I think I have figured out the whole PS Vita strategy and how Sony is OK with the current status of the handheld.
Looking at the history of the system so far, we have seen lots of bugs with the system (at least I have personally), new apps like Facebook, Youtube, and LiveTweet. The launch of Playstation Plus on the system, the adaptation of the PS One library. The launch of Playstation Mobile. All of this is beta-phase work.
The reason the price-cut is not yet here is because Sony is still using the first adopters as beta-testers. Once the system has all the bells and whistles, a solid line-up of games, mature apps and a mature OS, a price cut will make maximal impact. If they had a price-cut now before everything is in place the comments on the forums would be that it isn't ready for primetime.
The 3DS price cut worked because purchasers were greeted with a new Mario Kart and a new 3D Mario game, with a Resident Evil around the corner.
I have no doubts about the next year of the system. It will be a very solid device. As it is right now, I enjoy playing on it a lot more than the 3DS, which is like a kid's toy in comparison.
That's a nice thought, but I think what happened is that Sony wasn't ready for this. They got caught with their pants down. Uncharted released without multiplayer, COD and Resistance are Nihilistic products and therefore suck, HSG bombed everywhere that they had to port it to PS3, major gaps between releases, hard time convincing publishers to bring games to the platform, loss of MH to Nintendo, no SE games or commitment, lots of major 3rd parties MIA, etc. If they really want to keep the vita going for a long time and not kill it next year they'll need a price drop along with a major relaunch next year.
They said the OS is scalable, so relaunch with Vita 2000, vita tablet, and vita phone along with a major game to go with it. Problem is they will have to remove the Vita from dedicated handheld business and have refreshes yearly to keep up with smartphones/tablets, that would mean 3, 4 years down the line there will be games that release for those SKUs that are not compatible with the original Vita. There's also the problem of the paltry app store, but that's for them to figure out how to fix, not me. I'm also not convinced they are in a position to do something like this as that would require a lot of money and effort.
Out of curiosity though, what kind of bugs have you encountered? Do the apps suck a lot?I always thought that the OS was stable and responsive, almost iOS and android like. Is that not the case? Also read somewhere the netflix and twitter apps were great whereas the iphone and music unlimited apps sucked.
