I thought most games these days were quick time events and cgi scenes.  Answer me this.  How come people that are good at certain mainstream games suck at Mario kart and smash.  I have friends that are good at Skyrim, GTA and fps but can't play smash to save their life.  Must be different brain function or maybe they invest so heavily in certain games they can't play games I like.

I still have one old college buddy to play stupid online games with and we are pretty damn good at turn based games like Civ and Axis and Allies online.  So there is that.

A numbers game. There have been fewer viable handhelds when compared to home consoles.

Mobile gaming is also popular but we don't speak about that. Typically the kind of passionate discussion had on this forum is centred around bigger experiences which until recently has mostly been had on consoles. Handhelds have often been an after thought, only receiving spin offs etc or throw backs. Very rarely have they been at the forefront of generation defining gaming. It's like comparing zelda BOTW with A Link Between Worlds. Both great but it's not hard to see why one inspired more excitement and admiration than the other.

Also competition is typically far greater in the home console space

Phone games aren't real games though.  You need buttons and not f2p gimmicks.  Yes they are most popular but that doesn't mean anything.  Look at pop music.  Sounds like shit but it is the most popular.  I think the real problem here is humans.

Because basically Nintendo wins in this area, so many posters have no interest in discussing it. If things are a heated competition that is much more fun to discuss.

I've found myself thinking about handhelds less and less as mobile gaming became more and more dominant.

Here is my reason for not caring about handhelds for the most part in early 2000s and not at all now that it's 2020. Gaming on the go is not a thing I do. I almost always, when I played portable games, played those games because they were exclusive to that platform. I would sit in my room, plugged into the wall, playing the handheld. As time marched on exclusives on handhelds became more and more niche.

Now all that's left in the space is the Switch, which imo is way better in console mode.

I think for graphics he has a point but for gameplay and whatnot I don't believe its possile to fully take advantage of next gen while still making the game run on current gen, you'd end with absurdly long loading times and game freezes everywhere.

Simple, console games tend to have much larger budgets so more is spent on marketing them.