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

[thismeintiel]

Ganoncrotch said:

thismeintiel said:
Well, they are inferior in terms of specs. Really, handheld makers can't exactly keep up with not only home consoles in terms of power, but also smartphone in terms of resolution. That's because gamers have shown they don't really want to pay more than $200 for a handheld, but will pay more than that for a good phone. They just value the devices differently. It's why the handheld market is shrinking drastically this gen, while the PS4 is still outpacing the PS2. And why I just don't see a NX handheld being very successful.

So you only game on a gaming PC then? Or how do you justify the PS4's existance or relevance as a platform for gaming?

Simple, really.  Gamers have showed they are perfectly fine buying closed HW for not only its ease of use, but its jump power over the last gen of console they owned.  They also know exclusives will push that HW as much as possible.  Simply put, many people prefer home consoles to PC, and many prefer the opposite, so both models will continue to exist for quite some time.

What I wrote about handhelds is true.  The audience is also different for both markets.  While home consoles cater more to the core crowd, handhelds cater more to the casual crowd.  A crowd that have been taken away by mobile gaming.  That's not to say a handheld could never see success, again, just that it won't be DS levels (probably not even 3DS levels) and it can't be priced over $200.