How often do you play handheld games at home?

[Jay520]

I made a thread a while back asking if people played handhelds more at home or outside. The majority picked at home.

I also play handhelds at home. Probably like 95 percent of the time actually. In fact, most of the people I know follow this philosophy as well (this includes both casual and hardcore players). That's why I always laugh whenever people say handhelds will be hurt because ipods/iphones already provide people with their 'mini' experiences on the go. This seems ridiculous, in my opinion, as I don't think 'mini' experiences makes a large chunck of handheld playtime.

I believe handhelds have a huge advantage over ipods/iphones/ipads because they have yet to be threatened in the lengthy, deep experiences yet. Many of the biggest handheld games are those deep experiences like Pokemon, Monster Hunter, etc. (most of which are played at home). I don't see those quick on-the-go app games like Angry Birds or Fruit Ninja challenging those games nor do I ever see ipads/ipods being able to provide deep experiences due to their lack of buttons.

And yes, I do realize that portables rely on those 'lite' experiences a fair bit, but I still think they're played at home and not on-the-go like ipods. It's going to be hard to find any evidence besides personal experience to prove this so I'm not too sure on if this is entirely true.

As for playing handhelds at home, it has it's advantages over consoles. There's of course the disadvantages like less power & graphics, but I think they're different enough to be relavent at home. Handhelds not only provide those deep, unique experiences mentioned above, but they also provide a level of flexibility that consoles cannot match. When playing a console, your likely going to be fixed in one direction, in one location, and usually one couch, seat, etc. However, handhelds allow you to go from room to room, go to the bathroom, play in bed before sleep, play laying down, etc. This makes portable gaming much more comfortable imo as I can constantly adjust my position to whatever I feel, unlike consoles. This comfort allows you to play a game for long strecthes of time and in some cases, much longer than consoles.

In a lot of cases, flexibility isn't even a factor: People just want to play Pokemon because it's fun and they can't play it anywhere else.

I don't really see ipods threatening handhelds much in terms of gaming because they're not in much competition. They are about as competitive as PCs and Home consoles. Handhelds are fine because they're still unmatched in those flexible home experiences while also having those 'lite' experiences as a bonus. If a handheld fails this gen, it's because it failed to provide those experiences, not because of market collapse.