I think it will impact the switch in the long run (like, Switch 2 might have some trouble). But, it's not going to do much of anything to Switch right now. We're still too early in the streaming days for it to have a serious impact.

I think I need to emphasize that I don't agree smartphone gaming killed handheld gaming, it's a stretch. I only agree mobile hurted traditional portable gaming by... a lot, and numbers don't lie:

DS + PSP sales = 233 million 

3DS + Vita sales = 91 million 

For Switch, breakdown is a little more complicated, I'm in a rush and can't find accurate data now, so be free to correct anything. Currently Standard-Lite sales ratio are 1:2. I'm sure this ratio will decrease, as this is the first year of Lite and Standard production was highly affected by covid, but I'll pretend nothing of this happened and Lite is going to sell half of standard Switch forever 

Making a conservative 130 million life times sales prediction for Switch and keep in mind currently we have 52 million sales for standard and 9 for Lite, this will lead to a 45 million sales left/97 million total for standard and 23 million left/31 million total for Lite 

By 2017, 20% of Switch owners mostly play docked, 30% mostly play handheld and 50% play both styles. I have no idea how this percentage looks like now, should be lesser for handheld players, as they now have Lite, but ok, let's bet it's still the same ratio. 30% of 97 million predicted sales from standard Switch is about 29 million sales. 

29+31 million, will be the true size of handheld players on Switch ecosystem. Those would buy a handheld-only hardware if Switch hybrid never existed  

19 million, are docked players. Those won't bother with handheld 

And 48 million are buying because it's a hybrid. Some of us would by a handheld-only hardware, some wouldn't 

The point is even if we add ALL 48 million hybrid players into handheld players group, it is still not even half of DS+PSP sales and as I said, not all of hybrid players would buy a dedicated handheld so it's a reach 

Funny thing, 3DS+U numbers are very close to handheld only+docked only on Switch. Not saying those owners are all the same, but it shows how much hybrid aspect helps Switch sales 

Either Switch alone sells 250 million or we have for 2 generations in row handheld market with half the size of what it used to be

But sure, it's more convenient believe a forgettable gimmick (3DS) was the reason for decrease in sales

There is a reason why games like Nintendogs, Brain Age and puzzle games aren't a thing on Switch. The Switch board game with a hundred or so games don't meet nowhere near this kind of sucess. Why? Because games like that, that were popular on DS can be perfectly replicated in mobile

Smartphones moved handheld gamers away from dedicated hardware. You can lie to themselves as much as you please, but in a market with steadily growth in pretty much all sub-markets having a single specific segment (portable dedicated hardware) that is decreasing is a clear sign of gamers moving away from this segment to another  

I see where you are coming from, but you can't just add up numbers like this. As I said, there was one Nintendo handheld that sold less than its predecessor. That's not enough of a sample size to declare that mobile gaming hurt dedicated handhelds a lot.

- Trump won the last presidential election. Can we therefore assume Democrats will never win the Presidency ever again?

- Nintendo lost the last gen with the Wii U. Can we therefore assume all future Nintendo consoles will fail? (That's exactly what people claimed in 2017, by the way)

- Today is a sunny day. Can we therefore assume every day from now on will be a sunny day?

In short: Using very small sample sizes is one of the most common mistakes when trying to analyse numbers. Correlation /= Causation. Instead, let us look at the handheld market and its important contenders in general:

Gameboy (+ Color) = 120m units 

Gameboy Advance = 80m units 

DS + PSP = 250m units

3DS + Vita: 90m units

Switch: Maybe 130m units in the end?

The Gameboy (+ Color) were on the market for roughly ten years. The handheld market was pretty stable in the 90s, then Pokémon came along and sales increased. The GBA continued the trend and sold well but not as well as the DS or the Switch. In the mid 2000s Sony and Nintendo both put lots of resources into the handheld market and, of course, the market increased in size a lot, especially due to Nintendo catering to mass market customers. Then the 3DS and PS Vita (both rather unappealing handhelds compared to their predecessors) sold a lot less. And now the Switch, the only console that can also be played in portable mode, is selling like gangbusters. Where is the causation? You only looked at a sample size of one and drew a conclusion, but looking at the history of the handheld market clearly shows the dedicated handheld market has always been the size it is right now: The DS and PSP were the one exception, not the rule! But you ignore every other generation and only focus on DS and PSP... and then you cut Switch numbers in half to prove your point even though every single Switch can be played in handheld mode.

Also, look at yearly sales: The DS still sold over 20m units in 2010. More than the PS4 ever sold in a single year! Christmas week 2010 the DS sold 1.5m units in a single week, as high as the PS4 and PS2 ever achieved. Then, in February 2011 the 3DS hit the market and handheld sales plummeted. So you are telling me this was caused by mobile games? On December 25th 2010 everything was fine for dedicated handhelds and over the course of 8 weeks, mobile gaming had severely damaged dedicated handhelds? Or was it rather that the 3DS had a high price, no games at launch and a 3D feature people didn't like?

As for the other things: Despite what you claimed, I never said the decrease in sales during the 3DS era was due to a gimmick. I said it was a combination of high price, lack of games and unappealing hardware (due to 3D) which caused it. And Nintendo seems to agree: They took away the 3D feature from a console that even had "3D" in its name because they realised people were turned off by 3D and didn't value it.

In gen 7 the handheld console market was 235m units. In gen 8 it was 92m units. Are you sure that shrinkage was because of 3D?

In the 90's, gaming market was just much smaller than nowadays 

If you want to argue handheld market is now as big as it was 30 years ago, then ok, I agree. But with people getting more rich, gaming becoming more accessible, population growth, other markets starting being explored yada yada I thought the natural path was to handheld market grown as well 

I don't understand why you are ignoring the fact that even with Switch selling humungous amounts of hardware handheld sales are nowhere near its peak and those gamers went to smartphone gaming and will just never come back again 

Unless you don't count those costumers as handheld gamers, as they only bought DS and PSP and never bothered buying a dedicated hardware again

The 3DS only had a high price for like 3 months, it was $169.99 after that had and soon had several games that should have been system sellers -- Nintendogs, Mario Kart 7, and Super Mario 3D Land.

Even if you don't like 3D, it takes literally 2 seconds to turn it off forever, as easy as adjusting the volume.

Smartphone gaming boomed explosively in 2010-2011-2012, the first blockbuster smartphone game, Angry Birds only release in December 2009 and took a few months to gain word of mouth, but once that became a giant hit, it put smartphone gaming on the map and everyone and their grandma knew you just going into the App Store and not only can you find basic functionality apps, but there's a whole ecosystem of free to play games.

The App Store initially was not supposed to be some kind of gaming market, it was supposed to be where Apple would release new functionality apps like a new Note Pad or something like that, no one really could forsee the gaming part of it becoming that huge. 

Smartphone sales also exploded during this time going from 172 million in 2009 to 472 million for the year of 2011, in particular, iPhone sales went from 20.7 million in 2009 to 72.3 million in 2011. To put 472 million in perspective, that's almost equal to full 7-8 year sales of the DS + PSP + Wii + 360 + PS3 combined in just one year, lol. 

I do agree with you here. Maybe Gen 7 was the real outlier and the handheld market was never meant to be 235m; and yes, it is quite possible that the Switch won't be affected at all by Cloud gaming. But I think we should all keep in mind that this is an option that did not exist before in the market; And it is never a good idea to look at a new competition and just say "that's okay, it'll be alright" and keep going as if nothing happens.

I'm sure Nintendo is 100% aware of this because they already evolved by merging their two segments into one, and I'm sure they are looking at the development in the cloud market with a lot more care than some of us are doing it from here.

I can see the Switch Pro having Geforce Now Capabilities. So therefore no I dont think its going to impact Switch. I think Switch is going to adopt it.

Don't think that really works for Nintendo because Nvidia would have to be willing to share a portion of the profit, otherwise you're just allowing games on your platform and not getting a licensing fee from it. 

Also phones and tablets that support 5G have a large advantage because they'll be able to just connect to a mobile cell network, not just be tied to WiFi. 

Smartphones have been used for a lot more than just taking calls/texting plus a little extra other stuff that for ages now, that's a very 2008-centric view of how phones are used. 

MS has basically already launched their cloud service, you can play games on it right now, I just did 20 minutes ago, lol (Gears 5 and tried a bit of Streets Of Rage 4 on my Android phone). 

It will be interesting to see what Sony does now, they do have their own service, but I don't think they can compete head to head with MS when MS has to full backing of their board of directors to spend, spend, spend. Bethesda is probably only the beginning, MS will purchase at least one more big time publisher, maybe even 2 or 3 more. 

Microsoft being so aggressive in this field is a game changer, it would be one thing if they just had a streaming service as a side thing, but making Game Pass and letting people basically have several hundred games for only $10 a month including your full 1st/2nd party catalog available day and date (so new releases even) and to let that also be available to be streamed is really, really accelerating where this market probably was supposed to be.