- more competition in the home entertainment market (other home consoles, PC, TV, internet)
- almost no competition in the mobile entertainment market before the launch of the PSP and the rise of smartphones and mobile internet
- a handheld is a more personal device... most siblings have to share a console but get their own handheld (home consoles often make up for that with higher attach ratios and higher game prices)

Tagging. I'll come back to this post in a sec.

A few reasons.

One is there is a higher chance of multiple handhelds in one household than consoles. If you are a family with 3 kids and looking to get a console for them, you most likely would just buy one console and a couple controllers. With handhelds, especially when they are cheap, you may get one for each child.

Another reason is people buying revisions. Nintendo home consoles rarely get revisions and when they do its usually extremely late in the generation. Nintendo handhelds on the other hand have about 3-5 different versions throughout their lives.

Pokemon is another huge reason. Since 2000, mainline Pokemon titles always sell over 15 million, remakes over 10 million and expanded updates over 6 million. Its the 2nd best selling franchise with over 300 million units sold in the last ~20 years.

On top of that, alot of people simply enjoy portability and being able to play wherever they go.

Their handlhelds usually have better games then their home console counter parts. Why that's the case is another post. Pretty much every Nintendo handheld is universally loved while the home consoles are hit and miss for some. I mean how many people consider the Wii U a better device then the 3DS? Very very few. A lot of people say the DS is one of the best consoles of all time while the Wii is seen as good or even excellent but inferior to the DS.

Quality sells consoles and Nintendo handhelds are just better made than their home console counterparts.

They USE to do better because they were cheap. The GBA was only $79.99 when it launched. When the 3DS came out it sold like shit until they dropped the price. It was all based on cost and affordability.

Well its more like the competition is shit in the mobile gaming space. We all know mobile can't deliver a proper gaming expirence most of the time if its not an RPG, and the only thing that did something to dent ninty was the psp, but the psp was basically used as a pmp or ipod most of the time.

Nintendo portables have the best libraries, a decent price, and doesn't have major flaws like the psp load times. Load times are more annoying / problematic on a portable device for when you are on the go.

Im pretty sure GBA launched at $99, but regardless i get your point.

- Pokemon

- Handhelds are more popular in Nintendo's home market (Japan)

- Pokemon

- Nintendo hasn't faced much competition in the handheld arena

- Pokemon

- They're cheaper, MSRP-wise and cheaper/easier to develop for

- Pokemon

- They get more third-party support

- Pokemon

- Pokemon

Yup, my bad. The Gameboy was $89.99 and the GBC was something like $60.00? Anyway, the point is that they were very cheap.