We live in a age where smartphones and tablet computers have enough processing power to run, although with worse graphics, what fully powered gaming consoles could do ten years ago. The games are much cheaper than what you would pay for a PS Vita or 3DS game. A good example of this is GTA 3, which was recently released on Android and iOS.

At the moment my phone has a better processor and more RAM than what my old PC had. That is really notable. The question I ask is, with phones on the path they are now, why would you want to buy a handheld console dedicated to gaming. Why would you, when you have a highly powered media center, social center and gaming console in your phone?

The effects of the smartphone on the handheld gaming market is becoming more and more clear, especially with the underwhelming sales that the PSV and 3DS have shown. The Vita sold only 321,000 units during it’s first week in Japan and the 3DS sold 371,000. Nintendo cut the costs for the 3DS by a lot after this failure. Will Sony have the same problems when they hit the worldwide market? Who knows.

But I fear that handheld consoles are approaching a dead end. This might or might not be the last generation, but I can see a serious decline approaching with the following generations. Smart phones are continuously increasing in power, and when the time comes for new dedicated handhelds, phones might be so powerful that the handheld companies would just say ‘Oh screw it’ and release phones instead. Like Sony did with the Xperia Play, only better.

vs.

~~~~Fireprufe15~~~~