Is NX even necessary?

[zorg1000]

curl-6 said:

zorg1000 said:

Like I said earlier, you can compare 3DS sales to any other 5 year period (excluding DS-era) and it went look nearly as bad.

For example, from April 1998-March 2003, Nintendo shipped a total of roughly 87 million units of hardware. That was Pokemania at its prime, it also includes the launch of Gameboy Color, Gameboy Advance & GBA SP. Ya 3DS is down compared to that but it is by some astronomical amount? Nope.

I guess the only way we'll ever actually know is to wait and see. Our differences here can be fairly summarized as me being slightly more of a cynical pessimist than you. :P

Yep and that's exactly what I'm trying to say, its way too early to determine if handhelds are truly dying. Its only one generation of decline and the previous generation was 3x as large as any previous generation, which can potentially mean the market has returned to its previous baseline.

Another thing to take into consideration is that 3DS was developed before smartphones & tablets truly became huge meaning it wasn't developed with those in mind. The next handheld will be the first to be fully developed in a post-smartphone/tablet world so we have yet to see how Nintendo plans on adapting to those devices.

In not saying a decline can't or won't happen, of course its possible but its also possible that the damage from mobile is already done and the next handheld will sell similar or that a better designed device can increase sales next generation. I'm not optimistic nor pessimistic.