Going back as far as the Gameboy though, children have always been a massive element of the portable userbase, and these days I see kids playing on phones all the time, but rarely ever on dedicated portable.

By hijacking the kids, mobile has gutted the portable market's audience.

"Different" doesn't mean better though. Yes we all know dedicated game handhelds are better for traditional games. 

But by the same token I think it's fair to say, mobile games do a good enough job at entertaining, and are honestly far easier to pick and play most of the time, which is good for casual players and young children. Anyone can understand touch. 

If people want to play deep games, I think honestly these days that's what the home console is for. You have your 50 inch HDTV sitting at home with your $300-$400 console, people would rather just leave that type of gaming itch to the big boy console. 

The smartphone/tablet takes care of the portable side of things. 

We underestimate how much the tablet has changed domestic life too, like I said kids have a tablet or phone flung into their face before they can walk these days. It's not just games either, I know a lot of kids that basically watch all their cartoons on the tablet too. 

Yeah it's ugly out there. 

Even in Japan, and I travelled pretty much exclusively on the subway for 1-2 hours every day for a good 10 days in Tokyo ... it's actually kinda eerie, what you'll see if the subway is very quiet, but you look to your left and it's like a row of 50 people just staring down at their phone. Look to your right and it's the same thing, lol. 

I don't think mobile is hijacking anything, though. There are over a billion mobile phones on the market now. You see more kids with mobile phones because there are more mobile phones out there than there have ever been any handheld system, just by the nature of them being necessities. When I was a camp counselor last year, I saw tons of kids with 3DSs. If it hijacked anyone, it's the casual audience that adopted the DS ans PSP brands, which were not children.

But here's the thing though; say you're a parent. Why spend $200 on a portable and $40 per game for your kid when you can just hand them your phone and let a free or 99c app entertain them?

I dunno man, like I said the ratio I see at airports, and I've travelled all over USA and Europe the last 3-4 years is uuuuuuugly right now. Traditional handhelds are getting killed. 

The big problem is these damn cheap tablets. It was OK when the iPad was $700 and like the only tablet you could get, but now all these Android tablets are cheaper than a 3DS even and they do like 50 more things (you can watch cartoons, surf the web, play games, etc), parents are just buying one for each kid so they don't fight over one. 

Or when it's time for mommy to upgrade to that sweet new iPhone she wants or daddy wants that new iPad Pro ... guess who gets the hand me down smart device ... the little kids. 

When I was a kid, you had a Game Boy, maybe a book/comic books, and a Walk Man with like 12 songs on a cassette and that was all you got. Nowadays, kids are walking around with a damn computer in their pocket surfing the internet, watching HD videos, taking skateboarding/basketball videos, playing games, etc. etc. 

And by the time they're 12/13 ... forget it. Their social life revovles around their phone, if you want to see someone suffer a mental breakdown right in front of your eyes within 5 minutes, take a 12/13 year old's phone away from them for a few minutes and that'll do the trick. 

I never said different meant better. That's not the point I was trying to make.

Like I said, I like mobile games. I have no problem with mobile games, but they are not a replacement for handhelds. Not because they are worse. They are not worse. Some are better. That's not what I'm getting at. They are literally designed differently mechanically. They do not have the same skeleton. That's the point I'm trying to make. Your traditional games comparison is what I'm on about. When you say "traditional/deep games," I'm saying "handheld and console games." 

Mobile games do an amazing job at what they do. But they are not this evolution of the handheld. They are a different beast. It isn't "gaming on the go." It's its own brand of games, biologically different from handheld games.

If people want to play "deep games," thats what handhelds and consoles are for. Handhelds are for playing "deep games" on the go. Phones are for playing mobile games. It has nothing to do with the "portable side of things." It's the games and the platform. Want mobile games? Play on your iphone. Want traditional games on the go? People buy handhelds for that. Still. There is a market, it is still large, and I think it will get much larger with the NXDS when the platform is finally as modern as its tech peers, something neither the 3DS nor the Vita were. Not talking about power. I'm talking about firmware and UI.

I think where you're wrong is saying they're not a replacement for handhelds. They are. They get the job done for most people and they have a killer draw that Nintendo can't ever match -- free games. Thousands and thousands of them. Backed by monster marketing budgets that Nintendo can't come close to. 

Lots of kids these days don't even know Nintendo's version of "every kid should have a Game Boy/DS" ... they're not raised in that culture at all, they have a tablet placed into their hands by age 2/3, they laugh when I tell them Game Boy was the cool thing when I was a kid. This generation has no frame of reference, this is normal to them. 

We may say "yeah b bu but 3DS! Wouldn't you rather play Mario?!" but these kids don't understand that at all. To them that's not normal. Free games is normal to them. That's why curl-6 has rightly said it's like a hijacking of the business. 

This is like when people said Netflix is not a replacement for Blockbuster Video and traditional rental stores. After all, you can't rent all the New Releases with Netflix, it's just mostly older catalog movies. 

But Netflix did pretty quickly destroy the Blockbuster model. It was far more convienant, and even if people weren't getting the big gun movies, the overall selection you can get on Netflix trumped the old model. 

For the record, I kinda miss Blockbuster/physical rental stores, but what can you do. 

Because the kid asked for it probably. Most parents aren't as cheap and shallow as you're making them out to be. If Nintendo markets it well, kids will ask there parents for one, and then the parents will get it for their kids because most of the time they love them and want to see them happy.

Reality: Most parents are exhausted most of the time and struggling to pay their rent, car payments, and groceries, let alone buy their kids that new XBox they want and that trip to Disney they want and the soccer fees they have to pay. Most parents can't remember the last time they had sex with their significant other and many would trade sex for a full 8 hours of good sleep. 

If plopping their kid in front of their phone/tablet is a cheap/free way to get their child to shut up for a damn 15 minutes ... that's nirvana to most parents. lol. 

Parents don't give a shit about what games their kids play so long as its not a game about killing hookers. And if phones/tablets can do that for free/$1 versus $40 that Nintendo's asking for ... that just seals the deal. Parents these days have a lot more to worry about than whether their kid is playing Mario or Angry Birds.