It matters because I honestly believe it's the multimedia capabilities from the smartphones that is competitive. Game consoles have always competed against movies and other media, but portable consoles only had to compete against portable music. If that's the case, then it would partly explain why the vita is such a decline from the PSP, and why so many women aged 19-24 bought animal crossing along with a 3DS, even though they are the biggest smartphone demographic. It's not the actual gaming part of the smartphones that is competing against the handhelds.

Yeah, but at that point the DS was already 4 years on the market. And until console sales reach their peak, they'll usually sell more with every year on the market. 3DS already beat NDS YoY, so it's definately possible it'll sell 29Mil consoles 2014.

PSV however, I don't see it doing PSP numbers.

Is it that Japan is different, or is it that the handhelds are currently better tailored to the japanese audience atm?

There was a time when CD's seemed like they would be around forever and video stores were a major part of our culture. The world changes, whether we want it to or not.

You're totally right, handhelds can only decline. They will probably become a niche market for old timers and kids. Of course devs know this and adapt consequently : the release schedules of Vita and 3DS aren't exactly busy and it's been a while since we saw a really ambitious portable game.

Eh, I think there's enough evidence to suggest there's enough of a market for Nintendo to keep going. For one, there will always be new kids wanting to buy Pokemon, which is something the 3DS is yet to benefit from.

But the days of two diverse handhelds with a strong userbase are clearly finished. I can see a GBA like situation going forward.

This can easily be explained by the horrendous performance of the vita. The 3ds is selling at a faster pace then the ds. So there is still obviously a big market for the handhelds. We now need the vita to start selling like the psp so the handheld market can grow or stay where it was.