Japan is the only market where portables are still selling decent numbers. Outside glorious Nippon, even 3DS is barely selling any better than the dying Wii U, and Vita is a lost cause.

The core audience for portables is children, and nowadays they just game on Mum and Dad's tablet/smartphone. As for adults, in an era where everybody carries around a device capable of playing games 24/7, people are increasingly unwilling to spend hundreds of dollars on a separate device just to play certain games. Mobile gaming has ripped the heart out of the portable industry. They're destined to go the way of PDAs and movie rental stores.

Japan-21 million hardware, 102 million software

Americas-19.5 million hardware, 87 million software

Other-17.5 million hardware, 75 million software

Sales really aren't that different between region. I'm pretty sure millions of people still rent movies via Redbox, the market didn't die, it adapted which is what Nintendo needs to do. Nintendo doesnt need to beat smartphones/tablets, they simply need to find a way to coexist.

Kids/casuals want whatever is considered the new, cool, hip item and if Nintendo can release a device that is seen as cool than it will attract these consumers. Easier said that done but not impossible.

I'm not talking about lifetime sales. I am talking about how it's selling now. Look at the weekly charts, portable numbers outside Japan are woeful. The rest of the world has moved on from dedicated portables.

As for Redbox, it recently had to shut down operations in Canada due to low demand, and is getting dwarfed by Netflix and the like.

Lol have u looked at their shipments this fiscal year?

Japan-2.01 million, Americas-1.98 million, Others-1.88 million

All three regions are doing similar numbers.

Why does Redbox losing to Netflix matter? Millions of people use it and its profitable which is what matters and is exactly my point. Redbox doesnt need to beat Netflix/Hulu just like handhelds don't need to beat smartphones/tablets, they simply need to coexist.

Japan is just one country, the fact it's selling more than a whole continent or the rest of the world says a lot.

Dedicated portables will continue to dwindle in sales next generation, count on it. Sony know what's up, they see there's no long term future in it. There won't be another Sony portable, and the next Nintendo portable will continue the 3DS's decline.

Now ur changing your argument because the facts don't back you up.

You: handhelds are doing bad everywhere but Japan

Me: lifetime sales are similar in each region

You: I'm not talking about lifetime, im talking about current

Me: all 3 regions have done a similar amount in the current fiscal year

You: ya but Japan is smaller

Nintendo divides their sales into 3 regions and all 3 regions share very numbers. Do you think Nintendo cares what the population of a region is or do they just care about how many units they sell?

Sony doesnt "know what's up" if they did than Vita would have never released in the first place, if Vita was selling well than you can bet ur ass that they would release a successor. Nintendo will continue to make handhelds because their current handheld has sold 60 million and growing with 300 million units of software.

My argument has never changed. Selling 2 million in one country is decent. Selling a similar amount, less actually, across the entirety of Europe, mainland Asia, and Oceania, in other words over dozens of countries, is not.

In the current weekly chart, 3DS sold just 6k more than the Wii U in North America. And if you want to talk lifetime, 3DS will not only be Nintendo's worst selling handheld besides the Virtual Boy, but it will also sell less than the loser of last gen's portable race, PSP.

And next gen will be even worse, just watch.

Like I said earlier, you can compare 3DS sales to any other 5 year period (excluding DS-era) and it went look nearly as bad.

For example, from April 1998-March 2003, Nintendo shipped a total of roughly 87 million units of hardware. That was Pokemania at its prime, it also includes the launch of Gameboy Color, Gameboy Advance & GBA SP. Ya 3DS is down compared to that but it is by some astronomical amount? Nope.

I guess the only way we'll ever actually know is to wait and see. Our differences here can be fairly summarized as me being slightly more of a cynical pessimist than you. :P

Yep and that's exactly what I'm trying to say, its way too early to determine if handhelds are truly dying. Its only one generation of decline and the previous generation was 3x as large as any previous generation, which can potentially mean the market has returned to its previous baseline.

Another thing to take into consideration is that 3DS was developed before smartphones & tablets truly became huge meaning it wasn't developed with those in mind. The next handheld will be the first to be fully developed in a post-smartphone/tablet world so we have yet to see how Nintendo plans on adapting to those devices.

In not saying a decline can't or won't happen, of course its possible but its also possible that the damage from mobile is already done and the next handheld will sell similar or that a better designed device can increase sales next generation. I'm not optimistic nor pessimistic.