Gamespot: Is handheld gaming doomed?

[Andrespetmonkey]

BasilZero said:

Andrespetmonkey said:

BasilZero said:

Andrespetmonkey said:

BasilZero said:
Handheld gaming will never be doomed, no matter how much people may want it to be.

You don't think phones and tablets will completely take over?

I doubt this will happen, more than likely, they'll be two different markets.

Hmm I doubt it man. In five years (or less) what will handhelds be able to do that a phone or tablet can't do? 

I'm willing to make a very long bet with you. :)

How about I dont know, button controls? Imagine playing a platformer game or a fighting game with nothing but touch screen controls and no I am not willing to pay off 30+ dollars for something to connect, when buying a product, you buy the product for a intended purpose, if I was to buy a smart phone I wouldnt be buying it to play games, I buy handhelds just for gaming despite how much tech and whatnot it has, for example, I could care less the PSP was able to play videos, music and show photos, I could care less about the web browser and etc, I bought my PSP and NDS for gaming and thats it.

Handhelds are built for gaming, while phone/tablets their main aspect isnt gaming, their multimedia. Just like consoles will never replace PCs for multimedia purposes or PCs replacing consoles for gaming purposes, handhelds will never replace phones/tablets just like phones/tablets will never replace handhelds for gaming purposes.

GameSpot's being doom and gloom about hand held gaming just because of the PSVita's sales in Japan and the looming possibility that it would sell poorly in the US yet the 3DS sold 15+ million world wide.

I just don't think handhelds will be a wise business decision for anyone (with the exception of maybe nintendo solely based on their IPs) in 5 years for the reasons I stated earlier and the fact that the market that want in-depth gaming experiences on a dedicated handheld seems to be shrinking, and more and more games being developed for IOS/ANDROID are in-depth "hardcore" games. I think the controls argument is valid, and it's really the only one that holds any weight but I don't know if handhelds can be justified by controls alone in the future or if controls will even be a problem on IOS/ANDROID devices in 5 years. 

We'll see.