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Forums - Gaming - Is their room for mobile dedicated consoles (Handhelds) anymore?

Shadow1980 said:
Soundwave said:

Game Boy Advance would've sold well above 100 million units had it not been ended prematurely. 

Dude, we've been over this how many times already? You know exactly what I'm going to say about the GBA situation, and you're just going to continue dismissing what I have to say.

Besides I mean regardless of reason where did all those 236 million DS + PSP owners go? Did 150 million of them just evaporate? Did they stop playing games or are a good portion of them content with their phones/tablets today? If that's the case then, it is very much at the heart of the issue.

First off, 236 million is an absolute upper limit that assumes no overlap between DS and PSP owners and that nobody who bought one model of either never bought a later model (e.g., someone who bought both a DS Lite and a DSi). Of course, even if we did assume that, say, there were 200 million handheld owners last gen, then the question isn't just "Where did they go?", but also "Where did they come from?" So where did they come from (Cotton-eye Joe)? It's probably safe to say that those who would not have typically bought a handheld were at least partially responsible for the mind-bogglingly huge sales of the DS. The massive spike in sales following the DS Lite just seems totally inexplicable. Then again, it's entirely possible that any periphery demographic was largely inconsequential as the system sold what it did to "regular" gamers on its own merits. We really don't know. The PSP, meanwhile, comes across as a more "hardcore" handheld and probably drew in lots of people on the basis of the PlayStation brand name.

This generation things were a little different. The Vita in particular was bungled by Sony. Not only was the system poorly marketed, when factoring in hidden costs (mainly memory cards), the Vita was one of the most expensive handhelds ever even in inflation-adjusted terms. It's been argued that the Vita was simply too powerful for its own good, its high price the result of high power, and this caused a "death spiral" of sorts, with the poor early sales discouraging developers from making games for the system (and dev costs were obviously higher), which in turn further discouraged consumers from buying in, which in turn discouraged developers even more, etc., etc. The system has done semi-decently in Japan, but has bombed horribly in the West, especially the U.S.

The 3DS also had marketing and pricing issues. Like the Wii U, the 3DS was launched in a period when Nintendo's marketing department was sitting on its ass. Also, the 3DS had a sticker price well in excess of any previous Nintendo handheld, and even with inflation factored in it was still by far the most expensive Nintendo handheld. The 3DS did improve after a price cut, but history has shown that poor early momentum is very hard to fully recover from. That being said, the 3DS is far from a sales failure, and after correcting for the fact that the U.S. saw disproportionately huge handheld sales growth beginning with the GBC and extending through the GBA era, as well as the abnormally huge sales of the DS in all regions, from a historical standpoint the 3DS is doing fairly well.

The gen-over-gen sales decline in the handheld market can be largely blamed on endogenous factors. The Vita's failure is entirely explicable due to mistakes Sony made, and now we're back to a handheld market with only one relevant system, just like it was prior to the PSP. As for the 3DS, it only looks bad because of the DS and because of the GBA's U.S. performance, as I've explained before. It's been doing very well in Japan and fairly decent in Europe. While there would have been a gen-over-gen dip even if the 3DS did as well as the GBA in the U.S., and some of the gen-over-gen dip is possibly due to some periphery demographic that entered and exited the dedicated gaming handheld market, much if not most of the decline is likely due to those aforementioned endogenous factors. Aside from the fact that a single company has dominated the market for over a quarter of a century, handhelds are no different from their bigger console counterparts. They succeed and fail due to things like pricing, games, marketing, regional variations in buying habits. There's no need to blame everything on external factors.

And that's all I have to say about the subject.




PSP and Vita have the same exact launch price. But I guess it's all because of memory cards that they lost like 80% of their portable market, right?

3DS has had a sub-$199.99 price point option for 90% of its life cycle. 

I just don't buy the excuses, sorry, you are jumping through a lot of hoops to try and say that mobile had little/no effect on handheld gaming when it's fairly obvious it has decimated that market, particularily in the US and Europe. 



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I don't believe for one second that other mobile devices are an issue to the handheld market ...

Less intuitive controls and low budget production games cannot give the same experience as a handheld will ...

The only thing that has changed is software quality ...

If customers don't like the games then they will not buy the platform, plain and simple ...

Nearly no one has stopped to take a look at the total software sales for each platform and came to the conclusion that game quality has dropped for handhelds compared to their predecessors ...



fleischr said:
A handheld that can seamlessly transition between gaming on the go and gaming on your TV? Absolutely.


Yeah, that's not happening. The power difference will be too big.



If Nintendo could hold at 70 million portables for next gen, that would be OK. Probably not ideal, but OK at least.

But I don't think they can, the 3DS is really sputtering badly here particularly in the US where it still manages a mediocre sub-100k/month quite often even when a new model revision just recently released. I think it was able to benefit a lot by having that large surge of sales early in its life cycle before mobile had really cemented itself with younger kids.

Because circa 2011, the iPad was still extremely expensive, you couldn't just get a tablet for $150 like you can from anywhere today. Also when mommy/daddy are upgrading their phones/tablets nowadays, guess who's getting the older one in many cases ... the kids. So that problem has exasperated itself.

Flying a lot for work, nowadays I notice with families a lot of the kids have their own individual tablet now, back in 2011, I don't think that was the case. Seeing a kid with a 3DS is exceptionally rare these days, and if you see one, there's like 10 other kids that aren't gaming on a 3DS.

If Nintendo can manage 50-60 million handhelds next cycle, I think even that will be really good considering the circumstances, a minor miracle even. 



Yes,but not of games are 39,99.

They should price it at 19,99 and see the popularity rise once again



 

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http://www.youtube.com/user/klaudkil

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xl-klaudkil said:
Yes,but not of games are 39,99.

They should price it at 19,99 and see the popularity rise once again

Yeah that's the other problem that doesn't get talked about ... parents aren't stupid, it doesn't matter how low Nintendo prices the 2DS/3DS, they know that they will then have to pay $40 a pop for the games, in which case it's a much cheaper alternative to spend a little more if need be on a tablet and get free games full stop for the life of the product. 



fleischr said:
A handheld that can seamlessly transition between gaming on the go and gaming on your TV? Absolutely.


Psp ??

The nx will be a such thing



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Shadow1980 said:
Dr.Henry_Killinger said:

Unless Mobile gaming is a fad, unlikely considering Mobile isn't, its a big and recent problem that I don't think your chart is apt to describe. PCs are more threatened by mobile then consoles (with regard to Mobile Computing). Handhelds on the otherhand have two major significant threats from Mobile.

The chart was for consoles to illustrated the cyclical tide-like nature of the console market, something few analysts took into account when talking about declining console sales in the 2010-2013 period.

I differentiate the effect of Mobile for the cyclical market forces that govern the console market, because its external and increasing at an """Exponential""" rate.

 I'm considering  new gamers who unlike in previous generations have a ton more options to choose from, only one of which is for a propreitary single function device (Nintendo Handheld).

Why is it assumed that handhelds must necessarily compete directly with mobile, despite the experiences offered not being the same? Far fewer people assume that mobile is competing directly with consoles or PC. Sure, there's more options for consumers these days, but if you really think about it, isn't every form of entertainment competing for your time and money? Why should we assume that mobile uniquely competes with handhelds? Because they're both portable? I guess that mentality is what's leading some analysts to assume that the Apple TV will compete directly with the PS4 and XBO, which is patently ridiculous (though making ridiculous assertions seems like standard operating procedure for professional games industry analysts).

Its not like Mobile completely outdates handheld, but they do overlap. Specificially with new gamers, who are not aware of and or do not appreciate the differences of experiences between the two, then is it a stretch to say they would be percieved as the same? The exact same argument applies to consoles as well, so its not unique to mobile and handhelds. 

I'd even hazard this generation of consoles is affected in a similar albiet reduced way, but I haven't considered this yet.

All else equal, Nintendo gets a fraction of what it gained when it was the only one on the block or even with Sony.

What fraction? A tenth? A quarter? Half? Four-fifths? Have any surveys been done comparing the age brackets of DS users vs. 3DS users and how those shifted over the course of the generation? I need evidence. Numbers. But since anecdotes are considered fair game these days, most under-18s I know (admittedly few, and most of them related) have an interest in owning a 3DS, and my nephews and my roommate's older daughter all have 3DSs.

Let me clarify, this is conjecture, resonable enough conjecture imo to pose the question, which is what I'm doing. When I say fraction, I mean strictly no more than. And I say strictly no more than with certainty based on the fact that mobile market "exists" now. I realize this isn't strong enough to make claims or even raise doubt over the concurrent performance of the 3DS, so I'm referring to the future of handhelds in general. I'll admit the normallization argument is compellling, if only because NDS and GBA where inflated, but these new conditions (Mobile) is abnormal compared to previous Nintendo handheld generations.

When you consider, that "Quality" is the only thing Nintendo will have (for a limited time) over these competitors, it looks pretty dismal, will new gamers even be aware of this quality? In this hostile red ocean, is it realistic to have a new succesful handheld competitor?

"Quality" doesn't merely consist in visuals...

I don't use "Quality" as simply visuals, rather just an umbrella term for all of the "advantages" of higher production value handheld console games versus lower priced mobile games. Mainly drawing from the quality vs quantity argument which is also a games meme so to speak.

If new gamers aren't coming in, what about those who persist? Unless we have 100% adoption rate, and those who played handhelds in the past stop doing so for whatever reason, further decline is inevitable.

Even if we assume a neligible and declining number of those born after 1995 are buying handhelds, it should take decades for enough older established gamers to die off or stop playing to push the handheld market into oblivion. Something happened that resulted in the DS having grossly inflated sales, the GBA was itself grossly inflated in the U.S., and the PSP was the first and now only non-Nintendo handheld to be a commercial success. We're seeing an adjustment back to something more normal, not the start of a terminal decline. If Nintendo's next handheld sells worse than the 3DS even if they put their best effort forward, then an argument could be made that handhelds are really in trouble. It's only been four and a half years since the 3DS debuted, far too short  of a time span to establish any sort of long-term trend.

The trend I'm looking at to even pose this question is mobile rather than 3DS' performance itself. I agree with you but at the same time I'm jumping the gun a bit b/c I don't think its in Nintendo's hands at this point. Mobile is just too strong. We're already getting to the point where main differentiators between console and mobile games are physical buttons.

I should clarify, I'm not saying the market will cease to exists, but rather become a niche market, and in someways it already is

A likely end-life tally of about 70-75 million for the 3DS is hardly "niche."

I'm not worried about the 3DS, rather beyond the 3DS.

*Full disclosure: I don't even believe consoles will have another generation in physical form, but thats not the thread topic.

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In this day and age, with the Internet, ignorance is a choice! And they're still choosing Ignorance! - Dr. Filthy Frank

Not for me. Slowly realized that, when I'm away from home, I just don't want to make the commitment that is required for portable console games. The games themselves are often great. My time just can't be spent enjoying them.



d21lewis said:
Not for me. Slowly realized that, when I'm away from home, I just don't want to make the commitment that is required for portable console games. The games themselves are often great. My time just can't be spent enjoying them.

Somehow i agree,i have 142psp games yet only a handfull i completed.

 

I do play psp or vita on the go but 98% of the time fighting games.

 

Love collecting for them thou,and i play both psp and vita at home.



 

My youtube gaming page.

http://www.youtube.com/user/klaudkil