Personally I.think.this will he Tue last generation of dedicated handheld platforms. I believe it was Genius Sonority that was recently quoted saying future gaming platforms would need phone capabilities. I fully believe Nintendo will make their next handheld with phone capabilities five years from now.
So far Nintendo has resisted the multi model launches that Microsoft and Sony have become famous for. My bet is Nintendo will launch a 199$ handheld device with roughly 2x the power of Vita's. A second phone model will launch at 299$ it will feature the latest generation maybe 5G and come for 50$ through a phone plan. This will give Nintendo an edge to compete against any and all mobile devices.
I suspect if Vita's continues to struggle Sony might launch another model in 2013 alongside PS4. This model.will have phone capabilities and 16 gig internal memory. Coming cheap with a contract.
Neither Sony nor Nintendo would be smart to go another Gen without phone capabilities. Not that I don't think Nintendo could survive without them just that as the economies around the globe struggle people will choose a phone over a handheld console if they have to choose only one. The global economy is going to get increasingly worse and phone functionality will be a necessity if Nintendo wants to maintain the Dual Screen console line ups success.
-JC7
"In God We Trust - In Games We Play " - Joel Reimer
