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

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Hiku said:

Pyro as Bill said:

I think that still counts as handheld device though. If Nintendo didn't have to worry about portability they could make a stronger/new gimmick home system.

I think it will sell better than 3DS+WiiU anyway. Ignoring Wii, haven't Nintendo's home systems been dropping by 30-50% anyway? That would put their next home system at 7-10m.

3DS launched right before mobile gaming really started blowing up. I am not sure at all what the dedicated handheld gaming landscape will look like from here on out when everyone has a smartphone. A lot of people enjoy the compactness of 3DS and bring it with them easily. Switch doesn't fit in anyone's pocket. The amount of people who are still willing to buy a device they'll have a problem lugging around with them when they have their smartphone on them anyways is the big question.

This sounds like moving the goal posts. I mean, we can always say even Switch was released right before mobile gaming took off, just like the 3DS was. In reality, even DS and PSP were released to an established market of people playing games with their phones. DS and PSP were able to succeed because the games were what people wanted. The thing is, that the games on mobile devices are really bad, but people play them because they are mostly free and there are no better games to play on other systems

Switch is not to make a handheld device, but to make a home system portable. You can take it to a friend and play it there or on the road with a friend - no different than what you did with NES back in the day, when you just grabbed the cartridge and went to a friend (that had a NES) and played the game with him/her.