| osed125 said: I have to disagree when it comes to Nintendo first party tittles. Most of their games can be played in a short session. You can do a couple of 3D Land levels, a couple of courses in Mario Kart 7, a single mission in Fire Emblem (or definitely more than one if you are doing overworld missions), a course in Kid Icarus (aside from the fact that it will be uncomfortable to play outside), while waiting for the bus. Sure it's not as simple as playing Angry Birds but they are not heavy enough to be compared to a AAA game. Now most 3rd party games do indeed have more heavy gameplay which are not very suited for small sessions. |
I just don't see how this is "fundamentally different" from being able to knock out a quick pact in Soul Sacrifice, do a mission in Gravity Rush or Unit 13, a race in Wipeout, etc. Lots of games on home consoles have that kind of design, so it's not peculiar to handheld games anyway.
There used to be a marked difference between what consoles could do and what handhelds could muster, so handheld games really were different out of necessity, but we've reached the point where handhelds can do just about anything their big brothers can, albeit uglier. This similarity, and I think the desire to justify $40 games vs. 99 cent or free smartphone games, has led Nintendo to increasingly blending their console and handheld line-ups to the point that the 3DS really is just a console in your hand. At this point, I'd say only smartphones really do what Scott Moffitt thinks Nintendoes (but really Nintendon't anymore).
Not that I think this is necessarily a bad thing. There are some games I certainly wouldn't want to play in small bursts - something really immersive like, say, survival horror - but for the most part sleep mode solved the issue way back in the previous generation. To me, it's kind of like arguing that you shouldn't read a book on a bus and should stick to reading flyers and brochures instead.
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