If DS was a fluke where's the "inevitable" handheld decline?

[tak13]

Teeqoz said:

tak13 said:
                               

Enough with that...

Fat ds replaced gba  in the time period you cite. It  sold only 18m in two years, the real damage was made by ds lite in gba's 5th year-6th year! Fat ds had a very slow start and didn't really have any significant effect in gba sales, plus that gba was in decline before fat ds release... GBA would have barely sold 100m if it hasn't had a successor in 2004.

The unpleasant thing is the decline in NA but 3DS will have sold 25m+ there, that's very good but in Japan where smartphon gaming is bigger, 3DS has stomped gba.

What will Nintendo do? Mobile games for Nintendo are a synergy with their core business, it won't become their focus.

Look what Pokemon go did for 3DS and Pokemon S/M!

  What? 3DS sales in its first three years are the same with gba's... Go check it! My reply to normchacho pertains to you too..

 Guys, fat ds  only sold 18m in  two  years, gba was almost unaffected by it.

 DS lite was its real successor, which came in gba's 5th-6th year ...

"Only 18 million" dude, 18 million is substantial, and even then, the DS Lite came earlier in the GBA's life than we currently are in the 3DS's life. So I don't get why you keep repeating this. It's correct but it doesn't take anything away from the point here. The GBA would've sold substantially more if it had been replaced as late as the 3DS, and the 3DS and Vita will still end up below that, and handhelds will likely decrease from this gen to the next one as well. This doesn't mean dedicated handheld gaming will die, but it won't sell as much any more.

Ah, I misunderstood you...

Sadly, with switch we cannot come into any conclusion for the handheld console market state, due to the nature of the product!

It may sell more than 3DS, and most of its userbase not being 3DS audience, or it may sell less than 3ds but without having been bought from few  handheld console/3DS  gamers...

Unless as I aforesaid, Nintendo is able to sell switch for 199$ standalone, or make a version of switch like 2ds for 3ds.

I'm not sure that it will catch 3DS audience at 250$ even if it offers all these different gaming experience for such a low price, most 3ds audience could not be interested in the hybrid thing.

Nintendo takes a  huge risk regarding their handheld console business! They may lose most of the 3ds audience and switch flop as a hybrid ( but succeed as just a Nintendo home console) , or switch succeed but without any of 3ds audience which will be left abandoned if there is no real successor. 

However they can always release a separate 3DS successor, which would still have the same games with switch.