That's because the 3DS is turning five and its big holiday title of 2015 was Tri Force Heroes. Handhelds most definitely have a bright future.

The dedicated handheld market shrank from 240 million systems in the 7th gen to about 80 million in the 8th gen. Markets with a bright future don't shrink by two thirds from one generation to the next.

The dedicated handheld market grew from 80 million in the 6th gen to 240 million in the 7th gen. That's not anything to compare success to. Gen 7 was a freak show of a sales bubble that was bound to burst, and it did.

3DS will be the lowest selling Nintendo handheld, the Vita is an unmitigated disaster, and it's pretty clear at this point that Sony won't be making another handheld, while if Nintendo do, they'll only be mainstream in Japan; the West has been lost to smartphones.

I wouldn't mind being proven wrong, but honestly, I can't see a future for dedicated portables outside of Japan.

I vehemently disagree that they will only be successful in Japan. The handheld market is completely different from the mobile market. The games being made in that space are simply designed differently. The 3DS will definitely be the lowest selling Nintendo handheld, but I think the NXDS will be a much more marketable, modern product than the 3DS was.

I think the NXDS will naturally be more successful in Japan, but I think it will still be absolutely titanic in the West as well.

There really is no way of proving you wrong though than to wait and see, but I don't think people are looking at their phones and saying "I have this so I don't need a handheld." They just never wanted a handheld and the 3DS/Vita both weren't enough to convince them otherwise. I think the NXDS will be different because of the way Nintendo is reestablishing its brand this year. Not 240 million different, but I think it's going to easily overtake the 3DS and pass 100m with ease.

The way I see it, a lot of the traditional market for handhelds has been children, and nowadays they just play games on their Dad's iphone instead of on 3DS.

But yeah, only time will tell.

The way I see it, a lot of the people who bought the DS ans PSP were moms and casuals who weren't interested in handheld gaming at all, but were dazzled by Nintendogs and Brain age. Nowadays, they play games on their phones. I think those platforms were artificially inflated by the same audience that supported the Wii, and that there are still plenty of children with 3DSs. At least anecdotally I still see it.

I think you're wrong on this. In the past the only way to play games on the go was to have a dedicated portable really. 

Smartphone games honestly are pretty decent for what they intend to do ... which is to burn a quick 20-30 minutes (even though some phone games can be quite addicting and can be played for long sessions too). People generally don't have like hours on end to play a video game outside the house. 

There's going to be nothing "easy" about the next-gen for Nintendo, this is going to be a war. 

Smartphone games are also huge brand properties these days, there's more marketing for phone games than for anything else in the industry, even the biggest budget console third party games. I see more marketing for phone games. 

I honestly don't see it and I travel a lot for work. At airports, I probably see 200-300 kids, and the ratio of kids with tablets/using a phone to play games versus a 3DS/PSP/Vita/DS ... is ugly. Real ugly. 

It's like a 10:1 ratio and that's being generous to the 3DS. Mobile is killing it with kids, just running away with it in the West anyway. 

I think I told this story but on one flight there were two younger girls sitting across from me, they both had their own tablet and are playing games, and I took out my 3DS and one of the girl's shot me a look like "what the *hell* is that thing?", and I just kinda chuckled. 

Nintendo is in tough with this generation, especially Western kids, they are obsessed with smartphones from like age 2/3 when they see mommy/daddy using one. 

The tablet has also become like the defacto "temporary babysitter" in households, I see it all the time with parents throwing on a cartoon or game on their phone or tablet to shut their kid up for 10 minutes, lol. I even see it at Best Buy, parents will take their kids straight to the Apple, park them in front of the damn iPad and tell the kids to play while they go shop around. Parents are all too happy to ween their kids on phones/tablets because they don't want to be paying $40 for video games every birthday/Christmas anyway. 

I'm not bashing mobile games. I think they're great. But they are not like handheld games. Not at all. They are designed in a completely different way. That's why it's so easy to spot a mobile title ported to a handheld device. They aren't bad. They are different. Very different. There is a market for mobile games, and it's a much bigger market, but there is definitely still a large market for gaming on a handheld and it's indepentent of the mobile market.

I also never said it would be "easy," so you're quoting nothing.