With the Wii U failing to match the original Wii in terms of commercial success Nintendo has, to a certain extent, relied on its current handheld platform, the 3DS, to balance the books.
However, even that system has struggled to replicate the performance of its immediate forerunner, the Nintendo DS. The DS family has sold over 150 million units to date, while the 3DS has shifted just under a third of that total so far (although it's worth pointing out that the former is over a decade old while the latter is less than half that age).
There's definitely evidence that the rise of smartphone and tablet gaming has taken a massive bite out of Nintendo's audience - and that of its rival, Sony. Sony's PSP got off to a weak start compared to the DS but managed to turn things around and shift a respectable 82 million units worldwide. However, its successor the PS Vita has sold less than 5 million units since 2011 - the same year the 3DS launched - and despite some impressive support from indie developers and moderate success in Japan is trailing the 3DS by quite some margin.
With Nintendo rumoured to be releasing an all-in-one console which will replace the Wii U and the 3DS, it's interesting to note that Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida has all but confirmed that his company will not be releasing another dedicated handheld gaming system.
Speaking to Eurogamer at the recent EGX 2015, Yoshida said:
People have mobile phones and it's so easy to play games on smartphones. And many games on smartphones are free, or free to start.
I myself am a huge fan of PlayStation Vita and we worked really hard on designing every aspect. Touch-based games are fun - there are many games with really good design. But having sticks and buttons make things totally different.
So I hope, like many of you, that this culture of playing portable games continues but the climate is not healthy for now because of the huge dominance of mobile gaming.
Sony's withdrawal from the handheld gaming arena would mean that Nintendo - if it does indeed include some kind of portable functionality in the NX - will have the market all to itself, at least when it comes to dedicated handheld games consoles.
However, the stern competition from smart devices will remain - but at least Nintendo will be better placed now that it has committed to creating mobile games in partnership with DeNA.
[source eurogamer.net]
Comments 124
Climate "Not Healthy" For Dedicated Handheld Games Consoles Not Made By Nintendo
The handheld market has shrunk, but it's still there to some degree. Nintendo will be flying solo with their next handheld, apparently.
I still believe in a next generation DS console of some sorts, and that's not the NX.
There is still a dedicated handheld market for the taking, Sony just can't help themselves when it comes to gouging consumers.
Of course it's not a healthy environment when you release a console with absolutely awesome games, refuse to promote it during e3 and can't be bothered continuing to support the player base by making more Triple A titles. Not to mention start porting over handheld games and making their sequels exclusive to the main console, thus defeating the purpose of a handheld console to begin with.
Vita was destined to fail from the word go. I've never seen a company half ass a console so hard before. I remember the e3 they announced CoD Vita with zero footage. We of course learned a few months later through reviews that the game was barely a 3/10, so no wonder Sony never bothered showing it off.
You can't sustain a handheld purely on indie crap that's available on every other console under the sun.
Global sales to date (according to VGChartz):
Wii U - 10.4 million units
Xbox One - 13.9 million units
PS4 - 25.4 million units
3DS - 54.1 million units
Um . . . okay
Just looking at the number of participants on the Shuffle competitions on 3DS and mobile respectively shows how important the mobile market will be. I'd still prefer a dedicated games platform - I like to use my phone just as a communication device and wouldn't want interuptions to that from playing games on it. Cost of a dedicated device along with the higher cost of console games compared to mobile is going to make mobile a better choice for most though.
If Sony had actually bothered to support the Vita... maybe people would have bought it.
Climate not healthy for Vita, I guess that's what he's saying. It's a shame really. I've only played Vita for a short while but Gravity Rush was great fun. And it's sequel is coming to PS4. Wise choice since that console will sell a lot.
Just because you failed at bringing amazing games to the Vita, doesn't mean there's a terrible climate for handheld gaming, Sony!
Says the guy from a company that has yet to beat Nintendo on the handheld market (because anyone has yet to beat Ninty on that), and in fact, has yet to treat their OWN handhelds as actual consoles, instead of the second-tier treatment the PSP and the Vita have gotten so far (only spinoff and otherwise non-canon titles for Ratchet & Clank on the PSP, etc.).
Treat the handheld market seriously and hardcore gamers will buy your handhelds, Sony. (Speaking as a proud owner of a PSP.) Simple as that.
@cbkummer All of the consoles in that list have been out for less time than the 3DS, though... and have had less hardware revisions (which usually result in a spike in sales).
It's not a like-for-like comparison.
This guy is probably just trying to justify the vita screwup (it's not working)
Sony dug their own grave there. When people think handheld gaming device they don't associate that with a $300+ starter kit and lots of download only, big sized games. If the Vita had been $200 or less and used normal, cheap memory, they would likely be singing a different tune.
Well of course the market is unhealthy Sony. You failed to understand how to support your own handheld or for that matter, market it. Does anyone remember the random adverts here in the UK? There was no gameplay footage or mention of what they were promoting until the very last moment.
As for the games, aside from the initial launch selection, Sony pretty much stopped supporting it. The sequel to Golden Abyss was also cancelled.
Yes the 3DS is selling worse than the DS but Nintendo still knows how to support it with games.
I find this somewhat of a shame since I liked the PSP and Vita, not as much as the DS or 3DS but they were still fine consoles.
Of course, if Sony bothered to promote the Vita as much as they did the PSP, then maybe they wouldn't be in this state to begin with.
@Damo I hadn't thought of that, good point. Still, though, Nintendo is showing with the 3DS that there is a market.
He's correct. Nintendo's main competition lost 70 million sales between generations so it should have made it easier for Nintendo to perform better this gen, but instead they're going to end up with what is comfortably their lowest selling handheld. Mobile game dwarfs the dedicated handheld market and the gap is going to continue growing.
230 million people bought a handheld last gen. 65 million people have bought one this gen and it's almost over.
Nintendo managed to save the 3DS, but even if they got pricing and support right again I rather doubt you'd see a larger install base. I've never really been into mobile gaming (I'd rather read a book on my phone than play), but it clearly has the edge in terms of convenience, even if the lack of buttons is off-putting. I figure Nintendo will continue to offer a dedicated device as long as the cost to R&D and manufacture can be recouped without much effort. Unlike Sony handheld gaming has been a key pillar of their business and they won't walk away from that because of a little market shrinkage.
Has anyone besides Nintendo made a dedicated and awesome handheld that lasted? I mean that seriously.
Other then Ninty handhelds, the Vita and the PSP I had never even heard of a lot of the handhelds other companies had come out with during those times.
Furthermore, mobile games are steaming piles of crap in comparison, while dedicated handhelds and consoles have plenty of quality titles.
lol I like how Sony blames the entire market base of why the Vita failed whereas Nintendo owned up to their failure and reversed it for the 3DS.
Still I would like a dedicated handheld for gaming. Most phone games are pay to win type games with no real value. If the games were strictly a flat price instead of $200 later you still haven't unlocked everything. Most of those games are quick apps that are thrown out to the market. Handheld games are of much, much better quality.
Plus, you don't have those dumb game requests with mobile games everyday that somebody asks you to get them gems or some crap.
I despise Mobile Gaming, for me it's just a huge pile of scam with infinite games that never end and ask you to pay to progress or just wait weeks to get where you can get in seconds by paying.
Retiring my malfunctioning Vita for the PSTV was another batch of smelly honey. There are a few Vita and PSP games that matter which fail to boot up. Dracula X Chronicles, MGS HD Collection... My Crash Bandicoot, Castlevania Chronicles and Metal Gear Solid 1 PSX games weren't even downloadable for my Vita. So my PSTV? Just hibernating next to my Wii U, for that one fateful day I feel like playing War of The Lions, Maverick Hunter X, or Soul Sacrifice Delta.
The biggest problem Nintendo face with handhelds is having 3rd party support. At the moment the likes of Sega, Namco, Capcom, and Level 5 support the 3ds primarily with JRPGs, but if they lose them to mobile it might be harder to justify a portable system just for Nintendo games alone- just like the Wii U. I guess the concept of a platform you can develop for once that works for both console and handheld gaming would attract developers.
The 3DS at over 50 million sold proves there is still a market.
It's unfair to compare things to Wii, DS and PS2. No system from here on out I think will touch those3 in terms of units sold.
Having the market to themselves is a horrific thing. It means less competition and means Nintendo will have an excuse to become lax in their approach to design and functionality, even MORE so than they were this gen, since other than Android handhelds people will only have the choice of Nintendo next gen for mainstream handheld gaming.
@Wouwter Word !
In all seriosuness, if you treat your handheld platform like Sony did, no climate will ever be remotely healthy. Grossly overpriced system. Even more disgusting prices for ridiculously small flash cards (that are necessary, even though the games come on cards themselves), next to no support in terms of inhouse games, unexplainable compatibility issues in regards to backwards compatibility, horrendous localisation issues (PSN EU is a wasteland compared to anywhere else) .
I loved my Vita...for teh 2 hours of enjoyment it brought. Other then that, it was pretty much abandoned by default. Its not the climate Sony, its your own darn fault.
@cbkummer I think the better comparison would be this.
GB: 100 million Units
GBA: 84 Million Units
DS: 154 million units
3DS: 54 million units
I can say that the 3DS can easily reach 60 million units thanks to Smash, Mario and Pokemon.
Seriously though, just because mobile is taking over doesn't mean that its a dedicated system for handheld gaming.
How many million do these companies need to sell for there product to be deemed successful?
@Peach64 If you asked me, Sony should have supported the Vita just as much as they support PS4. When a first party developer releases a console no matter what flaws a console has, support for the console is mandatory to satisfy the ones who bought it. Even though the Wii U is a failure, Nintendo is supporting it at the very least.
A lot of blind loyalty in this comment section, I gotta say. Just because the sales still aren't too bad, that doesn't mean they aren't very likely on a downward slope. Next gen could end up being a big issue as far as Nintendo's handheld goes.
There's just no denying that more people are moving over to smartphones, and more kids are starting on smartphones without EVER getting into handhelds. It feels like it's only a matter of time.
whelp for one thing . Nintendo actually fully supplied the 3ds with tons of 1st party exclusives. sure the psvita was much powerful than the 3ds but the psvita wasnt as friendly to the consumers. and didnt have much as Nintendo offered with its 3ds tittles , and lets talk about memory cards , what i mean about sony not being as consumer friendly is. . psvita: used its own save data cards which were overpriced. 3ds: used normal sd cards (or new 3ds xl with micro sd cards).
Sounds like a sound business decision to me, even if Sony should perhaps shoulder some of the blame rather than laying it all on smartphones and tablets, and probably somewhere in there given Ntinedo some credit for doing the Vita in.
So anybody notice the drop off between PSP's 80 mil and Vita's 5 mil is similar to the drop off between Wii's 100 mil and Wii U's 10 mil? Wonder when Nintnedo announces NX is a handheld w/ HDMI out?
@Damo True, but all 3 of those consoles, combined, still havent hit 3DS sales. The 3DS has been out 2 years longer than the PS4, but barely a year longer than the wii u. if it were 50 million 3DS vs 40 million PS4, sure, id say the PS4 would win. but when XbonePS4WiiU still havent met up with 3DS, after 3 years...
@Arlo Exactly.
I know alot of people are going dismiss him because its someone from Sony saying it, but is he wrong?
The 3DS is over four years old, and is only sitting at the 50 million mark. This is despite its library featuring Pokemon, a 3D Mario, New Super Mario Bros 2, numerous Zelda games, Super Smash Bros, Animal Crossing, and several high-profile third party franchises like Monster Hunter.
Let me put it this way. If the 3DS was to be taken off the market tomorrow, it would not only be the lowest selling Nintendo handheld of all time, it would not even surpass the sales of the PSP.
The 3DS is in its twilight years. Its over the hill so to speak in terms of getting its user base to expand. Most likely, everyone who wants a 3DS already has one, given most of Nintendo's major franchises have already hit the platform, and there is a 99 dollar model with the 2DS for budget minded gamers.
Now, I won't argue that Sony dug their own grave with stupid decisions in supporting the Vita, but even supposing they played their cards right they would have been lucky to have sold maybe 20-25 million units, a massive drop from the sales of the PSP.
People can dismiss his statements all they want as a bitter company that could not compete with Nintendo and are now trying to save face, but the proof is in the pudding.
Nintendo, the undisputed leader of handheld systems has struggled to sale the 3DS this generation. Going from 80 million units with the GBA and over 150 million units with the DS is a massive drop.
Mobile gaming has taken a huge bite out of portable gaming's pie, and if nothing else, Nintendo admitting that they have to move into that market as well is proof that even the king of handhelds is not immune to this shifts in the market.
I still think handheld gaming will have a market, but its not going to post the insane numbers it once did. I think it will become a niche market for gamers who want a real system on the go.
But anyone who thinks handheld gaming will expand and grow again is ignoring reality. The 3DS managed to sell over 50 million units despite an insanely strong library, their chief rival making terrible mistakes, numerous models that catered to different audiences, and marketing that promoted the system to gamers above all else.
Mobile gaming is growing bigger with each passing day. In many ways, its even starting to compete with home consoles and PCs now. And while I hate mobile gaming's influence as a whole(The whole Freemium model is highway robbery at its finest) the sad truth is that handheld gaming has been impacted.
Look past the fact that the Vita failed or that the guy saying this is a Sony employee and look at the truth. The 3DS should be sitting at 80 million units at this point, if not more Everything is there to give it those numbers.
It has the games, the support, and it priced no different from past Nintendo handhelds.
The issue is that kids don't want to play Pokemon or Mario on a Nintendo handheld and the casual market has moved on as well. Nintendo is losing the new generation to mobile devices. I have to wonder how many 3DS and 2DS owners are people my age, older, or are in their 20s that played the DS and the previous Game Boy models.
But go ahead everyone, dismiss this as a bitter Sony employee who wants to make excuses for their own failures.
Just don't be shocked when the next Nintendo handheld sells fewer units while mobile gaming takes more and more of the audience that used to buy a Game Boy, PSP, or DS.
I can't believe he's serious. /3DS sells more than anyone else's system even today/ NO. THE CLIMATE IS NOT HEALTHY. Now history will just make it look like the PSP/PSV were just created to take jabs at Nintendo again.
Sony did it to themselves. The Vita is/was a very nicely designed unit yet they killed it with expensive memory cards and a lack of AAA games. Not to mention that in order to play many older games you needed to have a PS3.
It's a shame that the Vita didn't catch on. I'm enjoying mine quite a bit. In some ways I like it better than the 3ds.
Sony knows they made mistakes with the Vita, which is a shame as it's a lovely system. What bothers me about analyzing this market is the assumption that all games are just games. The styles between handhelds and mobile just aren't the same for the majority, and so many people I know who play match-3 games on their phones every waking moment don't consider themselves to be playing a game. They claim to just be wasting time.
Mobile has already won. Handhelds were good for kids for the last 25 years but now the new generation grows up on android or iOS with free games. Nintendo is even putting content on phones.
Hopefully handheld gamers support the next device well so it doesn't die out entirely!
I own a collectible store. We do okay, we aren't rich by any means. Beside us is a doughnut shop, it sells out by eleven. The money that doughnut shop makes is insane, but doughnuts are not collectibles.
That is the same attitude Nintendo and Sony should have about cellphone games. Cellphone games are not the same animal as handheld gaming. You'll never be playing a proper monster hunter game on a cellphone and that is fine. If I closed my collectible store to open a doughnut shop for the insane doughnut profits, I'd be alienating the hell out of my customers.
All gaming needs to realize this-- yes, mainstreaming things will make you more money but at what cost? There will always be a market for dedicated handheld gaming. Corporations just need to get their heads out of their asses and stop worrying about what money they COULD be making and worry about making the products they have as good as possible. If something is good, it will always make its money back in the end.
Err, Vita has not sold less than 5 million. It's between 12 -15 million right now.
Get over it, people - he's right. The numbers don't lie.
This is also why it makes sense for Nintendo to pursue a hybrid console.
Sad but true. I love my Vita and would definitely welcome a successor if one were made but Sony have been whopped by Nintendo/mobiles...
@Caryslan you make some good points. I'm sure the big conversation at Nintendo is/has been "what next?" as far as the 3ds successor. Games like Pokemon, Animal Crossing and Yo Kai Watch won't be the same on mobile devices as a dedicated handheld and sell big numbers. I'll be curious to see if Nintendo goes one more round or goes a different route completely. Should be interesting to see how it plays out either way.
The number of people buying handheld consoles is declining, but that market is still going to exist for a while yet. If Sony is not going to do any more handheld consoles then hopefully Nintendo can capitalise on this and help their sales.
Uh there is one problem with smartphone gaming...... It sucks! Although it has gotten better in the last 2 years it still lacks decent control and there are no epic games to really choose from. Sometimes the in app ads are so bad it rendures a a game unplayable. Let's go back to my statement about no epics. A majority of the iPAD and Android games have this low quality presentation and the length of some games are way short. Also no built in game controller is a huge issue for me. It's much more comfortable to play my 3ds than it is my iPAD orAndroid tablet. But there is some truth to this. Alot of people are moving over to this on the go cheesefest of gaming. It's to bad it just might be what kills the real handheld consoles such as the 3ds and Vita. There is no comparison in quality from the 3ds and Vita to the Android and iOS markets. It's a real shame. Lastly has anyone seen those in-app purchases for some games where you could actually spend up to 1,000.00 dollars for add-on content. I'm sorry I would rather pay my 49.99 and then play the heck out of what I bought. This add-on content deal is going to get real ridiculous. I'm going to miss the day of the cartridges when they are gone. It's coming fast and we will be paying for air. Nintendo and Sony both have shown they will not lower the prices for digital retail games which is so ridiculous. No manufacturing of boxart, cdroms or cartridges. There should be a lower price for air.
The Vita suffered more than the 3DS during the smart phone/tablet craze because its target audience was teenagers and young adults, and that is also the demographic that has bought in the hardest with smart phones and tablets. People between the ages of 15 and 25 seem to all have smart phones surgically attached to their hands these days. Nintendo was aiming at a younger audience and that is part of what allowed them to weather the storm.
However, Sony also has to take blame for the fact that they failed to support it during the crucial 2nd and 3rd years on the market because they were 100% focused on making the PS4 a success. I get that the PS4 has a much higher potential for making money, but you cannot expect a product to thrive when it gets no support from its first party platform holder.
Of course, the Vita is doing very well in Japan while the PS4 struggles there. The Japanese love their handheld game machines. Is Sony going to abandon that market when the Vita has finished its run? Perhaps they expect that mobile gaming will take over the handheld sector there as well.
@BinaryFragger wasn't the 3DS ahead of the DS schedule to outsell at one point? Seems since Nintendo brought out the "New" 3DS that sales have declined. I still don't have the New 3DS even though I would love one. I just haven't been able to afford it yet. I would love to play Xenoblade on my handheld. They really need to bring games out to the New 3DS that show off what it can do. I don't see any in the near future
I thought the PS Vita was -well- over 10 million sold by now.
@Windy Exactly. I bought a Galaxy Tab a few years ago. Yeah, I got a ton of games for free, but they are loaded with micro transactions and in general the experience is simply not a very rich one. Same deal with my phone. I have a ton of games but never play any of them.
I've posted this elsewhere on a different site but In this case it's entirely Sony's fault. Third parties focused on AAA and mobile now, the typical Sony strategy is making a system and expecting every publisher and developer but themselves to make the games that will make it a success. There's also the case that ironically Sony's powerful console strategy caused their own failure in the handheld space as they caused their most valuable 1st party studio Naughty Dog to become prima donnas who refused to make software for the PSVITA because it isn't powerful enough and Polophony didn't create a Gran Turismo for it either.
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/naughty-dog-passing-on-ps-vita/1100-6350737/
The PSVITA literally did not deserve to do well regardless of the "climate" and mobile market. Sony put no effort in and allowed their biggest 1st parties to avoid the thing like the plague and not make any games for the system. Few here would be happy if the 3DS didn't have a Mario Kart, Animal Crossing, top down LoZ or Pokemon game. Can anyone give me a reason anyone would want a system that Sony themselves don't think is worth having games from their best developers? They've largely used it as a garbage disposable for ports and inferior entries to series and the few good games have went unadvertised. If Sony doesn't care about the PSVITA and never treat it as well as their home consoles why should anyone else?
If the PSVITA did as well as the PSP or 3DS Nintendo probably been screwed since Sony would be equalling them without even trying.
@CB85 It is. This article uses outdated numbers.
@Caryslan Thank you. Most of the people commenting here keep bringing up Sony's failure to support the Vita (and not just games either) as the reason it failed. While this may be partially true, they're bringing the point up as a way of denying reality.
I think this point really drives it home: The combined sales of the 3DS and the Vita are 67 million units (55 million for the 3DS, 12 million for the Vita). That's still 13 million less than the GBA's lifetime sales of about 80 million. The combined sales of the Vita and the 3DS will be less than the GBA's lifetime sales.
Whether we like it or not, the handheld market has contracted big time, and will likely contract again next generation.
Also, the mobile market will eventually have a big effect on the home console market as well. Hell, it already is in Japan. Sure, the PS4 is selling incredibly well, and the XB1 is also doing quite well. However, I seriously doubt the 8th gen consoles will have as long of a lifespan as the 7th gen consoles.
Say the PS4 sold 100 million units and the XB1 sold 60 million units. That's 170 million units total between the 3 consoles. Here's the thing: that's still 30 million less than the combined sales of the 6th gen consoles, 40 million if you count Dreamcast numbers.
I think the console market will eventually contract, but at a much more gradual pace than handhelds did.
The only way to counter it is to make sure our kids and future kids grow up playing on dedicated devices, or at least home consoles.
@Dr_Lugae I doubt the Vita would've outsold the PSP even if it had a decent software library and affordable memory.
@Caryslan True, but remember that gaming overall has changed. Although the 3DS is 4 years old and barely over 50 million, thats still more units than the wii u, ps4, and xbone, combined, in 5 and a half years. If the 3DS is doomed, then all of gaming is over forever as we know it- or, people simply own less systems, but gaming isnt going anywhere.
I honestly feel that dedicated handhelds still have a place in the market.
@rjejr I hope that HDMI out is more like a Chromecast type HDMI stick and the NX (handheld) beams to the stick much like the Wii U currently beams to the gamepad. And you should be able to sync other controllers or other NX's to the one NX beamed to the HDMI stick for multiplayer hence getting rid of the need to buy multiple game copies for multiplayer (like Smash 3DS)! That would be my dream come true.
Now battery life and cost are whole other issues...
With the DS games such as brain training, cooking guides & language learning games etc bought the DS to new audiences, which the 3DS doesn't do so well, Nintendo need to bring out new versions of their IP'S such as F ZERO & Metroid to keep the 3ds fresh & relevant
and hopefully more 3rd party support, i'm not a fan of mobile gaming
@Shadowkiller97 - "battery life and cost"
I'm expecting both of those to be abysmal. And yes I mean HDMI out as a dongle or set-top box hooked up to the tv but wireless from the controller. Basically the Wii U, but everything is in the Gamepad. Or the 3DS w/ a HDMI dongle in the box. Downside, no disc support, but 3DS cartridges should be low enough in price. I hope. Google presser tomorrow, maybe they'll show Nintendo how.
@IceClimbers I'd attest Nintendo's drop from the GBA is because they screwed the pooch when it came to pricing of the 3DS compared to any of the Gameboys and the original DS.
The original asking price of the 3DS and even after the price drop was quite high especially considering a defining factor of Nintendo's handhelds was that they were affordable. Where this comes in is that as mobiles/tablets had showed up as a competitor the people who might have bought a Nintendo handheld at a low price point had instead bought a cheap tablet/smartphone.
While hindsight is 20-20 I think if the 2DS had launched alongside the 3DS and offered a much lower price for entry(and avoiding the "3D bad for children's eyes" shock) it would have been much more competitive with tablets and would have been a boon to the sales and by extension software which would further drive the hardware since a lot of early 3DS games(Bomberman 3D, Chocobo Racing 3D) disappeared due to the 1st year sales issues.
So, the 2ds releasing alongside the 3ds would've made handheld gaming more relevant to kid's who are growing up gaming on smartphones? The 3d is the whole factor in why the current generation of children are not favoring dedicated handhelds over tablet&smatphones?
I don't consider mobile gaming as true gaming. And I do not think the numbers for mobile game sales are accurate. If you payed nothing for a game on your phone, the likelihood of you to playing the game after a few hours are much higher than a game you payed $60 dollars for.
Kind of true. At my middle school (I'm in 8th grade btw) nobody plays a 3DS, because apparently it isn't "cool" enough. Almost everyone here has an iPhone or something and are addicted to Instagram/(insert generic game that will be replaced in two seconds). Tbh, Nintendo doesn't really seem cool to kid of this generation anymore, because they have the stain that is the Wii, which means they think all of Nintendos games are Mario and Wii sports("kiddy games"). I really think Nintendo should make a popular M rated game for once (I like beyonetta, but it didn't sell well and wasn't advertised like crazy, for example like COD or Destiny), that way, they could have the same respect as Microsoft, and Sony.
@amiiboacid The numbers for mobile are accurate but they're misleading. Like you said it costs nothing to download the game, "sales" are inflated by people downloading games for free playing for 5-10 minutes getting bored and deleting the app.
The money itself is another story because it's downright crooked. It's known that a massive majority of money made from mobile games comes from F2P and from 10% of players and the majority of that from 1% of heavy spenders(whales) with real spending problems while 90% of the market are freeloaders. The mobile market isn't sustainable because the majority of players aren't paying for games and when they do they aren't paying much, the most successful apps that make mobile gamers appear lucrative come from psychologically exploiting a small set of people much like casinos do with gambling, except unlike casinos these F2P games aren't being policed even though they exploit similar concepts.
Skinner box games like Clash of the Clans or Game of War and by extension the mobile market would crumble the moment that a governing body intervenes and enforces some kind of limit on how much an individual player could spend on a game.
sadly this is true, in early days (younger though out my early teen days) it seems that handhelds where big for company (even Nintendo) but now there seems less interest in the Handhelds and more on Android/Mobile,
it sucks to see PSVita not being as strong as the Nintendo 3DS and Mobile/Android,
The climate is never going to be good for a console of any kind that doesn't get any first- or second-party software. You can make the hardware as nice as can be (and the Vita is a lovely bit of kit) but without games any console will struggle. It's very effective as an indie terminal but the lack of support from Sony has been dreadful and inexcusable.
For the foreseeable future there will be a place for dedicated handhelds. Supported properly they will be profitable. But the profits will never again be what they were. Mobile has changed the industry too much. And I loathe many of the changes it has wrought, like conditioning people who upgrade their $500 phone every year to demand software for 99¢. Like creating a market in which in a few years it is expected that 1 in 10,000 apps will be profitable.
I will say this...the only reason I didn't get a Vita is that there weren't enough games for it that I was interested in. That and the overpriced proprietary memory cards. I mean it's a really cool handheld. I wish they'd try again and do it better next time because as much as I love my 3DS I'd really love a dedicated handheld console with an HD display.
In my opinion though, instead of backing away from handhelds because of mobile games, they should step it up with their handhelds. What they're doing now is sure to make mobile games dominate (except for the fact that Nintendo's handheld is still in the game).
This is gonna be a long one, so bear with me.
Mr. Yoshida is right…partially. There is no doubt that mobile has eaten a huge chunk out of the dedicated handheld market. Depending on what the NX is and when it is released, the 3DS’s lifetime sales will end up at around 75-85 million units sold, which is certainly a good number, but only about half of the DS’s record breaking 154 million units sold. Even the king of handheld gaming is feeling the contractual effects caused by the mobile gaming market.
With the being said, the Vita will not sell half of what the PSP sold. Instead, the Vita will struggle to sell 1/5 of what the PSP sold, and this is all due to Sony’s own incompetence in supporting the handheld. The expensive price, lack of marketing and advertising, lack of significant first party support, lack of the 3rd party support outside of the niche Japanese titles etc. Mobile definitely tore off the Vita’s casual fanbase, but Sony themselves failed to provide enough incentives for even the core gamers to pick a Vita up.
At this point, there is no reason for Sony to make a PS Vita 2, because that thing would flop even worse than the first PS Vita. Sony should exit the handheld market and work on what they know best: home consoles. Better to let Nintendo themselves take what’s left of the handheld gaming space to mature, evolve, and develop the market in the current mobile dominated gaming world.
As for Nintendo (since this is Nintendolife, after all) and their handheld future, they need to realize that the traditional “buy a dedicated portable to play dedicated portable games and nothing else” business model really isn’t going to work anymore. They need to throw in another hook if they want their future handhelds to achieve success. It seems like Nintendo will include significant integration between their future handhelds and their future home consoles (similar/same architecture, development tools, OS, software applications, and possibly games), which would be an excellent distinguishing factor (or gimmick, as some would call it) between Nintendo's future handhelds, Nintendo's past handhelds, and your everyday smart-device.
@AVahne
Mobile is big enough of a competitor for Nintendo to never to get lazy.
What a lazy excuse to abandon the Playstation Vita.
If you think Nintendo did a poor job marketing the Wii U, just remember that Sony did ten times worse with the Vita.
I thought about getting one, but the lack of exclusives is really sad. It's basically just an expensive 2nd Screen for the PS4.
While I can understand why the market is shrinking I am always going to be the type of gamer that needs a dedicated handheld system in his life. I am currently playing through Rune Factory 4 and I wouldn't want it on any other system. Mobile gaming just doesn't do it for me.
And I still would like a Nintendo-DS-Phone. I just checked the web phage from sharp, who's know to be working together with Nintendo for their screen technology and was surprised (or was I not?) that Sharp has a phone that uses 3D-Stereoscopic screens with two outside cameras (Aqous phone SH80F).
The market is definitely still there. Mobiles absolutely do not replace consoles. I've had times when my 3DS battery ran dry on the commute and I've sat and stared out of the window over playing on my mobile. That's not out of some elitist attitude, it's out of not even considering that my mobile has games. It does have them of course, but in my brain they're less games and more bored distractions. They're designed to require as little investment as possible and as a result I don't even think of them as a thing I'm wanting to do. When I'm wanting to play Pokémon or Zelda for 30 odd minutes and I'm unable, I don't think "at least I have Angry Birds 2 I can play until I run out of free credits and have to wait or pay". I think "damn, no games for me this trip". Sometimes I even use my phone for other apps and see the games and still I don't think "Yay games!". It's not a replacement.
I won't deny mobile gaming having lessend the overall appeal of handhelds, but come on, Yoshida! What's with the dumb excuses lately?!
The VITA simply lacks any kind of focus. First off, all kinds of niche games are getting released on it, but barely any of them are even remotely interested in dealing with the unintuitive backside touchpad. But there are no big titles that actually move systems, nonetheless.
Secondly, Sony themselves mismarketed the VITA into obscurity. First, it was the "HD handheld", then the "portable PS3", and right now it's either the "wannabe-GamePad clone for PS4 nobody needs", or the "porting from PS3/4 to VITA is easy, so we'll put our game on it" container. And the announcement that Sony themselves dropped game support on it (as in, their dev teams no longer make VITA games) only served to drag it further down.
But this has to be the most ignorant claim I've heard from him. He already blamed consumers for "not understanding the PlayStation TV", which was idiotic in its own right, and now he's going one step further blaming consumers for their own lack of focus on the VITA. This is nothing short of lousy...
I don't agree. I like buttons, a separate battery for gaming, and dedication. I won't ever pick cell phone games over a dedicated gaming console even if they are cheaper.
Granted, the market is shrinking but Nintendo still has a firm hold on it. Shu is simply making a PR statement about why they stopped supporting the Vita without directly saying that Nintendo beat them.
Besides, smartphones will never fully take over until they come with fully integrated buttons and not have horrible battery life while playing games.
My brand new LG G4 drains 1/3 of my batter PER HOUR playing FF: Record Keeper. That's ridiculous.
I find it interesting how the 3DS seems to be ignored by most Western devs and publishers, despite the size of the user base.
This statement conveniently ignores how poorly Vita was handled almost from launch. The platform had a ton of potential and Sony never delivered.
Mobile gaming presented some challenges... but that doesn't change the fact that Vita's failure as a platform is squarely on Sony's shoulders.
I'm still hoping that the whole mobile gaming thing will just blow over.
...What?
....It might happen.
The DS did well because of having so many games available for it. They have released only a fraction as many for the 3DS and sales aren't as good. How dumb can they be? What are we supposed to do with it (why have, why buy) if there's so little to play on it? Why don't they want to make/sell games anymore?!
Blaming bad sales of handheld-consoles on cellular phones carries the same logic of blaming bad sales of regular-consoles on computers. During the Video Game crash, computers proliferated (recall the advertising of the Commodore64 that mocked the Atari 2600), yet Nintendo- broke through the climate. After all, computers had no intention of playing games; they were general-purpose machines that just happened to be able to play games. Cellular phones, even of the smart variety, are just handheld computers and therefore share the same paradigm.
https://seanmalstrom.wordpress.com/2011/06/04/email-isnt-the-iphone-disrupting-the-3ds/
I liked my PSP but Vita and Playstation TV both failed. Vita atleast works as not so good Dualshock 4 when my friends visit and we play Towerfall together.
@Kaze_Memaryu
Agreed. Sony has a problem for taking the blame when they mess up and they always have a line of excuses ready. Sony's mostly to blame for what happened to the Vita. Lack of big titles, overpriced memory cards(that are STILL overpriced), etc. etc.
@Damo @cbkummer And on top of that, VGChartz is not really reliable.
@MarkyVigoroth Smartphones may not be the main reason the Vita is doing terrible, but Mobile devices have affected handheld gaming. All of those younger gamers who at one time might have considered a handheld are simply gaming on devices that are part of the family's mobile plan. Times have changed and I'm sure that's why Nintendo is entering the mobile market to begin with.
While admittedly not as strong as before the smartphone explosion, there will always be a pretty good market for dedicated handheld consoles as long as they maintain superior controls and deep gameplay experiences you just can't find on other handheld devices. This guy just won't admit that Nintendo kicked their butts on the handheld front once again.
@Kiyata_Hamasaki The 3DS may not have the same sheer quantity of games as the DS (which is quite a bit older, don't forget), but how do the numbers compare when you take away all the simple puzzle games and other casual titles that are mostly played on smartphones these days? Personally, I find the DS rather lacking in variety and quality titles compared to the 3DS, as its library consists of the aforementioned puzzle and casual titles, RPGs, ports of console games, games let down by excessive touchscreen controls (Star Fox Command, Kirby Mass Attack, etc.), and very little else. While many of its RPGs and puzzle games are indeed brilliant, two genres do not make a good games library.
@Zelkardaim LMFAO. that is one of the best things ever!
I think one of the largest things to consider when looking at these numbers (how the current "market" is playing today versus 5 years ago) is who new is playing, and what are the previous players playing on now? While markets shift generationally, it would be privy to dive into the current market and find out where the previous gamers who preferred dedicated handhelds previously are playing their games. Do they still prefer dedicated handhelds? Did they suddenly ditch them in preference for playing on their iPad? I doubt it, honestly. The thing to realize is that the ease of access makes the market larger, and that the goal is then how to take a growing market and shift them to dedicated consoles. My guess is that the mobile games endeavor that Nintendo is banking on are strategically planned to bridge the gap between these newcomers to mobile gaming and Nintendo's dedicated consoles. That is their answer to shifting new entrants in the market over to more "core" Nintendo product users (i.e. consoles).
Nintendo likely sees that as an opportunity rather than a challenge. Someone else (app game companies) have done the dirty work in producing easy-to-learn/easy-to-obtain games and pushed their "garbage" onto the mobile platforms, creating said market. Nintendo didn't have to publish sub-par games in order to bring people to mobile. Now they can develop games for an actual existing market. Before there was nothing bringing these people into the gaming world, and Nintendo likely views this as a goldmine.
A lot of the games I buy for dedicated handhelds can't be played on smartphones, nor do I think they would find the same audience there.
Now that Mr. Yoshida himself is giving up the ghost on the portable Sony line, it feels strange to think back on Sony's original illustrated vision at the entrance of the PSP era... A metropolis of people walking around with PSPs, much like people do today with smart phones, and did back then in Japan with cell phones.
This is definitely the end of an era... Lots of unknowns ahead. Whatever the plans of those at Nintendo are, moving ahead, I can only hope their traditional portables don't bear a conflict of interest with the DeNA capital alliance. It's looking like that to me, right now... The design for games created for dedicated gaming hardware is just so different from non dedicated hardware. If you're not exposed to the dedicated hardware, you can't appreciate it. You'll just get sucked into the "neomarketplace", filled with disgusting DRM and micro transactions.
There are also a host of possible health issues related to using phones all the time, especially with their #G mode turned on. The radiation emitted could cause all sorts of health problems for children as they grow up, in the future. We didn't have to worry about such a thing back in the Game Boy days, and even the DS/3DS is not nearly such a problem... I suspect that within the next couple of decades, as cell phone radiation's harmful effects become more well understood, dedicated portable hardware without the use of such radiation will resurface.
The problem of playing games on smartphone is the poor control. I really have not much interest on mobile games (except Sonic Runners recently). The control needs to be extremely simple (e.g., simple tapping) in order to work well on smartphones. Therefore, most smartphone games are not complicated enough for me.
I didn't even have to read the article, and I already strongly disagree. Smart phone games are, at best, good time wasters. At least that's my opinion.
Handheld systems FTW!!
@Caryslan Best comment so far!
The climate isn't healthy? Yeah, that's it, that's definitely it, it certainly can't be the launch price being way too high, grossly over-priced memory cards adding to an already high asking price, or the lack of support. Nope, not at all.
Seriously though, the climate is weaker, but that doesn't mean dedicated handhelds can't succeed. Mobile took a bite out of handhelds mainly due to a big draw to them being cheap, and casual games you simply couldn't get anywhere else for a portable game.
Its not like that anymore, the DS was the last system where you actually needed a dedicated handheld for the types of games most casual users want. Stuff like Tetris and Brain Age can be done on modern phones just fine.
That mainly just leaves the more dedicated players, a lot of which aren't going to bother with a handheld with mostly the same games they can get on platforms they already own. There's some appeal to having a portable version, but most people want more than just straight ports, especially in the west where most people prefer consoles or PC anyway.
If Nintendo don't release a portable system next time round, i will quit gaming. Lifting my head to look at TV screens or monitors is too much effort for me these days
I have both PSP and Vita, and honestly... while PSP was somehow pushing the envelope with creative games, Vita is just... meh. If I wanted a "cinematic console experience" I would basically turn my PS3/PS4 on and not suffer pixelated crapalooza on the tiny screen. Somehow Nintendo knows how to make portable games, with proper timing for short, intense sessions. 3DS literally killed my Vita, it's in the drawer since the day I got my first Nintendo handheld last year...
Just release a next-gen handheld with mobile telephony built in and a half decent camera (capability to dual boot Android would be an extra plus), then market it strongly and support it with games and I'm sure it would do just fine.
Oh, and FYI, the size of a market is not determined by current sales figures. Just because 3DS generation had sold less, didn't mean the market has shrunk proportionately.
Many 2DS owners probably just don't find the 3DS a compelling reason to upgrade. If the right innovation is found then the market will be there to buy it. The market is not obliged to buy every product that comes out. 3DS is too similar to 2DS for that sort of comparison.
By "climate", I thought it was about the actual weather. Like, maybe the current climate changes are bad for the materials handhelds use. Lol
@Sanicranfast What I cannot understand is, the Vita is clearly a much more powerful console than the 3DS, yet Devs seemed to ignore it.
Does this back up the argument that power alone does not sell a console? Why did 3rd party devs shy away from the Vita?
@rockodoodle I agree
But the vita will sell more than the Wii u
@akaDv8R I doubt Sony gave developers any incentive to make games for the Vita. At the end of the PSP's life cycle, Square Enix were pretty much the only developer left making games for the console, which caused them to argue with Sony and Squeenix decided it would focus on mobile as a platform from now on.
Sony did get things like CoD Vita and Assassins Creed early in the Vita's life span. However, CoD was a pile of shoot 'em up getting 3/10 reviews and was heavily snubbed at e3 that year as a result. Assassins Creed was the first of many Vita games to get ported over to other consoles. Hell, Gravity Rush 2 and Tearaway are now on PS4.
@andrew20 Well, the Vita was released a year before the Wii U. That helps slightly. However, software sales show that Wii U is crushing Vita at the moment.
I wish everyone here would stop fantasizing about a "hybrid"-console. I don't want 1 device to use both at home and on the go, meaning it would be too underpowered for a console or too clunky for on the go. 2 devices using the same ecosystem, sounds much better. Developers making a game for 1 device can easily port it to the other and using 1 account system for both will make a lot of games cross-platform.
The question isn't whether or not there's a market for a dedicated handheld, it's whether or not that market is large enough to justify the expense of developing and marketing another one. Will Nintendo be willing to gamble they can sell another 50 million handhelds? If they only sell 25 million is it still worthwhile?
Remember we're not just talking component cost and advertising budgets, but staff payrolls for the engineers and software developers. Now if a theoretical new handheld can run the same code as NX (assuming that's not the handheld), then that reduces cost, but that only really helps if one of these platforms (handheld or console) is successful enough to carry the other.
Also remember that Nintendo is a publicly held company, so even if such a venture is successful in terms of being profitable - as the Wii U appears to be, it's not really good enough for shareholders: they must see it as a success or they'll sell their stock which will seriously damage the company.
The 3DS may have sold 50mil units and that's a lot, but the loss of an entire generation to general purpose mobile platforms makes developing a successor extremely risky.
Sony is just saying this cause they never had success in that market to begin with. If it's the other way around they would be bragging that handheld gaming is the best thing ever which it still is. Screw mobile gaming.
Poor sony, If only you treated the vita better. I hate mobile gaming nodaways.
There's more options in general for gaming now, so it's no surprise the pie is getting smaller for those that were used to having a large piece all to themselves. New contenders are taking part of that share but from a gamer's perspective, this is all actually pretty great in theory. Competition is healthy as long as people help inform each other not to buy the crappy microtransaction stuff and think they're getting something good because they haven't been exposed to the real stuff.
Right now, kids are getting a taste of gaming with tablets and iphones, but a lot of them don't know how much better gaming can be once they try what Nintendo or Sony could offer them. You have to continue to fight to get your product out there and not let the glut of low quality games on the market outshine everyone else. You also shouldn't take the attitude of "can't beat'em so join'em" when the battle isn't even over. Sony is throwing in the towel too darn soon, sadly.
@Arlo The problem with that view point is that while there are blind believers, there are also blind nay sayers. The nintendo handhelds aren't on a real decline until they are literally on a decline. When Nintendo can't clear 30 million sold, then there are problems. You can't really compare them to the amount of phone gamers there are because the vast majority of phone gamers aren't the audience of dedicated gaming consoles, both home and handheld. Just because another 100 million moms and dads have decided to take up angry birds on phones and earn the title of being a gamer doesn't mean it is a bad thing for Nintendo products.
@dronesplitter The pie isn't really getting smaller....because thanks to phones the pie has gotten exponentially bigger due to the sheer amount of casual gamers added to the mix. That is why Nintendo is wanting to lure the casuals to the handheld market with Nintendo phone games. Example would be like 20% of the pie 5 years ago may of been 30 million gamers, but 20% today is liable to be 100 million gamers.
@Tiredman A large percentage of those added in to the mix, in my opinion, may not be reachable beyond casual style games. Nintendo can throw them a bone once in a while, if they want, but as a core gamer that wants far more involved gaming experiences I would hate to see that become the focus of Nintendo's gaming development. If that does happen, they will be embracing the fickle nature of casual gamers and throwing away the loyalty of hardcore fans. I hope they maintain a good balance but they seem a bit too tempted by the kind of numbers a popular casual game can bring in.
I won't care if they decide to have a finger in both pies (since my view is that there's really two pies to consider, core and casual) as long as one doesn't get all of the focus shifted exclusively over to it in the name of maximizing profits. After all, with more profit to realize there's no reason not to have both sides covered (that is until they feel one is dead to them completely, kind of like Sony is trying to say they see things now for dedicated handhelds - they're calling it dead when there's still demand for it).
Nintendo putting out their new mobile stuff, they better be careful. They may be luring people the other way, actually. Some may decide that whatever phone version of Zelda they get is enough for them and they don't need a more highly produced game like the old days. This would mean pushing people over from core to casual (which if that means more profit for Nintendo since the games are cheaper to make, this might actually take over their business model entirely). If that way of thinking really does catch on enough with all demographics of gamers, the type of mobile gaming I grew up with just won't appear profitable enough to invest in.
It's more than just the device you play on, though, it's the kind of games tops devs are working on that really dictates what we can play, and I'm not jumping on the casual train, ever.
@Tiredman But we're already seeing that decline. The 3DS hasn't sold anything close to what the DS sold, and even before that the GBA sold 80 million during a very short generation. And the moms and dads that play games aren't the biggest problem--it's the kids who are turning to smart devices rather than handhelds. It's a fact that these kids are growing in number. If the market is shifting--even if it hasn't shifted all the way yet--it is eventually going to get there. And I don't believe that's blind naysaying at all. It's just looking at facts and seeing where things are going.
You are aware that at the time the Wii was beginning to take off, is the same exact point the DS took off- 2006/2007. The handheld was helped in part by the home, as it pushed Nintendo back upfront, but also at the same time smartphones were only starting to come out, so gaming on them was rather inferior. Now, you take out the Wii/DS, and compare the WiiU and 3DS to the GBA and GC, they don't look that bad, yes, they're slightly below, but not horrifically below, as Nintendo has continued to retain about 80% of the market they had in 2003. Not bad, but not a fad anymore like the DS and Wii were.
@Arlo, you call 9 (2001-2009) years a "short generation"??? Guess the PlayStation 1 had a short generation!
@pika677 The GBA was released in 2001 and the DS "replaced" it in 2004. A console generation is generally measured by the amount of time that a console is alone on the market without the next thing coming. So there were only three years where the GBA was the newest, hottest, most powerful Nintendo console. And it still managed 80 million despite the DS coming in and blasting it out of the water soon after with 150 million units. In this light the 3DS isn't doing so hot, despite an incredible library of games. The only conclusion then, is that the market itself is changing.
The handheld market has shrunk. Yes. But 50 million is still a HUGE amount.
@Arlo I am kind of curious about something. Is selling over 50 million before the end of a handhelds life cycle really declining? Because it doesn't do as good as another piece of hardware, is it really declining? I think when all is said and done, consoles will go back to being a pure gamer thing while phones and tablets will dominate the rest, and our hobby will be our hobby again instead of a big, casual fiesta where all our favorite franchises get turned into crap in the hopes of getting phone and tablet numbers of buyers. That is my view on all of this. I don't think games are on decline, I think they are normalizing back to sustainable numbers like it was before this new century hit.
@dronesplitter I agree with you. I hope Nintendo is slow, but I am not sure they will be since they have a money man in charge now. I am a core gamer myself, and today's gaming scene is a huge pile of crap with the rare gem when it used to be about equal.
@Tiredman But the point isn't that games are on a decline. It's that handheld games are. Comparing one piece of hardware arbitrarily to another won't give you much info, but this isn't arbitrary--this is one company with one line of handhelds. Comparing each, identifying trends, and factoring in the overall market is a great way to see where things are going. However I will say that no one can say anything for sure until we see how well the next hendheld does. But if it does less than 50 million, then there will be no denying that the handheld market shrinking is a sure thing. There might not be another dedicated handheld generation after that.
@Damo
Your point about the number of hardware revisions and years spent in the marketplace are fair points, for sure (despite new hardware schemes being available for dozens of PS4 and XB1 games (like the White Destiny PS4) and countless bundles).
But if we look closer at the numbers @cbkummer posted, we'll note that the 3DS equals all 3 other systems COMBINED. Talk about PS4 and XB1 selling like hotcakes but it's pretty obvious, particularly when looking at Sony's home country, where the real power tool resides.
The fact is simply this: handhelds use less power, cost less than a system and don't require an external display.
Let's compare:
3DS with Mario or Zelda. 200$ for the system. 40$ for the game.
240$.
Wii U With Mario or Zelda. 300$ for the system. 60$ for the game.
360$ PLUS 200$-20000$ for a TV.
PS4 with Destiny. 400$ for the system. 70$ for the game. (Bundled at 450$)
450$-470$ and again, plus 200$-20000$.
I add the TVs because, as we heard a few months back, the majority of Wii owners have chosen the PS4, so they'd likely have to buy a new TV to maximize their experience.
Let's forget the TV (which makes the argument easier for people who belittle handhelds) and focus on the DS numbers. Which, if you remember, DS games are ALL playable on the 3DS, as soon as the system is purchased. From launch. As is ALL DSi software. No 3 year wait for backwards compatibility.
And I guess that's where a lot of the issues stem from.
Vita predated every system in that listing and still undersold each one.
Including the Wii U, a system that most of Nintendo's greatest detractors say is a signal they need to retire from the hardware business.
The Vita is a flop.
A flop AFTER Sony abandoned the PSP's UMD for digital only. A flop AFTER the PSP released their own 'double the specs' revisions on the PSP. A flop AFTER they slashed the price dramatically by removing the system's best feature and transferring it's guts to a console like base station that has also flopped quite stupendously.
Nintendo over marked the 3DS. They quickly took it down, offered some worthwhile incentives to early adaptors and have proceeded to outsell every other competitor, 2, 3 and 4 times over.
Is it as popular as the DS line? No.
But the DS line had a DS, DS Lite, DSi, and a DSi XL, all of which featured numerous colors, multiple bundles, first time features (a gaming portable with a built in camera, touch screens and two screens) and backward compatibility for the first generation.
5 years ago, the 3DS was a competitive gaming machine. 5 years.
Now, consider this.
In 8 months, a mobile phone company can put out the next 'new' iPhone and people pay 500$ and up for it, a million people at a time.
But with touchscreens, we will NOT see as end to dedicated mobile gaming.
The fact of the matter is, control DOES matter.
a 4K 5'' device is a novelty.
When you use something like that, 1-15 hours a day, that novelty wears off.
And though touch is becoming more advanced, the tactile response is still 4-6 years away from being nominal. As in, you can't properly control your car's AC or the volume knob or the station knob without a tactile response.
And no matter what anyone says, the substitute for this necessary feedback isn't here yet. When you can SEE what you're doing, it makes sense.
But for as long as controllers exist, so will a desire to have proper physical controls. Your Android phone just doesn't have that and Apple isn't even close. Look at the new Apple TV for any better idea that, yes, gamers want a controller.
@SahashraLA you can find a decent 50 inch 1080p HDTV for 500 dollars.
You make it sound like one would have to buy the console and TV all at once
@rockodoodle same here. I might download an online RPG play for a half a day then never play again. I will say that tablet and phone gaming does have some nice online gaming options if your willing to play without a nice controller. Personally I can't go long without a controller
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