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Forums - Gaming - Why are handhelds often seen as inferior or not as important as home consoles?

kyprime on 30 July 2016
LurkerJ said:

Look, I get it, not all of us have unlimited time and money to spend. So we spend them on what will get us the most fun, or at least, the most guaranteed fun.

I used to watch a lot of good movies, now I don't have enough time for them, so I got very picky. I only watch what I think will be a great movie, and I get cranky if the movie I choose to watch turns out garbage. I know that I am missing out on lots of great movies because my selection process isn't perfect, but what will I do? I can only resort to watching guaranteed quality, and leave the rest to when I am retired or reincarcerated. 

so you recognize that you don't have eough money to get the best so you compensate for that lying to yourself and trying to make yourself feel better and secure saying that there is no best in fact and everything is equal? sorry buddy, there is the best, and you don't have it

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160rmf on 30 July 2016
kyprime said:
LurkerJ said:

Look, I get it, not all of us have unlimited time and money to spend. So we spend them on what will get us the most fun, or at least, the most guaranteed fun.

I used to watch a lot of good movies, now I don't have enough time for them, so I got very picky. I only watch what I think will be a great movie, and I get cranky if the movie I choose to watch turns out garbage. I know that I am missing out on lots of great movies because my selection process isn't perfect, but what will I do? I can only resort to watching guaranteed quality, and leave the rest to when I am retired or reincarcerated. 

so you recognize that you don't have eough money to get the best so you compensate for that lying to yourself and trying to make yourself feel better and secure saying that there is no best in fact and everything is equal? sorry buddy, there is the best, and you don't have it

There is no one claiming that they're equal, where did you get that?

They are extremely different. See, it's not difficult to use that word, Different devices for different tastes. Obviously there is the power difference, but you can't just label a gaming console as the "best" or the "worst" just measuring graphical power.



 

 

We reap what we sow

Metallox on 30 July 2016

Everything has been said. Hardware itself is not as good as what consoles can provide, and the games are definitely inferior. To put it simple, Main Mario, Zelda, God of War, Uncharted and Killzone entries usually finish up on consoles, whereas minor titles land on handhelds.



My bet with The_Liquid_Laser: I think the Switch won't surpass the PS2 as the best selling system of all time. If it does, I'll play a game of a list that The_Liquid_Laser will provide, I will have to play it for 50 hours or complete it, whatever comes first. 

Conina on 30 July 2016
kyprime said:
Conina said:

Totally fair comparison, especially with different genres, different art styles and heavy artifacts on the handheld picture!

Guess which is on a handheld and which is on a console?

Of course you can see minor differences, but each handheld generation the general look of handheld games came closer to the home console games.

you can see great differences, stop trying to lie, taking promotional art for the handheld games, take IN GAME SCREENSHOTS

Sorry to disappoint you, but these ARE in-game screenshots of the Vita.

kyprime said:
LurkerJ said:

Look, I get it, not all of us have unlimited time and money to spend. So we spend them on what will get us the most fun, or at least, the most guaranteed fun.

I used to watch a lot of good movies, now I don't have enough time for them, so I got very picky. I only watch what I think will be a great movie, and I get cranky if the movie I choose to watch turns out garbage. I know that I am missing out on lots of great movies because my selection process isn't perfect, but what will I do? I can only resort to watching guaranteed quality, and leave the rest to when I am retired or reincarcerated. 

so you recognize that you don't have eough money to get the best so you compensate for that lying to yourself and trying to make yourself feel better and secure saying that there is no best in fact and everything is equal? sorry buddy, there is the best, and you don't have it

So you recognize that you don't have enough money to get a good home console / gaming PC and a good handheld to get the best gaming experience at home and on the go / on vacation? So you compensate for that lying to yourself and trying to make yourself feel better and secure saying that handheld gaming is inferior? Sorry buddy, there is the best, and it is multiple gaming devices instead of only one... obviously you don't have it.

See, that argumentation style works both ways.



Goodnightmoon on 30 July 2016
Conina said:
kyprime said:

you can see great differences, stop trying to lie, taking promotional art for the handheld games, take IN GAME SCREENSHOTS

Sorry to disappoint you, but these ARE game screenshots.

LOL Well played.

I still don't know what is the console version of uncharted there xD



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Soundwave on 30 July 2016

Tegra X1 demolishes a Vita GPU, eats it up, and shits it out again, so that is not really a good analogy.

Looking at older PC laptop GPUs might give you a better idea. Those can run things even like The Witcher 3 straight up.



Farsala on 30 July 2016
Ganoncrotch said:
Farsala said:
Because video game companies treat them as inferior or not as important as home consoles.

Source: Sony first party, 3rd party

That's wrong though.

Capcom have published 10 games for the Wii-U, 16 on the 3ds

Activision have 25 titles on the Wii-U but 37 on the 3ds

Surely they should put more games on the home console because it is more important to them... because... it's on the ground? Or maybe a company actually bases what is more important to them in terms of sales figures and revenue rather than if it's a handheld or a console?

Sources :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nintendo_3DS_games

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wii_U_software

Wii U vs 3DS are bad examples. Try consoles with similar install base. Wii U vs Vita, 3DS vs PS4+XB1

Then calculate how much money each game gets from the respective companies, and how much they make.



LurkerJ on 30 July 2016
kyprime said:
LurkerJ said:

Look, I get it, not all of us have unlimited time and money to spend. So we spend them on what will get us the most fun, or at least, the most guaranteed fun.

I used to watch a lot of good movies, now I don't have enough time for them, so I got very picky. I only watch what I think will be a great movie, and I get cranky if the movie I choose to watch turns out garbage. I know that I am missing out on lots of great movies because my selection process isn't perfect, but what will I do? I can only resort to watching guaranteed quality, and leave the rest to when I am retired or reincarcerated. 

so you recognize that you don't have eough money to get the best so you compensate for that lying to yourself and trying to make yourself feel better and secure saying that there is no best in fact and everything is equal? sorry buddy, there is the best, and you don't have it

You figured it all out, Bravo, doc.

Take a deep breath and relax. 90% of my post was explaining how I don't have enough time to try everything out and watch all the movies and TV shows I want to watch.

What you don't understand is that I am not a handheld gamer, my 3DS is under thick layers of dust and I refuse to buy a PS4, not because I don't have the money, I can't justify buying one, outside of Bloodborne, I am not that invested. My PS3 served me well along with my Wii.

These days I game on my PC when I have the time and I feel like playing traditional video games. My iPhone when I feel nostalgic.I may fire up my 3Ds for the next pokemon game. 

The take home point coming from a PC gamer, stop shoving your opinion of what is a superior experience down people's throats. It's subjective. 

Funn how my iPhone alone costs more than 2 consoles, I am lying to myself ain't I

 



oniyide on 30 July 2016
Ganoncrotch said:
hershel_layton said:

Only issue with OLED is that battery life worsens. Better picture quality, but at the cost of higher production costs.

Considering how Sony is probably done with handhelds, I wonder what type of screen the NXDS will have. LCD, LED, or perhaps OLED?

 

But I agree with you on handhelds. People who dismiss handhelds typically don't realize how great their libraries are. Just look at Nintendo. The 3DS got an entire smash game with great graphics(that is if you remove the ugly black lines). It has Pokemon; it got Kid Icarus Uprising, which is a console-level game. The Vita also has a large library of games.

 

Sure, obviously consoles are great, but handhelds are as well, especially for occassions where you just want to relax somewhere else. not only that, but you can live with a smaller resolution, as it isn't noticable for small screens

On a Nintendo platform weirdly enough you need to go back to the SNES to find a street fighter game on a console.

But the GBC had Street Fighter Alpha

GBA got Street Fighter 2 Turbo Revival and Street Fighter Alpha 3

3DS has an amazing port of Super Street Fighter 4

So I find it strange that some might think they aren't the place to sell mainstream games, when some publishers disagree completely.

Ah, and as much as I dislike Capcom for somethings, it's worth keeping in mind that one of the best Resident Evil titles, Revelations started its life off as a lowly 3ds title and then was just tidied up somewhat in the shadows and lighting departments to go onto the PC/X360/PS3

to be fair a lot of those ports you mentioned were terrible. Which is why some people treat portables as the lesser. A lot of the games arent as good



lasershow on 31 July 2016
torok said:

It's because they are the secondary devices for the companies. If you look at history for Sega, Sony and Nintendo, you will see that while the handhelds have some exclusive games, a great portion of their library is made of inferior versions of console franchises, spin-offs, prequels and so on. PSP received God of War prequels, Vita got an Uncharted prequel, 3DS gets inferior Mario Kart and Mario games.

The design of the machines itself shows that they won't push any boundary. Hell, we only got twin analog sticks THIS gen and only on Vita. This is standard on home consoles since the PS2. New 3DS brough 4 shoulder buttons, again: this is on home consoles since the PS1!!! Still waiting for triggers.

The way people see handhelds is only a reflex of how the gaming companies treated this devices. If Eurogamer is correct and NX is indeed an hybrid, then we will get the first handheld that will be a first class citizen in the gaming world instead of a spin-off/prequel/inferior version/rehash machine.

Don't get me wrong, I love portables. But if I had to chose between a home console and a handheld, home console is the way to go. I myself only got a handheld this gen and, if I had to chose only one, neither the 3DS or the Vita, or even both combined, could replace the PS4. Gaming only on a handheld means losing 80% of the good games.

Are you saying Mario Kart 7 is inferior. I'm going to disagree with that strongly.