So we could have something else to laugh at. vita vs wii u vs "handgate" what would suck the most?

but really hand held and console connectivity is something the other companies have.....I guess smart glass or whatever with Apple and andriod devices fills that viod for whoever has it...............

Microsoft doesn't have any characters outside of outsider brands to sustain a proper game. They would probably have to go into Rares greatest hits to make themselves look good. Sony has far more and even they are having a hard time right now. It would be much harder for them than Nintendo or even Sony. They are welcomed to try though.

Yeah competting against nintendo in handhelds is setting up for failure, I get the feeling the handheld market is dying though. even if nintendo continues to win, are the sales per new systems holding up?

There are only 4 handhelds for nintendo and 3ds wont be near ds sales but it doesn't matter, 3ds has 35.5mil sales with no less tan another 4 years on the market. gba will be the lowest handheld and thats at 80mil+ Sony Consoles sell 80mil+ and Nintendo Handhelds sell 80mil+

Microsoft has a mobile platform in the form of windows mobile, that is about as close to a dedicated handheld gaming device as you are going to get from them.

If we "had" to live in a world where Nintendo had to give up something in order to survive, here is my prefered scenario:

Nintendo makes the handheld systems every generation. Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo all have their games on Nintendo's handheld. Let's be honest people, Nintendo is epitome of success when it comes to handhelds, and have been like that since the beginning. Challangers have come, and have been destroyed. Nintendo continues to make money, and Sony's attempts to take them on have cost them a ton of money (why bother?). 

Nintendo has a TONNN of reserve money (they could probably survive 5 generations of wiiu/gamecube sales before they start to go down significantly) so I highly doubt they will ever get out of the home console hardware industry, but if they did I honestly think their games could sell very well on the other systems (especially if there is no Nintendo system because then us Nintendo games would obviously buy one of the other consoles in order to enjoy Nintendo games).

they would achieve about the same marketshare as their windows mobile division.

hint: it's very close to zero.

If nintendo had to give up something, they would give up franchises, like they did with some of theirs.

The market couldn't handle any more handhelds... phones and tablets are already doing enough damage

They already have, they made the Windows Phone.

*tries to hide as handheld fans storm the thread to tell me off*