Handheld consoles may soon go extinct

[VanceIX]

hunter_alien said:

Soundwave said:

hunter_alien said:
Because professional cameras went extinct after the mobile phone boom? Please, untill there are people willing to make money on a smaller install base, dedicated handhelds will exist.

Well actually sales of the mid-size/pocket camera have basically gone down the toliet. The market for cameras now is high-end DSLRs for adults who want really high quality photos. 

But the handheld gaming market isn't quite like that, for starters, the handheld gaming market isn't mostly adults, it's largely kids, and kids need to go through mommy/daddy to get a handheld. The "high enthusiast" market for portable gaming isn't that strong, most older gamers don't bother with portable gaming at all, they want their 50-inch screen + Madden/COD/etc. If they get the itch to pass some time in between work/school/friends, a few minutes of Candy Crush gets the job done and adults hate having to carry around more devices than they have to. 

To be honest too I think we just assume because we're core gamers that kids must like what we like ... a lot of kids genuinely prefer tablet/phone gaming. They have access to a huge variety of games, once they get bored of one, they can download another, the touch interface is extremely intuitive to them, and if they want to play a "real" game ... that's what their XBox/Playstation/Wii sitting at home is for. 

I agree.

Never the less, even if the dedicated handheld market shrinks to the 30-50 million region, there is still profit to be made. Especially if theymanage to bypass retail stores. If Nintendo could do that in 5-10 years, with some similar startegy as the PS+, I dont see why they would want to leave. 8 million hardware sales/year with a strong attach ratio (6-8 full priced games revenue via digital distribution) could still be more then enough to continue and produce them.

Just like the DSLR market, its small, but people who are interested in it tend to spend more on the product, accessories and in case of hgaming, software.

I know that there is still rock bottom to be hit, but even in the 8th gen, the dedicated handheld market will manage roughly 100 million units. DIvide that by 2, and there is still plenty IMO.

There certainly is. Only problem is if that number is divided by half again, which would result in little to no profit. That's the real danger.