You left VGChartz I heard.

Handhelds are not only for playing "in the bus" or "at mcdonalds". I personally prefer handhelds because I can play at my room, or in my grandma's house, or at work... or at my friend's house... at the bathroom... or when I have to attend an event in some other city and I sleep at my cousin's house.

With consoles I can play only in my room, and that's the problem.

I really don't care too much about specs as long as developers can make original games with full capability.

I think a lot of you said it. My wife and I only have 1 HDTV in our apartment, and she likes to dominate it. So my handhelds have always been for playing on the couch with  her while she watchs tv, I can still game. It's called keeping the peace, and I'm sure the 3DS will keep a lot of peace in our house...until she wants to play it. :)

I read the short version of the OP like 20 minutes ago and can't even remember it.

My little sister likes portable gaming over console gaming because she never has the time to play her PS2 anymore. And I'm willing to bet, she will buy a 3DS when they put Fire Emblem and Golden Sun on it.

I was reading an article somewhere a few days ago and it posted an excellent video from David Lynch that is very relevant to people that want to play things like Uncharted on the go.

There are some things that just can't be properly experienced on a phone or portable device.  Things like Uncharted beg to be played on a stunning HD TV with surround sound.  Hell, even playing the game on a standard TV with stereo is doing a game like that a disservice.

So I'll just leave this here:

Im sorry but no, the Game Boy was portable NES, but with no color. What games did that have that NES did not have or at least no equivalent???? 90% of the library was multiplat. GBA had a bunch on SNES ports. DS kind of broke the mold, but lets be real here there were plenty of console like games on it. Mario 64 was there for god's sake. I like my handheld consoles, thats the point!!! If you wanna play those cheap flash games thats what IPod is for. Not even, you have those types of games on DSi and PSP Minis.  IMHO, I think people are just being cheap. Things get more expensive not cheaper, deal with it. 3DS is still going to give you your "unique" games. So will NGP. Even if you were to get a smart phone your still getting raped with all the contracts and fees so its not much better. Just pull out your old GB and be done with it. Some of the rest will enjoy our 3D and Uncharted on the go.

The Game Boy and NES may have both been 8bit systems but the Game Boy was not a portable NES without color.  Have you ever even played an actual Game Boy?

As for your GBA and the SNES argument, that's closer but games back then weren't these finely orchestrated things like they are now.  There were without a doubt high quality games, but they didn't require the type of immersion they require today.

Like it or not, gaming on consoles has become a largely cinematic experience and that's not really something that's easily achieved on a portable.  Just because games on consoles are ported to the handhelds doesn't prove that we should have portable consoles, if anything, the generally inferior ports should prove that we shouldn't have portable consoles.

I suppose the $64 million question is whether the market for $40-50 portable games will remain sustainable with the growing marketshare for bite-sized, cheap on the go titles that dominate the smartphone market. It's not to say that games with higher production values and higher costs aren't available or don't sell on these platforms (they are made and they sell), it's just that there is a larger market for smaller games .

As for trying to replicate a "cinematic" or big screen experience on a handheld... opinions will vary naturally, but I say forget it; can't be done. If you really want a big screen experience on a handheld, plug it into your home theater HDTV.

But contrary to what I've said in the past, I will be buying both the 3DS and NGP upon release. One because I think availability will be an issue when there are actual titles that I am willing to pay money for that aren't on other platforms, and the other because it's looking like a rather impressive piece of hardware that will be sold at an extremely reasonable price.

Like any other gaming platform, it still boils down to the games. Facts are, there will be games on both new platforms (new meaning developers want to make games for them) that simply won't be available anywhere else.

That being said, neither the 3DS nor the NGP will be carried with me ANYWHERE. I don't carry handheld game systems around like a purse so I can bust out a game of whatever in the middle of wherever. I carry a smartphone for that when I feel compelled to noodle around with portable games and I have absolutely nothing better to do with my time at that moment.

@twestern  had a Gameboy Color and advanced. What games did the gameboy had that was not available in some form on the NES console???? Outside of Pokemon I cant think of any and at the end of the day Pokemon is just another RPG, the most popular GB games were Console offshoots anyway. Mario, Tetris, DK,etc

If I left who would go on with the "2011 NSMB Wii 2" movement?