The last couple of years have been interesting for handheld game consoles. The 3DS debuted to lower than expected sales in 2011, only to see Nintendo turn things around with a drastic price cut. Last year, the PlayStation Vita failed to match even the 3DS' pre-price-drop performance in its early months, and the device still has yet to see any price cuts. Sony CEO Kaz Hirai now says that the Vita has been "on the low end of what we expected."

The comment comes from a media reception interview following a CES stage presentation, reports the Wall Street Journal. Still, even with lagging sales, Hirai said the Vita could still be a success, noting that Sony judges the relative success of a product over 5 to 10 years. Said Hirai, "Long term is what is important." Certainly, it took the PlayStation 3 quite some time to build up steam, and now the console is neck and neck with Xbox 360, which had a yearlong head start. Of course, it's worth mentioning that it took the PS3 a few price drops to get there.