| couchmonkey said:
For my two cents, everyone keeps on blaming mobile for poor sales of handhelds, but if mobile is the wave of the f1uture, could it be even worse for home consoles? Will the tablet-loving kid of today buy a TV set at all? Personally, I think weak economics and big miss-steps also play a factor in 3DS sales, at least. The 3DS launch year was awful, I sold my launch system that Christmas to try to get some of my money back, with nothing but Street Fighter IV to show for like 7 months of ownership. I don't think 3DS ever fully recovered, which is reflected in mediocre third party support. Meanwhile, the past decade has not been an easy time economically - DS and PSP faced that starting in 2008, but they also had a couple of years worry-free on the market first. As for Vita, I'd be happy to hear someone more informed explain what went right or wrong for that system. If Switch's success is predicated on "powerful handheld", then why didn't Vita do better? |
Well mobile did affect handhelds, the super casual crowd who were buying DS for games like Nintendogs, Brain Age/Big Brain Academy, Cooking Mama, Personal Trainer series, etc. have likely moved onto smartphones along with alot of parents probably choosing the device with free games for their young kids.
As for Vita, back in 2005-2008 PSP was THE all-in-one portable multimedia device being able to play games, watch movies, listen to music and surf the web. By the time Vita released in 2011/2012, smartphones & tablets had taken that place.
With that said, mobile was not the only cause of 3DS/Vita decline from DS/PSP. Nintendo & Sony themselves made a bunch of mistakes that led to their decline.
When the herd loses its way, the shepard must kill the bull that leads them astray.
