How often do you play handheld games at home?

[twesterm]

Jay520 said:

twesterm said:

I don't like to say can't, but for action games, yeah, buttons beat touch controls for the most part.  Even the good games like Infinity Blade don't control as well as the other console games.  For games like JRPG's that are traditionally menu based, touch controls work fine.

It can handle menu-based and simpler-controlling games. You think that's going to steal the handheld market and transition them to ipod/iphone gamers? I doubt it. Like you said, there is a portion of genres that touchscreen just can't do well, (action games). For that, I see most of the handheld market sticking with handhelds while also having access to good JRPGs.

I'm not too familar with the ipad/iphone but can it handle racing games? Third-Person Shooters? Fighters? Platformers? You have a point with those games which aren't as fast paced or with complicated controls...but there are too many types of games that it can't do for it too kill off handhelds completely.

Racers, it can do very well.  2D games of sorts it can do very well. 3D games start to get hairy (though it isn't bad, but not prefferred).

I think another thing to keep in mind is long in-depth games aren't popular on hand helds anymore.  JPRG's are the exception, but I believe that's because they aren't action games.  The hendheld market is very much moving towards quick, light games.  The ones that are coming up the quickest are the free-to-play microtransaction games where you and another player take turns (Words With Friends, Draw Something, etc).

Those types of games may never be the most popular on a hard core gaming site, but we (the typical forum user/commenter) are very much the minority.