Where the 3DS is Underperforming

[DanneSandin]

Fusioncode said:

DanneSandin said:

Fusioncode said:
It's underperforming everywhere but Japan. Handheld gaming is dying and nothing short of erasing smartphones and tablets from existence is going to reverse that trend.

There's actually nothing that indicated that handheld is outright "dying"; it's shrinking alright, but dying? I think that's too early to tell actually. Most people agree that this home console gen will see a decline in HW sold compared to last gen; does that mean the home consoles are about to die as a market share? No, probably not.

As long as phones and tablets have the control methods they currently have (ergo, touch screens without haptic feedback) I think there will always be a niche market for handhelds - even if there's only room for one console.

Last gen we had roughly 230m sales between the PSP and DS. With this gen 3DS is on track to sell 80m and Vita 20m, that would put the entire handheld gaming market at 100m. That's a 57% decrease, absolutely massive. 

Yes, that's a huge drop, but it's not the same thing as the handheld market out right dying. Let's say that that all the home consoles sell 200m units this gen, that's a 20% drop. That would be pretty big as well, but I would be hard pressed to call that a dying market either. With the introduction of mobile gaming, a lot of the casuals have moved there, which will probably show up in sales for all dedicated gaming machines, but it's way to early to say it's a dying market. But a huge drop, nonetheless