Or maybe the Vita just doesn't have games they actually enjoy? It's great that some people love the Vita, but let's be honest, it's lacking games in very popular genres, like FPS and open world GTA style games (the 3D kind) and Western RPGs. The only two loot RPGs are a gameloft port and Silent Hill.
Good point, but almost all of those genres have been deficient on portable game systems over the last 5 years or so.
Vita does have a few first-person shooters, but none that are truly outstanding. I'll keep my fingers crossed for Killzone: Mercenary, though.
NFS:MW is pretty good (the only game I own), but that's about the only Vita game the interested me. And I have some pretty low standards, I have close to a 100 PSP games between PSN and UMD (and I write for a PSP website). But at this point in the PSP's life, it had a GTA, it had Star Wars Battlefront II (which a lot of people liked, it got 2 sequels), it had 2 NFS games and a Midnight Club, and it had a decent loot game. At this point I'd be very tempted to trade in my Vita for a tablet just to play Gameloft FPSes or Real Racing. Not that I want to, since I like buttons, but if the genres aren't really on the Vita, what good are they?
You make valid points, although I think the circumstances are different now.
Need for Speed games: It's true that PSP had two of them in its first 9 months on the market, but that was because EA dished out several "6 month late" ports at the PSP launch, then came out with the new versions a few months later. See also Tiger Woods PGA Tour and FIFA Soccer.
If EA had executed a similar strategy for the Vita (which they did for FIFA, for some reason), it would have entailed releasing a late port of NFS: The Run at Vita launch. I'm not sure that would have made much impact, as NFS: The Run wasn't very well received to begin with.
Grand Theft Auto games: Rockstar doesn't seem very interested in GTA on any portable devices anymore. They haven't created a new portable GTA since Chinatown Wars, and a new 3D perspective (behind the character view) portable GTA since Vice City Stories.
The most effort Rockstar could muster is to release the original GTA3 and Vice City on iOS/Android. While some people would welcome these games on the Vita, I can also imagine the "ports don't sell systems" people having a field day if this ever came to fruition.
Star Wars: Battlefront and
Midnight Club: Dead series.
If you're using these games as comparisons for attracting big-name franchises, then I don't think Vita has disappointed here. The last 2½ months saw two of today's hottest franchises (Call of Duty and Assassin's Creed) get
original entries on Vita. While some people might dispute the quality of these Vita games (I personally think AC3: Liberation is great, by the way), almost no one will dispute the series' popularity.
Take it with a grain of salt and only believe it when you see it.
Sonys Jack Tretton: PS Vita Will Get Hulu Plus And Crackle Apps Soon
This was in June, around E3.
Yeah, it's amazing that they're still not here yet.
At this point, I believe it would be a good idea for Sony would be to introduce their own answer to Nintendo TVii, running on the Vita. The Vita app could act as a program guide, enabling you to search Netflix, Hulu Plus, Crackle, etc. for your favorite content, then stream them on either the PS3 or the Vita's own screen. The advantage here would be that the Vita could function independently of the PS3, so you could travel with it and still watch your desired video on the small screen.