I bought a Dreamcast at launch, and its Australian launch was pretty much the worst organised console launch I've ever seen or heard of. There were no memory cards, no Soul Calibur and no Sonic..basically the best launch title available was Ready 2 Rumble boxing because the things you wanted were all stuck on a boat in Sydney due to some customs issue.

I was worried about my purchase then, and in terms of long term support I was right - but as a gamer I never regretted that purchase because the Dreamcast had some amazing games.

The Vita has the only launch line-up in which I cannot afford to buy all the games I want on day 1, and this is putting aside the fact I don't have any plan to buy Uncharted or Wipeout. As a piece of hardware it gets most of it right and as a gamer I'm spoiled for choice, its long term prospects are the only issue.

But for right now, unless they start doing Sega-CD style addons or introduce a quick revision with massive internal memory, I don't see myself regretting this purchase even if its lifespan is similar to the Dreamcast.

I hope the 3DS and Vita have very healthy markets over the long term, and there's certainly nothing wrong with being skeptical about the Vita's long term prospects - I just don't care when I'm playing the games.