pushed the system more) and Sony's tittles could have had more time to become better games.
-Escape Plan could have had more levels day one with some gameplay improvements with a month or two more dev time
-Gravity Rush could have been a big fall tittle alongside Resistance; both benefit from the longer dev time with more content, games running better and Resistance being more feature packed
-Reality Fighters could of been re-tooled into a stronger fighting game
-PlayStation All Stars could have been pushed back a year with more funding to include fan requested characters, MUCH stronger presentation and more gameplay modes
-LBP Vita coming out the same as it did
That would have made 2012 AND 2013 (as some of these would have been pushed back a year for more development) more packed with Sony games

.
Also, a extra year of development for the AC and Call of Duty Vita games could have did ALOT to make them better (them running much better, looking ALOT better, more content (COD specifically), ect).
The issue wasn't that the 'Vita haz no gamez!" back then, but more so that they weren't spaced out well enough. They just....threw them out all at once, but then they had nothing to show off latter on.
I didn't own a Vita back then (got mine in June 2013) but didn't the system have bad droughts? I mean, you guys had to wait a good while before Gravity Rush landed on the Vita (I think....four months?)..... That isn't good X(.