3DS and PS Vita wont even reach 100 million.

that would be stupid in pokemons case. 

pokemon would sell shit loads on mobile, and since its turn based, i doubt controllers and gameplay would really be affected. 

I'm not that sure. I haven't finished a single game I've downloaded on my iPhone, so...

i agree.

after the disaster that is vita and 3DS i will never buy a dedicated handheld again. i would buy a smartphone with some physical inputs (aka buttons) but i'm not buying a dedicated handheld. the outcome is just far to obvious at this point,... no one will develop for it.

It is easy to blame smartphones and tablets but the truth is that both Nintendo and Sony made a lot of mistakes this gen with their handhelds.

For instance:

What is the point of porting N64 games for the 3ds when you can port Wii games (that appeal to much more people) to it?

Every successful Sony console had plenty of third party exclusives, so where are GTA, Monster Hunter and all other games that shaped PSP's soul?

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In order to continue on the handheld maker Nintendo needs to focus on the right games (not n64 and GC games, btw) and also keep their hardware simple and minimalist (3D and many other 3DS features are pointless).

In order to continue on the handheld maker Sony needs to "convince" (with money) third parties to develop more exclusive content to their consoles and also stop making unnecessarily powerful hardware so the cost of development does not increase.

Both the 3DS and Vita are fine, they are both superior to the DS and PSP and probably the two best handhelds ever made from a hardware POV. And if you don't like the 3D, it takes less than 2 seconds to turn it off or you can buy a freaking 2DS, so I don't buy that arguement. 

The erosion of the traditional handheld market is entirely because of smartphones, "hardcore" gamers have a hard time seeing it because they live off in their own world, they don't speak for the average household and they are out of touch with kids today who are growing up with iOS/Android as their first game experiences. 

I still occasionally pull out my decade old GameBoy Advance SP to play some amazing old games. Something I have no expectation of being able to do on my phone. Especially since there are no good games yet.

If the industry wants to chase mobile gaming at the expense of dedicated handhelds, that is their choice. They will just lose me as a customer. I have spent exactly $0.00 on mobile gaming and foresee that trend continuing long into the future.

That is extremely sad. I am predicting nintendo doing one more and it selling like crazy but then they will move on to new ventures and the handheld market will die

I think that theres more angles to this story than it might look.

Yeah, average consumers have ditched portable consoles for phones, but the question is how much software did they buy? Will they buy the same for the same prices on phones?
What i think is that phone gaming is a fad. The controls are poor and if they get complicated they dont sell as much. This means the gaming will never be as good. Do these average consumers really buy alot of premium prices software? I believe they dont. They will buy cheap little experiences.

So, the question that presents itself next is, if premium prices are not viable on phone gaming, where does portable gaming quality goes? Nowhere. I dont think phones can support premium gaming experiences anymore than portable consoles can. Actually quite the opposite because the portable consoles house the hardcore. I think the more that becomes obvious, the more people will realise that phones are social machines and not gaming devices. 

I have to disagree.

3D is not fine at all, it increases the hardware cost, the development cost and keep children away of the console. The release of the 2DS is essentially Nintendo recognizing its own mistake because they knew they were losing a lot potential sales. There are many other unnecessary features on the 3DS hardware that are hurting its sales like, for instance, the analog stick that only makes the interface of the games more complex.

3DS and Vita are "fine" from a hardcore gamer perspective, but hardcore gamers are the vocal minority barely relevant in the current game market. Both are expensive, games are also more expensive, batteries are crap and software support is not even close to the DS/PSP level.

The iOS/Android game Angry Birds was released on 2009, that same year the DS sold more than 27.5 million unities. There is space both on the market and if Nintendo had kept the DS philosophy in the current generation I am sure their handheld would have sold a lot more than the 3DS.

If children are currently growing playing Angry Birds and Candy crush instead of Mario and Kirby is it Nintendo’s fault. Nintendo had that market but failed to provide compelling software to them , hence people had to move to something else. Notice that the transition DS-3DS was horrible killing the momentum they had.

Nintendo's mistakes are clear and we cannot deny them.