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HoloDust on 20 August 2025
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curl-6 said:
HoloDust said:

PC "handhelds" are not the only one's that will try to make that blue ocean more red.

As for phones - well, they've already shattered once dedicated handheld market - honestly, from my POV, I don't see Switch, PC and future XBOX/PS dedicated "handhelds" as classic handhelds - given their dimensions and weight, it's more sensible to call them portables. Handhelds, as they once were, as in devices you can carry around in your pocket, currently live in smartphones.
And yes, currently, bar the time you spend playing in each category, there is not that much overlap between mobile and dedicated gaming portables market, apart from small collection of titles that are available on both and mobile titles that are aiming to be full-blown console gaming experiences...but for some reason, I have this itch that says that this will all change in next XYZ years.

Phones and hybrids are quite different niches; around the time Switch 1 came out a lot of people predicted that the prevalence of phone gaming would limit its sales as a portable device, yet it still went on to become one of the highest selling systems of all time.

I don't see any reason that would change this time around, attempts to bring console type gaming to phones have failed miserably, the audiences are after two very different things.

Sure, they are different...and there will always be fair amount of separation. Yet, I think that the overlap will become bigger as time goes on. Whether it's through MS pushing for Windows on ARM, VALVE being more aggressive with SteamOS, or via streaming (have you tried GeForce NOW lately? - it's actually mind blowing that you can play even with mouse+kb comfortably, let alone with gamepad). Especially this last one  - there is point in future where for a lot (if not most) people it is just more convenient to have their libraries be accessible from any device, even if at home they have their main device they prefer to play on.

This is not just Switch related, and might not even influence NS2 for better part of its lifecycle, but it's coming, for all, whether we like it or not.