My favorite games on the PS Vita to date are:

Tearaway, LittleBigPlanet, Killzone Mercenary, Unit 13, Uncharted: Golden Abyss, Persona 4 Golden, Soul Sacrifice and Wipeout 2048.

Features of the PS Vita that I like

OLED screen, PS+, Remote play, Cross-save, Cross-buy and Cross-play.

Yeah, that's one of the games I wouldn't mind playing! Didn't know about Tearaway, just looked it up and looks like an interesting concept(with good reviews). Don't really care much for the rest though. 

Anyway, thanks for the response. 

Honestly:

You have to be into japanese niche titles to fully enjoy it.

The hardware is super sexy, it feels great in your hands, the screen is fantastic and the D-pad close to perfect.

There are so many great games like DanganRonpa, Toukiden, Sorcery Saga etc. when you are into this tipe of game. I am. I can understand when someone isn´t.

Skewing towards modern systems proves the people voting are realists, not overgrown children blinded by nostalgia. After all, and I mean this in the nicest way possible, if you answered anything pre-GBA you're simply wrong. A modded PSP can play every Gameboy or Game Gear game without flaw, as well as every NES, SNES, Master System, Mega Drive, and TurboGrafx game though emulation. It has a fantastic D-Pad, responsive buttons, a vibrant screen that you can see in all conditions, and a built in rechargeable lithium ion battery, oh and... oh yes, it's own library of games and the ability to play PSOne games. This would make the GBA obsolete but it's emulation on some games (namely Golden Sun) is a little off so it loses there.

As for other systems, the DS Lite is basically a DS with a GBA built in, so why would you want a GBA? A 3DS effectively has a DS built in so why would you want a DS unless it's to play GBA games. The Vita is basically a nicer and better PSP meaning the only use for the PSP is if you prefer physical media, or want a modded one for emulation.

I honestly fail to see why anyone would pick anything other than the 3DS, Vita, or DS Lite if they especially loved certain GBA games. If you're a retro gamer either the PSP or the Pandora are perfect, surely anything else is simply blind nostalgia. I, to this day, will never understand this desire to ignore backwards compatability when judging a console. It really does make the difference.

Really? Couting hacking the PSP as a plus is lame. You should only take the library of games released for each platform into account. 

Backwards comptability should be ignored yes, because otherwise this thread is pointless and boring. Let's just evaluate each handheld with its unique gaming library. Why else did you even bother including the older handhelds? What's the point of the Gameboy/Gameboy color even being on your list? GBA can play all the old GB games. Why bother including the GBA if the DS can play GBA games? 

I barely use backwards comptability on a console anyway. When I move on to a new console I want to play NEW games, not games from the past that I probably already played on the previous console. 

This could be an interesting thread about evaluating each handheld's unique gaming library or it could be a useless thread that will always go with the newest handhelds. 

There's really quite a big difference between playing a game when it just got released and playing it 16 years later. I, for example, think Ocarina of Time doesn't come close to Twilight Princess or A Link Between Worlds. Why? Because I played Ocarina of Time for the first time in 2014. It's not the same as playing a game when it just got released. 

I agree that homebrew emulation shouldn't count. But official backward compatibility and emulation (GBA games on the DS, PS1 games on the PSP, DS games on the 3DS, PS1+PSP games for the Vita) should count.

Not everyone has already played every good game for a system and many classics are well worth to catch up.

The thread is about the best handheld system, not the best handheld library. And the BC and official emulation is a part of each system.

The Vita, it's amazing, gaming catalogue is growing, looks like 2014 is with more and better games then 3DS coming, Cross-play/save/buy and Remote Play make it the ultimate handheld System!


Just bring us Tomba! 3, Ape Escape Vita, Patapon Vita, Medievil Vita and a Heavenly Sword Vita

We'll have to agree to disagree. It's your thread after all, so fair enough. 

edit: oops, different poster, I never read who posts something lol. Still don't care much for the BC though! 

Why? I don't only take them into account when deciding to buy/play the system. The ability to hack the PSP was a massive reason I got one in the first place. For a while I was using it as a portable Mega Drive.

Again, why? Do you ignore these functions when you're deciding which system to buy? I certainly don't. Hell, the 3DS won out over the Vita for me at first based completely on the fact that one is backwards compatible and one isn't.

So quite rightly, why did I include older systems in the poll? Multiple reasons. First, complete-ness, it was an attempt to keep the people clicking "other" to a minimum. Second, because there could be legitimate reasons to prefer older systems. Claiming the GBA-SP is the best handheld because it has the best library of games, a good backlit screen, fantastic build quality, form-factor and durability, one of the best battery lives of a handheld to date, and is easily one of the most portable systems ever made. That would be good reasons. Lastly, I want to discuss the concept; if someone feels they can challenge my opinion and change my point of view, great, that's the whole point of discussions like this.

...and because that's how you do it, that's the way everyone must judge their systems. I've already said that backwards compatibility and emulation ability has guided my purchases before. Hell, the Wii U being backwards compatible was a factor for me too as I hadn't played the Operation Rainfall games on Wii and wanted to. In fact, backwards compatibility is the main reason I've not upgraded. If I could have a PS4 that played PS3 games, I'd have one now because it would make my PS3 redundant. I only have a PS2 because the model of PS3 I have isn't backwards compatible.

So why not do so? Discuss the unique gaming libraries and evaluate them on their own merits, I'm sure people would enjoy responding to your point and you may have an interesting perspective to share. Refusing to achknowlege backwards compatibility is quite frankly bizarre though. If we really want to evaluate a console in it's time and isolated, the TurboExpress was a fantastic handheld vastly superior to the Gameboy and Game Gear at the time. The Game Gear games where often badly ported from the Master System, many of the platformers where uncomfortably zoomed in for example, and the Gameboy had it's notoriously bad screen. The TurboExpress however was a portable console as it played TurboGrafx games on the move. Cross-play my arse, how about having an ACTUAL portable PS3/PS4 in your pocket, this is what this is the equivalent of. Now that's a cool system.

Now, if you want to discuss historical significance, influence, advancement, etc. sure; great; but deciding that certain features don't count just so you don't have to admit the later consoles are of course better, is quite frankly sad. I'm a retro gamer, but no, the SNES is not "the greatest console ever", neither is the Mega Drive, the PSOne, the original NES or anything else for that matter. The PS2 might be, the PS3, the Xbox 360, the Wii U... not the Wii, the Wii U makes it now obsolete. Why? Because of backwards compatibility. The others, well, they're all actively useful today. A PS2 can play a large library of games still exclusive to it, as such it's still worth considering. Now, does that mean the older consoles aren't incredible. Does this lessen the impact of them. No, but it's simply a fact that when I can have most of the best Mega Drive games on a single PS3 disc, with features that make them pointedly better than the original release, the only reason to have the original console is nostalgia. But hey, that's fine. I colllect Sega Saturn games, I could easily emulate them. Let's not pretend though that nostalgia is a way for us to judge quality, it's not, it's a human trait in which we can't let go of the past because those memories are happier than today... as a disabled man in chronic pain, trust me when I say I understand that entirely, but being nostalgia blind is self delusion.

That's because it doesn't come close to it's hype. I consider Ocarina Of Time to be the single most over-rated, over-bloated, over-sung, pathetic example of collective nostalgia blind fanboyism to have ever graced the internet. It wasn't even that briliant for it's time. Sure some innovation was had but many elements where quite poor and the game as a whole failed to engage me. Is it a great game? Sure. Is it deserving of being is someones top 10 best games ever? Sure, especially as such things are based on largely subjective tastes anyway. Does it deserve to be lorded as the best game ever made, with a gaggle of pathetic fanboys at the ready to attack anyone who doesn't proclaim it the best thing ever made? Hardly. It's a game that's confused. RPG, 3D Action/Platformer, Puzzle Game... it didn't even know what it wanted to be and as such barely succeeded at anything. It was an adventure game with RPG elements, action elements, puzzle elements, and no actual focus, that flip-flopped between narative and gameplay as focus despite neither being especially innovative. Twilight Princess is basically Ocarina Of Time with all these flaws removed, the gameplay refined, and the storyline merely tweeked. It's what all remakes should be. As for A Link Between Worlds, that game is elegant in it's execution and shockingly well made.

The problem with discussing such things is people rarely want to discuss game design elements and take objective views on things; or worse still they lack the ability to understand how objective analysis of media works and it's devolves into a slanging match not disimilar to how it feels as a film buff trying to discuss films with the average movie-goer. It's infuriating because they don't understand. When I watch a film I watch it on an entirely different level to that of the average person, and as such analysing the themes and style of the film is something I can get a lot of pleasure from. Trying to do this with someone who can't understand why Pacific Rim is fantastic, but Transformers is some of the most insulting lowest-common-denominator pap ever made... well, that's just sad. It's like talking about biochemistry with someone who's genuinely considering that magic pixies may be involved in the reaction.

If you're genuinely interested in discussing game design theory, game analysis and the like, I'd welcome it, but why I asked "what's the best handheld", I never gave any caveats... if anything, how you interperet that question is interesting all in itself.

PS: Thanks for giving me a jumping off point to expand this discussion, I think this thread could be quite interesting. I look forward to your reply, it's good to discuss and debate like this... keeps my brain active, which is good as I'm often stuck in the house. Having this opertunity to flex my mind is nice; so thank you.

The Gameboy Advance, for me.

Second would be a tie between the PSP and 3DS/2DS.

And that's so far; I can see the 3DS/2DS taking the my top spot overall eventually.