I own a vita and I love it.  I wanted a game gear.. Shoot I wanted lynx.  I'm all for competition and if I can afford it I will play on all sides.  But I'm sensing that this is the last time we will see a dedicated portable video game system go up against Nintendo. If you haven't figured out Nintendos strategy you probably are blinded by hate or something.   It's a master strategy.   Yet no competitor has attempted to use the same strategy against them.  Could someone rise to the challenge again someday?  Or is this it.. With all these smart devices taking up market space it seems companies are tepid about developing handhelds.   Sony will need to save its treasures for a long time to seriously come at Nintendo again.  

Its obvious I don't consider vita a threat to the throne.  I wish I could be optimistic but I have been checking the web for upcoming games for a year now and it's been very disappointing.   So what do you think... Will Vita be profitable enough to warrant a third psp?  What other companies would dare step in the arena?  Is Nintendo the now and future king?

I doubt anyone will directly challenge Nintendo the way Sony did. I doubt we will get a ''psp3'', Vita will porbably be Sony's last attempt at the dedicated handheld market.

As for Nintendo, it is really hard to see in the future when it comes to handheld and even consoles in general. They may go for a 3DS successor and keep on competing with smartphones or maybe they will take WiiU's concept further for it's successor and have a full home/handheld hybrid removing the need for a new handheld.
Atleast one's thing for sure, no one will never try dipping their toes in the dedicated handheld gaming in the future except Nintendo IF they continue to do so.
Or Wii'U's will be Nintendo's undoing, they go bankrupt and never hear of them again (sarcasm).

Apple is heavily contesting its throne and looking at the rising support it gets it will probably win.. iPhone, iPad and iPod is a killer combo.. Their potential target audience is much much larger.. Not that nintendo handheld will be gone but they will sell less then before and software will be shared with mobile devices.. I can play ghost trick, ace attorney, resident evil, sonic, final fantasy and many more third party games already on iOS devices.. I can only see that more and more support will come to iOS

Be careful with absolutes. Maybe Sony doesn't make another dedicated portable next gen or maybe they do and it doesn't even sell as well as the Vita, maybe there isn't a true competitor to Nintendo in that market for 20 years, but it will come eventually. The mobile market in general is morphing into a competitor, though maybe not any single product -- which would it be? Maybe the iPad comes closest, but it represents a small part of the whole market, and isn't a great competitor when viewed alone. Likewise with the iPhone or another tablet or smartphone. Only the collective force of ALL iOS and Android devices are contesting Nintendo's dominance... and seemingly failing to dethrone the king.

I dont know about you but I dont go to my ipad when I feel like playing. Apple is in the best positi(n to enter the dedicated gaming market. However, objective c, is not a light weight language. I dont know enough about game development to say whether iOS would workout as a true 3D platform in the future. I hope it does.

I wouldn't say that.. q4 2012 and this was the holiday season:



So people are already spending more money on GAMES on mobiles and tablets then all dedicated handhelds
and I don't expect it to go down on the mobile games side any time soon..

just released 3 days ago q1 2013 mobile revenue increased again..

Ppl bringing smartphones into the discussion is relevant but beside the point. If we speak of DEDICATED gaming handheld, no one will never try to even enter competition with Nintendo. Sony will probably not try again after the vita.

Offcaurse smartphones are competition, and offcaurse they will keep becoming a bigger threat with time. But they are not dedicated game handheld. Ppl dont buy Ipads or Iphones to play games, they buy it to take pictures, send texts, phone, and thousands of other apps. Games or no games, ppl will buy these devices, the fact that they have games is only a coincidence that leads ppl to rethink their need to buy a 3DS. But if they had no games, the worldwide sales for these devices will probably be the same.

If Nintendo can someday no longer profit from the handheld market, it will probably be because of smartphones. But not because that a competitor dethroned Nintendo, but because smartphones changed the market as a whole.

It's hard to explain what I try to say but, Nintendo is ''competing'' with smartphones, but smartphones are not competing with Nintendo. Nor Samsung or Apple are thinking ''what can we do to beat Nintendo?'' when they are designing a new phone. But Nintendo, they can't convince ppl to buy their consoles over smartphones but they have to convince ppl that it's worth buying a 3DS alongside or despite their smartphones.

Apple took Sony's spot. Sony just didn't realize it until it was too late.

Yeah, I guess when you stack everything up that way. Of course, I don't expect dedicated handheld revenue to drop any time soon, either. Especially with the Vita's price drop, new Pokémon generation coming at the end of the year... the battle will continue. 3DS and Vita are just getting warmed up.