If Sony had faith in the Vita they'd put Santa Monica and ND on projects for it and they fought for MonHun. Maybe they did fight for it, but to the media they said 'dunno, ask Capcom'. Which was odd.
You'd also think they would announce their biggest franchise right away. Nintendo announces their Mario stuff for their new handheld. Sony did not announce God of War and Gran Turismo at all. Now I do think GT isn't really suited for handheld (which is a problem with Sonys portfolio in general), but its still a big fish.
Yeah, no. 3DS during Doomed era still crushed Vita sales. I bet Sony is killing for those 30k a week averages 3DS did in Japan. 3DS had a clear future; Nintendo would unleash Mario Kart and a load of other games. We knew about RE, MGS, Zelda, Starfox, Icarus etc. Nintendo announced a fuckload of games but its just that they spaced things out and didn't release a killer app during its first 6 months. They tried to sell it at a high price and without having to rely on Mario, which failed. They let Sony play their card, who thought they were cheap as 3DS was priced the same, and then they dropped the price, did some announcements and the Vita was pretty much knock out before it was even being released.