I'd just have to say wait on it for now.
There are many reasons for this. I will discuss things the way I see them here in a long post.
So many different users have come here since I started visiting this forum last July, asking about whether or not a Vita was worth it. Some went ahead with it, some didn't. And those who did have had mixed responces about the system since they got it. Many were satisfied with the price of the system and its performance, but cited the cost of the memory cards and the lack of 'good' games as negative factors contributing to the poor success of the Vita.
What I can tell you is, the Vita is a good piece of hardware. It's sturdy, it's pretty powerful for a handheld, and it is probably the best handheld gaming system thus far.
But as far as whether the Vita is truly worth its price, and whether it has enough good games, it's really sort of an opinion thing.
The Vita is worth what you pay for it imo, but it is still expensive. The Vita, overall, is not a cheap investment. You will end up setting yourself back a couple hundred dollars after a few months with the system, memory, games and digital content. But that is kind of true of most game systems these days.
There are some really good games on the Vita, but unfortunately a lot of them are ports and remakes of older games, or else are games that you could play on some other system. Of the remaining games that are made just for the Vita, a lot of them are still pretty good, but so far they've tended to be on the short side and haven't offered much in the way of replayability.
Playstation Plus on the Vita has been somewhat successful, and lets Vita owners get access to many Vita games for a yearly $50 (?) fee. Of course while it's a fantastic deal, I tend to dislike this approach because I feel like the game industry is slowly finding a way to keep you from 'owning' copies of a game that you've purchased. They've shown us time and time again that they can get us to pay for the same game multiple times, be it via a simple port, remake, or emulation. I wouldn't put it past the game industry anymore.
Speaking very honestly and frankly to the OP, it's gotten kind of difficult for me to continue standing up for the Vita, because Sony hasn't done enough to promote the system, and developers from other companies haven't tried hard enough to help support the system either. Sony has made some decent games for the Vita, but I can't think of too many successful and original third-party games on the Vita.
Many successful games on the system were only mediocre successes, and sort of fell by the wayside a month or two after launch. A lot of big-name games that would have appealed to modern console gamers didn't turn out very well from what I've gathered. And it seems like Vita owners kind of get stiffed a lot. Game release dates being pushed back, games being announced but then going into development purgatory, games lacking content that the PS3 version contains... Stuff like that.
Admittedly, I haven't played my Vita a whole lot since I got a PS3 earlier this year. I think it's even more difficult yet for Sony to sell the Vita when they already have a console that is dropping in price and has an established library of hits that are still better than what is being offered on the Vita.
These developers seem to be trying even less and less to give us new, exciting games available only on the Vita. Right now the new game they're talking about porting to Vita? Limbo. A game that's short, several years old, and available on pretty much every other game system. It just doesn't make sense to me, personally. For people that really want that game, cool. But it's not going to give people a reason to buy the Vita. It's kind of like how Sony is making a lot of PS3 games available for both the PS3 and Vita, and with cross-play. If people already own a PS3, being able to play a game they own on the go isn't necessarily enough to make them want to shell out a couple hundred dollars for a Vita.
I think the biggest slap to the face for me was reading that Phantasy Star Online 2 is being pushed back to a to be determined release date. I mean here is a game that could really help the system out, at least give Vita owners a fun online game worth playing. But if its vague Q1 release date wasn't enough, now we don't know when the game will come out. If ever. And I wouldn't be surprised since, despite many of us being excited about the game, many Vita owners have been vocal about how they think it's never going to see release outside of Japan. If you think it loud enough, vocal majority, it will probably come true.
I hate to sound so bleak about the Vita, but I guess when you look at how things have been going, it's difficult to say that buying one is the best choice right now. I'd at least wait until after the Summer, when a lot of the game expos happen, to see if any new games are announced for the Vita that would make it much more worth owning. But as it stands now, I'm not sure if Soul Sacrifice, Tearaway and Killzone will be enough to make the system magically perfect. And those games probably won't be for everybody. There's also the possibility that they just might not be that amazing once they come out.
So, returning to my original thought... Just wait on the Vita for now.
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