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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Handheld consoles may soon go extinct

rolltide101x on 11 May 2014

Handhelds probably will go away after one more generation. It is only a matter of time before better controls are incorporated into smart phones and then underpowered handhelds will be pointless



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ParryWinkle on 11 May 2014

I hope not.
Playing on mobile phones is terrible because of the awful controls.



zorg1000 on 11 May 2014
Captain_Tom said:
spemanig said:
Captain_Tom said:
spemanig said:
As long as Nintendo still has Pokemon, handhelds will never go extinct.


Never say never.


Never.


LOL I told myself "He's going to say never and think he is clever."  Way to be predictable man.  Yeah and also good job ignoiring Pokemon's fairly steady decline in sales every generation...

Pokemon is not declining, Nintendo recently released official numbers for Pokemon gen 3 and up.

Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire-16.22 million

Pokemon Diamond/Pearl-17.63 million

Pokemon Black/White-15.42 million

Pokemon X/Y-12.26 million (still growing)

When all is said and done Pokemon X/Y will be the fourth consecutive gen to sell in the 15-18 million range, so the series has remained pretty consistant for over a decade.



When the herd loses its way, the shepard must kill the bull that leads them astray.

Never on 11 May 2014

Do people that play games on smartphones have phones that don't get incredibly hot and eat through the battery after a relatively short play through a graphically intensive full 3d game?



fps_d0minat0r on 11 May 2014

The problem is the price. Theres fewer grown ups interested in handhelds than kids and the higher the price, the less likely parents will buy their kids a handheld console instead of another toy.
Vita 2 needs to be launched at ~£160 and accept microSD cards instead of their own expensive ones.



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Fusioncode on 11 May 2014
Shadow1980 said:
This seems to be an extremely common trope in talks about sales: Any downward trend is automatically assumed to be permanent and irreversible, the beginning of the end, a portent of an imminent demise. In other words "DOOM!"™ Even though the 3DS still stands a decent chance of breaking the 100 million mark by the end of its life, the fact that it'll sell less than the DS apparently spells certain doom for handhelds.

Absolutely zero chance of that happening. 3DS will be lucky to break 80m at this rate. 



Sigs are dumb. And so are you!

Soundwave on 11 May 2014

One thing I know for sure is kids are freaking nuts over cell phone/tablet gaming.

Every time I'm in a store like Best Buy, the iPad section has 2 or 3 little kids around it, and an Apple Store on a Saturday is like walking through a day care center.

Kids just take to tablets/smartphones like fish to water, I'm not sure what Nintendo can really do. Parents encourage it too, because it's simply a helluva lot cheaper to give your kid a 5-6 free or 99 cent games on the tablet than buy them some new gaming device that's going to zing you for $40 a pop every birthday/Christmas.

Last year was the lowest for Nintendo handheld sales since 1997/98 which is just before the launch of Game Boy Color. For a year that had Pokemon X/Y, Animal Crossing, Zelda: ALBW, and other strong titles ... that's seriously troubling.



TheGoldenBoy on 11 May 2014
fps_d0minat0r said:
The problem is the price. Theres fewer grown ups interested in handhelds than kids and the higher the price, the less likely parents will buy their kids a handheld console instead of another toy.
Vita 2 needs to be launched at ~£160 and accept microSD cards instead of their own expensive ones.

Or their proprietary memory cards have to at least be able to compete with microSD cards in value. 



fps_d0minat0r on 11 May 2014
TheGoldenBoy said:
fps_d0minat0r said:
The problem is the price. Theres fewer grown ups interested in handhelds than kids and the higher the price, the less likely parents will buy their kids a handheld console instead of another toy.
Vita 2 needs to be launched at ~£160 and accept microSD cards instead of their own expensive ones.

Or their proprietary cards have to at least be able to compete with microSD cards in value. 


which they never will



TheGoldenBoy on 11 May 2014
fps_d0minat0r said:
TheGoldenBoy said:
fps_d0minat0r said:
The problem is the price. Theres fewer grown ups interested in handhelds than kids and the higher the price, the less likely parents will buy their kids a handheld console instead of another toy.
Vita 2 needs to be launched at ~£160 and accept microSD cards instead of their own expensive ones.

Or their proprietary cards have to at least be able to compete with microSD cards in value. 

which they never will

I never had a PSP but I heard that their cards were priced competitively with microSD cards? I would assume they could do the same with Vita. It would probably help the sales as well—even if only a bit.