There’s no question that PlayStation Vita is struggling. When it comes to units sold, it’s lagging far behind its competition – Nintendo’s 3DS – and major, triple-A retail releases are few and far between. But that doesn’t mean Vita isn’t a viable, money-making handheld, at least according to Drinkbox Studios’ Chris McQuinn.

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Drinkbox Studios hasn’t been shy in talking about the success it has found on Vita. The small Canadian developer has released two games on Sony’s handheld so far – Mutant Blobs Attack and Guacamelee! – and the latter, specifically, did very, very well both critically and commercially.In a conversation with Games Industry International , McQuinn lamented Vita’s perception issues, noting that money can be made on the handheld primarily because Vita’s audience is so hardcore."Honestly, Vita owners are the ****ing best. People rag on the Vita so much, and I think people who rag on the Vita don't understand, at least from a business perspective, the purchasing power of Vita owners. Vita owners are serious purchasers of games. It's an amazing system,” McQuinn told the website.McQuinn admits that the PS3 iteration of Guacamelee! outsold Vita’s, but not by much. "I think that speaks to the strength of the Vita as a console to sell your game on because there are so many more PS3s than Vitas. For us, the sales on the Vita were really, really strong. It was a great SKU for us,” he said.McQuinn had more to say. "If people don't see the Vita doing the same number of sales as the 3DS, then it's automatically a failure. But I think what people fail to understand is the purchasers of Vitas are very, very engaged game consumers. For them, the attach rate with games is very high. There might not be a lot of Vitas out there, but the people who do own Vitas are very serious consumers; they buy a lot of games."Sony has been vocal about Vita’s attach rate in the past – at E3 last year, it was noted that the average Vita gamer has purchased at least 10 games – and that attach rate, due to stagnant hardware numbers, is almost certainly much higher at this point in time, nearly a year later.How many Vita games do you own? Do you prefer purchasing retail games, digital games, or a mixture of both?

Colin Moriarty is IGN’s Senior Editor. You can follow him on Twitter.