A few years ago, I was very close to buying that thing. Sounded a very nice geek mobile device. But then I got distracted.

Funnily enough, I was under the impression that the 3DS had more major games than the PS Vita, but apparently this is not the case. The 3DS has been seeing quite a bit of shovelware of late ("Art Academy: Lessons for Everyone" and "Imagine Babyz", anyone?) and major titles have been fairly thin on the ground. There have been a few WiiWare titles, but more or less in the same scope as PSN Vita titles.

I've also just been told that much of the shovelware has been directly ported from the DS.
Bear in mind that this doesn't apply to the Kindle Fire though, which is basically a fully-fledged Android tablet.

Actually it's more along the lines of 30-35 retail games with another 10 or so PSN exclusive titles. I have 12 games for my Vita plus a couple of downloadables. The biggest problem facing it is that publishers are now chucking substandard console ports onto it like they did with the PSP. That's what eventually brought the PSP down.

LOL, I remember the jockeying to see which was going to come out first. I'm still waiting for my Pandora. :-{

Surface Pro

It will run everything when it hits the market.

You can even skate on it. http://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-windows-team-leader-uses-surface-as-a-skateboard

I didn't know it had more games at retail. The problem is retailers put the Vita on such a small shelf and stock 10 different games with about 3 copies each, I forget the console is actually released. They did that for the PSP too, every other console had so much more shelf space and marketing. I hope its better in Europe and America because I can't see it being very popular here. At least the prices for the games are cheaper, they retail for about AU$60. The PSP sold games at AU$80.

I suppose it depends where you go. Our local Karstadt doesn't have ANY Vita stuff, but they appear to have lost the plot when it comes to their media department anyway. They still have antiquated copies of Call of Duty MW2 priced at €70. Our Media Markt has about 10 games, although in all fairness, they've usually had the game I wanted when I've walked down there to buy it. One small local independent store has a small selection, another near here has more or less the entire range of Vita games.

Best place for Vita games though is Amazon or similar, as is always the case.

Funny thing about the price though - Vita games are actually more expensive than PSP games here. PSP games usually retailed at €30-40, Vita games retail at €40-50.

So it will run linux, ios and android stuff? ;).

iOS and Android, nope, since they don't support the x86 architecture (afaik), Linux, yes.