Pretty average nevertheless.
On what basis is it average? Just curious what makes you think it's average for a new premium priced console, with little word of mouth and obtuse advertising and a stupid mandatory memory card to sell so well in a failing economy with threats of a double dip recession. The DS had a huge following leading to transferable sales...the Vita garnered none of that, making these figures actually somewhat surprising.
I couldn't word that better.
The 3DS *did not* sell on its own merit - it sold so well because it was backwards-compatible with thousands of DS/DSi titles. The Vita is backwards-compatible only with PSN-Based PSP titles, which you can only transfer in Japan - this is a big game-staller.
On the other hand, I am quite glad that Sony finally got rid of the FailMD-Drive - it was a huge battery-monger and the step had to be taken at some point.
The upper-hand the 3DS has over the Vita is that the average non-collector can trade-in their DS/DSi and get a nice deal for the 3DS. If you trade in your PSP, you can forget about your PSP collection (unless you're Japanese, and even then not all games are available on PSN) and start re-collecting them via PSN titles. It's pointless to compare the two using the same measure as they're following completely different strategies - 3DS thrives at being a next generation extension of the DS, the Vita tries to be something new and exciting, almost cutting the ties with the PSP.
People need to start understanding that unlike the 3DS, the Vita really doesn't have the exact same "push" and despite of that it sells well, not to mention that it has a relatively good set of launch titles and alot of interesting ones "comming up soon".