RolStoppable said:
I have no idea at one point you would consider there to be a difference between "handheld" and "dedicated handheld". The 3DS already has an internet browser, cameras, movie and music applications. So you are thinking of something like a phone? kowenicki's predictions were that Nintendo would not make another handheld and instead move their games over to smartphones; that is definitely wrong. I have no recollection of what exactly rocketpig predicted. There's a notable difference between predicting a decline* and the end of dedicated handheld consoles. Like I said, I don't know your definition. But if the main purpose of a device is to play video games, then it is a dedicated gaming machine. And that's pretty much guaranteed for NX. If you want to feel good about correctly predicting a decline, fine. But you won't be right about the other part which was a much more daring prediction and the one kowenicki and others were ridiculed for. *A decline was likely to begin with, because Sony had to come up with an answer to the collapsed PSP software market outside of Japan; and the lack of such an answer would have meant that Nintendo would have had to make up for Sony's losses in hardware sales in addition to selling as many units as the DS. The common assumption was that Sony would fail to come up with something. |
Actually, saying that there would be a decline and this would be brought about by phones and tablets was also ridiculed; people insisted that these were two separate markets that wouldn't affect one another and that mobile gaming couldn't harm dedicated handhelds.
I'm not sure I envision a phone, not exactly, that would be a poor move and an attempt at breaching an already crowded market (which is a strategy that Nintendo are, rather famously, not good at). Something different, something we may not have seen or experienced before. Perhaps "dedicated handheld" is a poor choice of words. "Traditional handheld" is likely more fitting. Then again, it could boil down to subjective definition, the boys at work use their phones for games 95% of the time, does that make it a dedicated handheld gaming device? It is to them, but not as a concept and core product. I suppose it's kind of like the whole "casual" vs "hardcore" discussion in some ways.
