Mobile gaming is the largest gaming market... And that is dominated by mobile phones.

If you're talking about microtransaction laden match 3 gem and battle royale games, sure.  I reiterate my statement that no one wants to make a phone call on their dedicated gaming device.  There is a reason it is referred to as a dedicated gaming device.  The device is dedicated to playing fully fledged video games.  A mobile phone is designed to be a mobile phone first with the ability to other things.  I'm pretty sure no one goes out and buys a mobile phone with their first instinct being, I need this to play Clash of Clans or Candy Crush.  There is a reason for why Nintendo has been able to successfully continue selling video game systems with a fully portable and hybrid portable aspect in an era where a large number of people were very confident that "mobile killed dedicated handheld gaming".  There is also a reason why a game like Star Wars Battlefront II receives a tremendous amount of backlash when a company like EA tries to slip in loot box gambling mechanics that mobile game companies rely on for their revenue.  It's not 1 huge gaming market dominated by mobile phones.  It's 2 completely different markets.

Dedicated gaming device

Mobile phones

The types of games or the payment schemes employed are irrelevant, that wasn't part of your argument.

Point is, Billions (That is Billions, folks, with a capital B) use their phones for gaming verses 100's of millions for consoles.

No one wants to make a phone call on their dedicated gaming device. Ask the Nokia NGage taco phone how well it fared.

Actually, yes, it was the crux of my argument.  It's why I very specifically said "dedicated gaming device".

No. You are delving into the goal post shifting logical fallacy.

You original argument was thus... "No one wants a dedicated gaming device that can make phone calls".
The types of games are thus irrelevant to that argument.

Literally BILLIONS of people around the world are spending BILLIONS of dollars on Android/iOS games, clearly lots of people love to use a device that "can make phone calls" as a gaming device... Making your original argument factually false.

But if you want to get into it... Your "cherry picked" screen grabs of mobile games is blatantly bullshit anyway... I mean, Candy Crush? You can do better than that, common, this is a gaming site, we aren't oblivious to the types of games available on a platform, we tend to be educated in all things gaming.

How about Call of Duty Mobile? (30~ million daily players)


Fortnite? (116~ million players)


PUBG Mobile? (1~ Billion downloads)


What about other titles like GRID Autosport?


Minecraft?


Stardew Valley?


Then you also have the likes of Pokemon Go, Sky: Children of Light, Rayman Legends, Hearthstone, Machinarium, Ark: Survival Evolved, Terraria and I can keep listing more... But I think I have made my point and demolished your argument now.

************

Perhaps you might have missed the mobile gaming revolution, but I can assure you... It's definitely here, definitely massive, definitely the largest gaming segment.. And people definitely do (happily) use their "Cordless telecommunications device" as a gaming device.

You complain about shifting the goalposts, yet it's the only thing you can do to construct a counter-argument. You turn "dedicated gaming device" into "device that can make phone calls being used for gaming", but nobody here should have to explain it to you in detail that these are two very different things.

You didn't demolish his argument because your entire post is based on building a strawman. Yes, you did demolish this strawman, but that will only look good in the eyes of those observers who can't tell what has happened here.

Mandalore76's expansion of the argument that consoles and phones are two completely different markets is correct as well. That too is owed to the significant difference between a dedicated gaming device and a phone that is being used for gaming. People who buy a dedicated gaming device know exactly that they want to play games and as such are willing to pay upfront for games, whereas people who buy phones don't have gaming as a priority and as such are not willing to pay for games upfront. That is why phones couldn't kill handheld consoles, because the fundamentally necessary different payment models to make game development viable result in very different feels for the games themselves. Consequently, mobile gaming isn't being taken seriously on gaming forums, because it fails to provide reasons why it should be taken seriously. Mobile gaming is generating big bucks since over a decade, but not at any point did it manage to lead to a community on this website for the purpose of discussing mobile games despite being assigned with a dedicated subforum for an extended period of time.

Back to the topic of the viability of a gaming phone, it has none. But that's not surprising and kirby007 knows it all too well, hence why he made this thread.

I haven't moved any goal posts.  My original statement has never deviated from "dedicated gaming device".  It's in my very first post, and has remained in every post since.  Quote me one where I didn't say it.  I'll wait. 

When the Switch launched, there were tons of people who said that it would not succeed because it was missing streaming features like Netflix, HBO Go, Amazon Prime Video, etc, or even a web browser.  85 million units sold later, it still has none of those features that you can use on your phone, and Nintendo still has a hard time keeping up with demand.  Why?  Because people buy a dedicated gaming device for exactly what it does.  I use the radio in my car every single time I get in the car.  Is the car radio the reason I bought the car?  Does the sale of the car get tallied as a sale of the model/manufacturer, or the sale of a radio?  If my perspective is so wrong, I'm wondering why we aren't tracking iPhone and Android sales on the main page of this video game sales tracking site as dwarfing the sales of the Switch, PS5, and XBox Series as video game devices.

By the way, every single mobile game screenshot was from the list of Top 10 Highest Grossing Mobile games of all time.  If you don't like that Candy Crush, Monster Strike, Clash of Clans type games have clearly been the highest earners from mobile gamers, that's not my problem.  Yes, the people who have a cell phone regardless for calling and texting are spending ridiculous amounts of cash on gacha games, battle royales, and the like.  I'm fairly certain that's not the reason they bought a phone.  Just as I am fairly certain no one will buy a dedicated gaming device because "oohh, this one can make phone calls".  

I'll also point out that the 3G model of the Vita was the first model to be discontinued, in less than 2 years no less.  

You complain about shifting the goalposts, yet it's the only thing you can do to construct a counter-argument. You turn "dedicated gaming device" into "device that can make phone calls being used for gaming", but nobody here should have to explain it to you in detail that these are two very different things.

You didn't demolish his argument because your entire post is based on building a strawman. Yes, you did demolish this strawman, but that will only look good in the eyes of those observers who can't tell what has happened here.

Mandalore76's expansion of the argument that consoles and phones are two completely different markets is correct as well. That too is owed to the significant difference between a dedicated gaming device and a phone that is being used for gaming. People who buy a dedicated gaming device know exactly that they want to play games and as such are willing to pay upfront for games, whereas people who buy phones don't have gaming as a priority and as such are not willing to pay for games upfront. That is why phones couldn't kill handheld consoles, because the fundamentally necessary different payment models to make game development viable result in very different feels for the games themselves. Consequently, mobile gaming isn't being taken seriously on gaming forums, because it fails to provide reasons why it should be taken seriously. Mobile gaming is generating big bucks since over a decade, but not at any point did it manage to lead to a community on this website for the purpose of discussing mobile games despite being assigned with a dedicated subforum for an extended period of time.

"No one wants a dedicated gaming device that can make phone calls".

It's literally every Android/iOS gamer ever.

The Switch is a device that will only end up in hundreds of millions of users hands, not billions.
Completely different scales we are talking here.

The second part of this paragraph deals with anecdotals and we know how unviable that is for any kind of evidence to support something, right?

You are right, they are big sellers, but you still skipped a few high profile releases to make the mobile platform seem significant, thankfully I corrected this for you in my prior post. You are welcome.

The Vita isn't an example of anything, overall it was a failed platform, which likely was still profitable, but didn't set the world on fire.

The argument was that no one wants a dedicated gaming device that can make phone calls.
Clearly with Billions of gamers on a platform that plays games extremely well... And can conveniently make phone calls... Renders that accusation false.

False.

Plenty of mobile games pay games up front.

In saying that... We are shifting to an era where even on console we aren't paying for games up front. I.E. Gamepass, xCloud, PS+ and more.