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

[Ganoncrotch]

IkePoR said:

thismeintiel said:

The GBA was only out for 3 years before the DS launched, yet sold 80M units.  The 3DS has been out for 5 years (and was less than $170 for the vast majority of it) with no successor, yet it has only sold 60M units.  There's your trend.  There's no other way to look at it than mobile gaming taking a serious chunk of gamers away from handhelds.  And if the NX is truly just a handheld and it's not very cheap, I see it selling less than the 3DS.

There is viability to that trend, no doubt.  Still, I'm not truly convinced, as when the GBA released, there was no Sony or smartphone to compete with.  Also, the best selling 3DS model is the XL , the 200$ model.   If the numbers were say 40-50M, I'd concede but again, 60M with still one holiday left(a Pokemon holiday at that) it's hard for me to see this "huge chunk" you speak of.  If we consider all the obstacles the 3DS has faced, being down 20M isn't really bad, in my opinion.

Are you out of your mind? The GBA fended off the first smart phone the 100mhz beast that is the N-Gage with enough power to piss all over the GBA's offerings

(click to 1:37 to get right to game play graphics)

if failed absolutely miserably like... just... fell out the door onto it's £250 launch price and died without much help from the GBA, that said... the GBA wasn't smartphone free.

Considering this is the version of THPS that the GBA got (which played amazingly well) it still was miles behind the ngage in terms of power.