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the_dengle on 14 March 2014
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Soundwave said:
the_dengle said:
Soundwave said:


Sometimes you just want a cheeseburger and fries in 3 minutes ... not having to go to a restaurant, sit down, and get filet mingnon for $30. 

To be honest I think deeper games are actually probably anti-thetical to the portable experience ... people just want something that eats up 10-15 minutes of time, they don't want to be deeply immersed into a gaming session of 30-60 minutes+, as most people don't have that type of free time away from the house and still want to be relatively aware of what's going on around them. 

With games, it's not only a matter being worth your money, but of being worth your time as well.

Given the choice to play Angry Birds for 3 minutes or start a Hunt and put my 3DS in sleep mode 3 minutes in... I'll take the latter. I do it all the time, actually.

If you have Netflix, you can spend all of your time watching bad movies for free if you are so inclined. Few people are.


Most people would rather play Angry Birds. 

It's not really an either or ... a 3DS basically just plays games. A smartphone lets you play Angry Birds, sure, but it also lets you check your email, Facebook, Twitter, texts, Instagram, websites, listen to music, take/edit photos, watch TV/movies, etc. etc. etc.

As an overall entertainment package, dedicated handhelds just don't fit people's lifestyles nearly as well. 

Beyond the fact that as much as people bemoan it, in their own way iOS/Android gaming has sorta taken gaming back to its original arcade/simple-to-play/immediate gameplay roots. Modern console and even handheld gaming is rife with title screens/menus/pre-game cinematics that take forever to get into the game. 

Functionally cell phone/tablet games are much more like the old-school Donkey Kong/Pac-Man/Space Invaders/Pong formula. One of the worst things to happen to the game business was the death of the arcade gaming scene, because developers have lost any concept of immediate gameplay, with an arcade game, once the player put their 25 cents in, the game had to be ready to go pretty much right away. 

I'm aware of the public response to mobile games, I was just describing my own aversion to them. A big difference between mobile games and arcade games is the accessibility of development. Anybody can make an iOS or Android app. It takes actual capital to make an arcade game, plus you have to convince arcades that your game is worth the floor space. Since the establishment maintains their cabinets, arcades tend to have some quality parameters.

Also, I believe there is still a healthy arcade scene in Japan. They are only dead in the West.