Yes. They both are dedicated gaming devices. The only difference between the two is portability.

sure they are

handheld console

home console

They just deliver different expirences hence wy they are seperated and rightfully. 

If they were not a console people would ot be calling the box that sits under your tv a HOME console but just a console.

How about we end the debat and start calling everything gaming systems lol.

the only reason they are seperated is convience. Different experiences isn't actually true considering, you can play handheld games like those on home consoles via emulators or adapters (GBA adapters) and vice versa (PS GO).

Calling everything systems is redundant since it is just a longer term that means console.

Both are videogame consoles. Their primary use is to play videogames, it's not so hard to understand.

Already said this once but... when people think console they think Home Consoles because that's where the main attention is given. Usually people class Handhelds differently, but they're both consoles/systems.

The popular umbrella term is "systems"

Console is something that requires a tv, thus is considered a static device.
Handheld is something that includes one as its meant for portability.

Claiming they are the same thing is like claiming a wall clock and a wristwatch are the same because they both tell the time, and that a train and a car are the same thing because theyre both uses for travel and both have wheels.

Tldr, sharing common features and functions does not make things the same, if they were designed with different usage in mind.

Well, the terms are used as shorthand for "home console" and handheld console", so technically, yeah, they are consoles by definition.

Regarding comparing the two, which seems to be the larger point of the thread, it really depends on context. I personally don't see the problem with comparing the overall sales, since they're both dedicated gaming devices, and there's a pretty large overlap in their userbase (even larger this generation I'd argue). If you're comparing them based on habits of people who prefer playing on the go over staying at home, then sure, comparing is silly. It's why qualifiers are important to the discussion, I suppose.

Someone mentioned comparing handhelds to phones. I think the problem with that comparison is just that mobile phones are multi-purpose devices. While you'd buy a 3DS to play a certain game, your decision to buy a phone will likely have little to do with what games you want to play on it. Not that no one buys phones for gaming anywhere...but it just seems impossible to reconcile that difference in userbase. It's like comparing console to PC sales. You can do it...but it's not exactly meaningful.

The real problem is the lack of a fixed term to refer to either home console or handheld.

Back when the first home console was released, they were reffered to as "Video game console", this is not a new term made for the devce, this refers to a device that outputs a game program to a television, and console refers to the *box of switches* used to control it, in much the same way the controls between the front seats of a car for AC, gear changing and general electronic switches and functions are refered to as the "Center console"

Because a specific term was never applied to the device, over time it just got shortened to games console, the term home console only came about when handhelds were released and home was tacked on to differentiate between portable and home, the problem remains that because the original device was never given an appropriate term, neither was the handheld, and instead just tacked on home or handheld, the problem with this is looking at the very reason the term console was used at all.

It was used because the box of switches was used to control a seperate device (monitor), in the same way a center console controls seperate devices (AC, gearbox, lights, etc), just as a sonar console in a submarine is used to control the sonar hardware and have the feedback from this external device display on a terminal video display.

A handheld is a completely self contained device, the switches and buttons it has directly control itself, output is monitored on the device itself, ergo it does not have a "console" that is used to control other devices, it is in itself a single consolidated device.

So, after looking at the background of why "Console" was used at all, it becomes abundantly clear that a handheld cannot be correctly defined as a console, but we do anyway often refer to it as such because nobody ever gave home consoles or handheld consoles their own unique terminology.

Look at other areas.

Phone
Smartphone
Tabletphone
Mini-tablet
Tablet
Tablet PC
Laptop
Netbook
Ultrabook

We give other debices their own singular terminology based on nothing but form factor and basic feature set, yet we are still stuck with the term "console" from the days of the magnavox and colecovision because nobody ever took the time to properly name the then new devices.

Home consoles are borderline "consoles", especially since the era of wireless controllers took wired links away from the base unit and the control unit.
Handheld devices are not "consoles" at all because all input and feedback is done on the same device.

They're a dedicated gaming device. Yes, they're a handheld console.

They are consoles now since 8-gen