Nintendo won't stop with handheld consoles yet, they may after next gen if sales go down the toilet. 3Ds sales are already slowing down a bit, and it may not even reach 70 million if Nintendo can't somehow counter the huge rise in mobile gaming.

I don't like mobile gaming. It's, for the most part, a shallow experience where developers try to extort the most amount of money that they can through free-to-play games that become unplayable if you don't plunk down cash every few levels. But it is also where the money is at. Nearly everybody owns a smartphone, so your userbase is absolutely gigantic if your a developer. 

Nintendo won't change now, nor do I want them to, but I wouldn't be completely surprised if they are forced to adapt  in a generation by making software for mobile phones and devices instead of for their own consoles. It would be painful for me, but if that's how Nintendo survives in this changing landscape, so be it. 

Source? If Capcom ported Monster Hunter 4 it would have been reported somewhere.

My bad, meant 2nd G, not 4. I'll fix it up. Thanks for pointing it out. 

Well then if all you need is Nintendo games, then the 3DS should be doing great. It's a fine Nintendo handheld, maybe the best they've ever made. It has the best portable 2D Mario (NSMB2 IS better than NSMB1), the best portable 3D Mario, the best Fire Emblem, the best Animal Crossing, Zelda: ALBW is way better than either of the DS Zeldas, Kid Icarus Uprising is a great game, Luigi's Mansion is great too. It has Resident Evil games. Zelda: OoT is a great remake of the most popular Zelda game. It has Monster Hunter exclusivity (basically), something the DS never had. It has Nintendogs, Brian Training, Style Savvy. It even has Angry Birds too. Mario Kart 7 is quite great on the system too. Streetpass is fun. It's been very affordable for 95% of its lifespan and is even moreso now with the 2DS. 

If it helps you sleep at night, go ahead and blame NSMB2 and other tertirary factors. The 3DS is selling below the GBC and GBA yearly shipments too and it certainly has a better library than either one of those. This indicates the market itself is collapsing on itself. 

From the sounds of it, you're actually not around families or kids much. I travel a lot, I've been in 15 different airports the last 10 months. In every airport I see the number of tablets/phones being used by kids to pass time outnumber dedicated game handhelds by at least a 7:1 ratio almost uniformly across the board. This isn't the cheapo game handheld you posted. I also am a godfather to a 8 year old girl. 

The other thing that people underestimate about tablets is just as many girls love tablet games as do boys. It's not like the "Game Boy" days where the gaming handheld was primary domain of "little Johnny" while his kid sister was content with Barbie. That's changing fast too, tablets/phone gaming has broken down the male centric dominance. My goddaughter doesn't want a 3DS and it has nothing to do with NSMB2's production values (lol). She even likes Mario just fine, but she prefers to game on her mom's iPad. So does her little brother. They have an XBox 360 with a bunch of LEGO games when they want to play games at home. That's all there is to it. 

Hardcore gamers who are handheld enthusiasts don't "get it", but of course they wouldn't. They've been in denial of this situation for years now. Some people now seeing actual hard data are starting to accept the truth, it's become harder and harder to downplay what's happening. 

These threads need to stop. Portable consoles will NOT "go extinct", so long as there is enough people (gamers) who prefer a dedicated gaming device on the go, that has actual buttons, and plays larger, more elaborate (and usually far higher quality) games.

/Thread.

It dosen't matter if there are people that prefer dedicated handhelds when there may no longer be any developers who care about the platform. Nintendo alone could keep the ship afloat for a few years, but overall handhelds are in a major decline like none other in the industry, and that is a fact. Just because you prefer hanhelds dosen't mean that developers will, they'll choose whichever platform gets them the highest profits, and in the future that will probably be mobile. I certainly hope handhelds don't die since I love my 3DS and Vita, but you need to look at reality, not just some misguided thought that developers care what the increasingly smaller minority prefers. 

But the 3DS does high-frame rate 3D with 5 times more open world then what Lego City Undercover did.

Plus the 3DS has a 3D camera for 3D Augmented Reailty & 3D Photos & 3D Videos.

And full 3D Movies are coming to the 3DS in the next 12 months.

Can you imagine watching the Hobbit 2 in High Frame Rate 3D on the go?

It isn't about just ME preferring it. There are millions of gamers that also prefer it. And thus they will keep portable consoles alive.

It's not death at all. It's just returning to the normal numbers of handheld consoles before the casual blip of last gen.

Those millions are decilning at an alrming rate thoiugh. That is the issue here. Remember, millions loved the Dreamcast at one point too. It's not at that point, but at the rate the market is declining, in a generation we may be faced with that.

It's pretty much the first time handhelds have seen such a huge regression. Last gen was in no way a "blip". Smartphones are canibalizing the handheld industry, and while the games suck in comparison, there are a fastly growing amount of casual gamers that don't care about game quality and just want free and cheap games, which smartphones proved en masse.