How did Sony blow it so bad with the Vita?

One of the biggest problem had to be the way that the machine was marketing. Let me take you back on memory lane.

Remember this? There were a series of these commercials that made the PlayStation 3 some kind of "monolith" from a sterile laboratory or something, and the machine didn't really pick up any pace for a while until they released some that were actually well done.

Fastward to the coming of the Vita, and there was nay a drop of sound about it anywhere. No advertisements on television, on buses, on Youtube...nothing. The only ad that I've seen outside of Japan with any recognition was this. Not exactly Sony's brightest moments. In some way it also harkens back to those terribly done advertisements where they went for the more avant garde/artistic approach to advertisements instead of straight up telling people what the device could do. I mean, there was a flaw in the device having two sided touch in the first place, and it was being touted as a main feature. Not to mention the fact that the ad doesn't actually say anything about the device. Marketing was absolutely atrocious in terms of presenting the device so of course the general public saw the Vita as some hideous monster.

Another thing was that the Vita had to compete with the 3DS. Marketing for the DS was simple. You tell people it was made by Nintendo, and they'll recognize it as the company who made the "Gameboy". The Vita has the added challenge of having to fight against the perception that it was the sequel to the PsP. The PsP was a fantastic device compared to the Vita. Aside from the Pandora battery debacle that caused Sony to release "stability patches" after "stability patches", there was so much potential with the PsP. Sony, in some vain effort to reign in gamers, made the Vita some kind of combo between a mobile competitor/gaming device. In the West, compared with Japan, tablets and smartphones have the hands of potential users. They were already fighting and up hill battle against these devices, then they had to fight with the gamers about the fact that the device just didn't pair up against the PsP.

Bad marketing has done the Vita a huge disservice. They could've done a better of advertising it straight to the people. Hell, they could've even given 10 minutes at E3 to the device so that it can just get more exposure would do it wonders. They can't even bother to give it lip service, no less actually try to breathe life into it. Remember the Type-0 debacle? I'm sure if Type-0 came on the Vita it would've definitely given it some life, instead, they chose to market it to just the PS4 instead. Alas, marketing can sink or swim a product, and the Vita was massively sunk due to poor marketing.

/r/vita Thread