Why are handhelds often seen as inferior or not as important as home consoles?

[Kai_Mao]

Ka-pi96 said:

Ganoncrotch said:

This is true in a lot of cases but one brand alone completely turns this theory on its head sadly, Pokemon, arguably the biggest gaming brand in the world right now, the only place you can find a true Pokemon game? On a handheld system, the N64, GC, Wii and even Wii-U all have console spin offs of the franchise and for the most part they are an absolute shadow of the true experience only available on handheld systems.

As a big Pokemon fan I've often thought 'I wonder how much better this could be if they went all in on a home console game instead'. I expect many other Pokemon fans have had similar thoughts as well.

I have wondered about that for a while. The thing about it is the trading system, communication, and online. How will that work considering how trading is more of a person to person type of thing. How can they balance the system so it isn't broken? The battling online can work as you could probably create requests to make certain battles. Though I also wonder about communication. People complain about lack of voice chat in Splatoon, but I can't imagine how complicated it could be to communicate with millions of people outside the Americas, especially in a Pokemon game where naming is pretty important. Plus, how could a home console game be accessible to children and be safe enough for them to access online and all? A good chunk of the audience are children after all.