just like how we were talking about OoE's story, we're just passing time till the rumors come true, no harm in that.
the 3DS may have outsold previous Nintendo handhelds it's first year, but apparently they still think it underperformed or else they wouldn't have dropped the price so drastically & so fast. perhaps Sony should consider a similar tactic with the Vita, I dunno
I'd wager it was a misunderstanding of the mobile market. Until now, they've been able to sell all of their consoles at a profit, which proved to be extremely profitable with the Wii. However, now that smartphones have such a large portion of the mobile gaming market, handhelds have to distance themselves by being higher performance (read: more expensive).
So with arguably cheaper technology available in order to get one's mobile gaming jollies off, handhelds have joined home consoles in the "lose money on hardware, earn it back on software" strategy.
Thus, with the Vita, which is already losing plenty of money with each system, a pricecut can be extremely risky, as opposed to the 3DS which was getting cut from already being profitable.