If phones are going to replace handhelds, where are the games nececarry?

[Irony's Acolyte]

I don't know. Why are tabletop games like Warhammer or D&D still around when you have cheaper and more easily accessible board/card games around like Checkers or Uno? Because they cater to different markets. Mobile gaming isn't about small "time-wasters", they're attempting to give you a "console" game, but in mobile form. You're more dedicated to playing them more then a little "arcadish" game like Tetris or Angry Birds.

 

[Sight Unseen]

Personaly, I just need buttons. I can't use just a touch screen for shit all. Apparently, neither can devs, as they have to create the most simplistic control schemes and jam them into games.

Have you heard of the NVidia Shield? Might be along the lines of what you're looking for. It's also extremely good for emulators and PC game streaming

 

[Something Amyss]

That's why they cost up to $40.

And yet, games that are on both tend to cost 40 dollars on one and not on the other. That doesn't bode well for the argument that there's a different level of quality.

If little kids see Mario, Sonic, Kirby and DK on the 3DS, then they'll want a 3DS.

Apparently, not that much, though. Mobiles are becoming bigger with kids while these titles are...Not. Mario's last title wasn't even a system mover, and its last couple have underpoerformed expectations. Zelda's brand recognition wasn't enough to move the 3DS either.

I'd also add I've had ample time playing Star Command, Knights of Pen & Paper (another game where the price is higher when not on Android because ponies), and quite a few other games with a degree of longevity easily rivaling three whole hours. One of the beautiful things is that none of them have cost close to the price of a 3DS title. I still have a 3DS, but it's far less portable than my phone and far less easy to pick up and play.

And yes, I have a few time wasters on my phone, too.

Also, I sort of feel these statements are valid:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2011/08/01

"[Y]ou buy one 3DS game and I'll buy forty games on my phone. We'll see who has more 'fun.'"

http://www.penny-arcade.com/news/post/2011/06/29/league-of-psychotic-murderers

These attempts at life integration have solidified some of the concerns I have with the hardware, one being that Forty Dollars Is No Longer Curiosity Money. They've pushed the price past what I'm willing to gamble on a portable title with this generation, making me more circumspect, and that's sad. The Mercenaries is, in this case, the First Bite in Great White's Hierarchy Of Biting. I was rewarded tons of times for my curiosity last time out, in a different world, where forty dollars couldn?t purchase - literally purchase - forty portable games.

The value and/or concept of value has changed in this brave new world, and the handheld market has not changed with the times.

You might be surprised at how many people of all age groups find enjoyment in those shallow little games. The draw is that they are affordable time wasters that kids and adults can play on the fly when they have a spare minute or two.

I already sort of touched on this, but since I saw your mention of it I figured I'd expand as my brain kind of sparked. I think a lot of modern games have become very console-like, and lost the simplicity of handhelds of yore. I suppose to some extent that's great, but I remember complaints about a lot of PSP and DS games that they weren't very portable-friendly anymore. Granted, the DS/3DS have a nifty sleep option where you can just close the lid, but mobile games are still more portable friendly and easier to disengage from.

While I think the Android/iPhone market still has a ways to go in terms of games, I honestly hope it doesn't go too far to replicating the console experience, because then we lose one of the important things about the portable market.

I'm kind of confused at the constant title of time waster placed on these kinds of games. Simple or not games like fruit ninja, angry birds, and the impossible game are genuinely fun to play. I don't feel like my time was wasted playing them?

Honestly, I think of it this way: all games are time wasters. They're how I waste my time. I don't know how it's different to waste your time playing Angry Birds than it is to play Zelda.

Most hobbies are time wasters. It's no big deal. For some reason, it's considered worse in certain cases.

 

[Jaylo69]

You spelt necessary incorrectly...in the fucking title...ergh.

 

[Weaver]

Personaly, I just need buttons. I can't use just a touch screen for shit all. Apparently, neither can devs, as they have to create the most simplistic control schemes and jam them into games.

Have you heard of the NVidia Shield? Might be along the lines of what you're looking for. It's also extremely good for emulators and PC game streaming

I have! I also have a compatible GPU for it's streaming capabilities. That said, I just don't have the money for it right now lol.

 

['Record Stops.']

Here's a thread that talks sense and then some.

Save for the voices above and below who sound more like Sales pitchers for whatever Smartphone Gimmick is out now than people with actual ideas or ability to understand how niche marketing works, you can tell who they are.

Will Smartphones destroy handholds? Fat chance of that, Nintendo's tops now and then, the big guy in the room isn't going to leave due to a bunch of smaller pissants running around his ankles trying to steal his cake. He'll just ignore them until they piss him off, then he'll crush them.

But, will Smartphones and gimmick games take a hit of handholds? Yes, a very BIG yes. You cannot deny the girth of the gimmick or casual gamer market, Smartphones will take a serious chunk of the profits, but until they actually make one with a usable Keyboard, mouse, and ability to run high end games they will never be anything more than gimmicks, which they are.

A Smartphone's major ideal concept, and the one I actually see a lot of people saying about it is thus. They have easy access to the internet, are good as phones, play games as a secondary function, and are considered socially relevant items. All of these factors combined, especially more so with Tablets(I own one myself) make them ideal and potentially threatening to handhelds.

The problem however is this, you cannot get a game with as much depth and complexity as say Chrono Trigger on the Smartphone or enjoy it. That's why FFVI on iOS is retarded, play the most iconic RPG of all time without a controller you say? Do Sabin's stupidly finicky Blitz moves with a touch screen you say? I say you're an idiot and your money is better wasted by flushing it down a toilet.

You can't get quality games without a controller, and touch screens will never EVER be good for anything more than gimmicks. You can't enjoy good RPGS on them, Platformers, pffh, good luck there, you can't enjoy FPS games on them, you can't enjoy Dungeon Crawlers, you can't enjoy anything substantial on them and Infinity Blade isn't that good either.

The sad fact of the matter is, that yes, the Youth play Smartphone games and will continuously alienate my generation thanks to the sheer amount of crap they've involved with and the growing disconnect felt by manchildren and neckbeards with society in general. But the even sadder fact, is no one will care in about two to three years when the next big thing comes in and replaces Smartphones.

Saying That smartphones will destroy Handhelds is like saying PC gaming will Destroy Consoles. Yeah, it's possible and I'm not gonna rule that out, but at this rate and in this highly competitive gaming market? Fat chance.

TLR version. No phones will be replacing Handhelds for the time being, but if they can actually make something worthwhile that isn't a gimmick and prove that you can enjoy quality games and excellent narratives with a touchscreen thus elevating the genre; then I'll certainly say I can believe there's a good chance.

 

[MysticSlayer]

The best games on handhelds are memorable experiences packed with content, depth, and variety, and can keep you enteratained for up to 3 hours. That's why they cost up to $40.

I really hope that the $40 I spend on a 3DS game isn't going to a game that will only entertain me for 3 hours. At $40, I'm expecting at least 6-7 hours of quality gaming. Otherwise, I might as well just go with the $0.99 that entertains for 10-30 minutes.

OT: Honestly, I haven't heard the argument that the iPhone is driving away the 3DS ever since the 3DS ended up taking off with tremendous sales last year. It hasn't been brought up on a major news site for a while, and the closest we've come this year is an oddly familiar forum post over at IGN [http://www.ign.com/boards/threads/if-phones-are-going-to-replace-handhelds-where-are-the-games-nececarry.453833905/]. The argument and concern originated from poor 3DS and Vita sales, and now that the 3DS at least is doing very well, there's very little reason to believe that the mobile market will do serious damage to Nintendo's or Sony's handhelds in the next few years. As a result, the arguments have (mostly) stopped, and this thread just seems very late to the discussion.

 

[Hero of Lime]

I think handhelds have a nice life ahead of them, at least for another two handheld generations. There will always be a group of people who want dedicated handheld systems, even if the number shrinks due to competition from smart devices.

Nintendo has to keep it's biggest franchises(Pokemon in particular) on handhelds, and people will shell out the money. The idea that smart phones are the next step in handheld gaming evolution becomes void when a bunch of people will pay over 200 dollars to play a new Pokemon game.

Little kids may be harder to reach, but they can be turned to the dark side dedicated handheld market, it jus will take a bigger effort because of the current competition via smart devices.

 

[WeepingAngels]

I think handhelds have a nice life ahead of them, at least for another two handheld generations. There will always be a group of people who want dedicated handheld systems, even if the number shrinks due to competition from smart devices.

Nintendo has to keep it's biggest franchises(Pokemon in particular) on handhelds, and people will shell out the money. The idea that smart phones are the next step in handheld gaming evolution becomes void when a bunch of people will pay over 200 dollars to play a new Pokemon game.

Little kids may be harder to reach, but they can be turned to the dark side dedicated handheld market, it jus will take a bigger effort because of the current competition via smart devices.

Just because there is a group of people who want something doesn't mean it will be made. This gen there was a sizeable group of people who wanted turn based JRPG's on consoles, they didn't get them and had to move to handhelds. Guess where many JRPG's are being released now?

 

[MrHide-Patten]

Adding insult to injury, not only do most core mobile games not make a profit, but the majority of mobile games in general don't make a profit.

So Halfbrick, Australia's most successful developer and the only one that's opening studios in America is doing all this on zero profit.

Get your facts straight dude, just because you don't like something or think it's worth the time of day.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

I used to think phones would replace handhelds pretty quickly, but seeing the general shittiness of games on mobile systems combined with the control limitations, handhelds will have a niche for a while yet.

 

[Hero of Lime]

I think handhelds have a nice life ahead of them, at least for another two handheld generations. There will always be a group of people who want dedicated handheld systems, even if the number shrinks due to competition from smart devices.

Nintendo has to keep it's biggest franchises(Pokemon in particular) on handhelds, and people will shell out the money. The idea that smart phones are the next step in handheld gaming evolution becomes void when a bunch of people will pay over 200 dollars to play a new Pokemon game.

Little kids may be harder to reach, but they can be turned to the dark side dedicated handheld market, it jus will take a bigger effort because of the current competition via smart devices.

Just because there is a group of people who want something doesn't mean it will be made. This gen there was a sizeable group of people who wanted turn based JRPG's on consoles, they didn't get them and had to move to handhelds. Guess where many JRPG's are being released now?

Still on handhelds? I'm not always following the JRPG market, but it seems like JRPGs still have a stronger hold on handheld systems than home consoles. If I recall, the Vita has a strong JRPG library as does the 3DS. Plus, Japan's infatuation with handhelds is going to be really tough to change.

Unless you are suggesting there are a bunch of JRPGs on smart phones nowadays, I would have no idea of knowing personally.

 

[WeepingAngels]

I think handhelds have a nice life ahead of them, at least for another two handheld generations. There will always be a group of people who want dedicated handheld systems, even if the number shrinks due to competition from smart devices.

Nintendo has to keep it's biggest franchises(Pokemon in particular) on handhelds, and people will shell out the money. The idea that smart phones are the next step in handheld gaming evolution becomes void when a bunch of people will pay over 200 dollars to play a new Pokemon game.

Little kids may be harder to reach, but they can be turned to the dark side dedicated handheld market, it jus will take a bigger effort because of the current competition via smart devices.

Just because there is a group of people who want something doesn't mean it will be made. This gen there was a sizeable group of people who wanted turn based JRPG's on consoles, they didn't get them and had to move to handhelds. Guess where many JRPG's are being released now?

Still on handhelds? I'm not always following the JRPG market, but it seems like JRPGs still have a stronger hold on handheld systems than home consoles. If I recall, the Vita has a strong JRPG library as does the 3DS. Plus, Japan's infatuation with handhelds is going to be really tough to change.

Unless you are suggesting there are a bunch of JRPGs on smart phones nowadays, I would have no idea of knowing personally.

Japan has an infatuation with mobile these days. This is why mobile is getting Final Fantasy remakes and even new games while 3DS and Vita get far less. Breath of Fire 6 will not be on consoles nor handhelds but mobile devices. IOS got Secret of Mana with enhanced graphics years ago but handhelds never saw it.
I was reading a thread earlier on NeoGaf about how poorly the PS4 is selling in Japan. Mobile is taking over and people need to get comfortable with that.

 

[Euryalus]

I'm kind of confused at the constant title of time waster placed on these kinds of games. Simple or not games like fruit ninja, angry birds, and the impossible game are genuinely fun to play. I don't feel like my time was wasted playing them?

Honestly, I think of it this way: all games are time wasters. They're how I waste my time. I don't know how it's different to waste your time playing Angry Birds than it is to play Zelda.

Most hobbies are time wasters. It's no big deal. For some reason, it's considered worse in certain cases.

See I don't think of it that way though. When I do something its usually with a goal in mind. When I play a game its for catharsis or enjoyment. If a game is fun or cathartic? Goal accomplished! No time wasted!

 

[Therumancer]

My basic attitude is that phone gaming pretty much committed suicide due to the greed of people getting involved in the rush.

To begin with the threat posed by phone based games was that they seemed poised to steal the casual market. The simplicity if your typical iphone type game was so pronounced to barely be called a real game, but was perfect for someone looking to kill a minute or two waiting in line, in an elevator, or on a lunch break, or whatever else. Not to mention there being less stigma to doing it on some kind of generally useful device, rather than a dedicated game/entertainment machine. Normally this wouldn't have presented much of a threat, except for so many game companies largely deciding that the casual market is what they wanted more than anything due to the potential profits to be made from it.

What's more a lot of designers of portable games, for portable systems, seemed in cases to miss the point of what they were development, not getting that for a lot of users a portable game is not something someone is going to sit down and play for hours on end, but something they want to use on the go. Having real "serious play" games being a strength of course but it seemed like too many games that would have been good for "on the go" gaming were designed in such a fashion that they were difficult to just put down without hurting your game if say you just got called into the Doctor's Office. Not ALL games of course, but quite a few. In some cases like the "Monster Hunter" series the gameplay seems fine for bite sized chunks in many cases, but the load times, and the super-long fights involved against some of the more impressive monsters always made me wonder to an extent what the game developers were thinking when they made this. While I have sat down for hours to work on a portable in the past, mostly if I'm home or whatever I'll be on my PC or an actual game console when I want to play.

All you really needed for the "phones" to overtake everything was for the guys doing it to start developing some more serious games, but with a more reliable eye towards on-the-go play. I figured once the capabilities of the phones started to catch up in terms of storage space and such, the portables were going to run into serious trouble. Of course once the phone developers largely got to that point they started to implode on themselves with their micro transaction systems and such, the games you saw that were released with the potential to start competing like say "Dungeon Keeper" wound up being so glutted with microtransactions that it became equivalent to pretty much paying $1 per minute to entertain yourself in a waiting room or whatever. Even the simple games started selling power ups and such for crazy amounts of money.

At one time the biggest threat to the portable market was when someone doing iphone games was going to be able to make something like a "Shin Megami Tensei", "Monster Hunter", or "Pokémon" game as good as one from a portable on their systems and then undercut the prices. Now that's less of a question, because if they ever did create something like say Pokémon, they would probably decide to charge you like $1.00 a Pokeball, like each gym/badge behind a paywall, and similar things... and I really don't see that changing.

This isn't to say that portable games don't have their greedy aspects, after all a lot of them do, but it has managed to so far remain free of a lot of the rot infecting phone gaming, you pay more money up front for a reliably high quality game, and while you might get chased around for DLC, your not likely to say load up "Soul Sacrifice" and have Librom demand your Credit Card number up front before your allowed to even start playing (and speaking of Soul Sacrifice, they were fairly good about putting out some free missions to add to the game).

The result being that I think portable systems are likely to be able to hold onto a fairly good chunk of gamers. Especially if they ever decide to follow through with some of these old "cross play" ideas that had been floating around once upon a time between the portables and full sized consoles. You've seen a few experiments with things like this, but nothing as cool as some of the initial visions when people first started throwing the idea around.

 

[Hero of Lime]

I think handhelds have a nice life ahead of them, at least for another two handheld generations. There will always be a group of people who want dedicated handheld systems, even if the number shrinks due to competition from smart devices.

Nintendo has to keep it's biggest franchises(Pokemon in particular) on handhelds, and people will shell out the money. The idea that smart phones are the next step in handheld gaming evolution becomes void when a bunch of people will pay over 200 dollars to play a new Pokemon game.

Little kids may be harder to reach, but they can be turned to the dark side dedicated handheld market, it jus will take a bigger effort because of the current competition via smart devices.

Just because there is a group of people who want something doesn't mean it will be made. This gen there was a sizeable group of people who wanted turn based JRPG's on consoles, they didn't get them and had to move to handhelds. Guess where many JRPG's are being released now?

Still on handhelds? I'm not always following the JRPG market, but it seems like JRPGs still have a stronger hold on handheld systems than home consoles. If I recall, the Vita has a strong JRPG library as does the 3DS. Plus, Japan's infatuation with handhelds is going to be really tough to change.

Unless you are suggesting there are a bunch of JRPGs on smart phones nowadays, I would have no idea of knowing personally.

Japan has an infatuation with mobile these days. This is why mobile is getting Final Fantasy remakes and even new games while 3DS and Vita get far less. Breath of Fire 6 will not be on consoles nor handhelds but mobile devices. IOS got Secret of Mana with enhanced graphics years ago but handhelds never saw it.
I was reading a thread earlier on NeoGaf about how poorly the PS4 is selling in Japan. Mobile is taking over and people need to get comfortable with that.

Wait, Japan is getting more into mobile games? That does make me uncomfortable to say the least. :/

 

[axillarypuma]

I think handhelds have a nice life ahead of them, at least for another two handheld generations. There will always be a group of people who want dedicated handheld systems, even if the number shrinks due to competition from smart devices.

Nintendo has to keep it's biggest franchises(Pokemon in particular) on handhelds, and people will shell out the money. The idea that smart phones are the next step in handheld gaming evolution becomes void when a bunch of people will pay over 200 dollars to play a new Pokemon game.

Little kids may be harder to reach, but they can be turned to the dark side dedicated handheld market, it jus will take a bigger effort because of the current competition via smart devices.

Just because there is a group of people who want something doesn't mean it will be made. This gen there was a sizeable group of people who wanted turn based JRPG's on consoles, they didn't get them and had to move to handhelds. Guess where many JRPG's are being released now?

Still on handhelds? I'm not always following the JRPG market, but it seems like JRPGs still have a stronger hold on handheld systems than home consoles. If I recall, the Vita has a strong JRPG library as does the 3DS. Plus, Japan's infatuation with handhelds is going to be really tough to change.

Unless you are suggesting there are a bunch of JRPGs on smart phones nowadays, I would have no idea of knowing personally.

Japan has an infatuation with mobile these days. This is why mobile is getting Final Fantasy remakes and even new games while 3DS and Vita get far less. Breath of Fire 6 will not be on consoles nor handhelds but mobile devices. IOS got Secret of Mana with enhanced graphics years ago but handhelds never saw it.
I was reading a thread earlier on NeoGaf about how poorly the PS4 is selling in Japan. Mobile is taking over and people need to get comfortable with that.

Wait, Japan is getting more into mobile games? That does make me uncomfortable to say the least. :/

This is not all true you know, I mean yeah squeenix and crapcom and other companies got into the mobile market, but in Japan specifically handheld gaming (vita and 3ds) is stronger than ever, just because we don't get all the localizations doesn't mean it's not popular, so saying that the mobile market is getting more than the handheld market is just a big load of bullshit.(not trying to be offensive here)

So a big NOPE, mobile gaming won't replace handheld gaming, maybe in the future it will but right now it's far from doing it.

EDIT: Breath of fire will be a free to play game, and knowing crapcom they'll end fucking shit up with their bad business practices

 

[geK0]

I really wouldn't want to play any meaningful games on my phone anyway.... I like buttons, modern phones don't have buttons. Have you tried playing proper games on phones?! It's a bloody nightmare trying to get the game to do what you want! I tried playing Megaman X on a touchscreen phone and struggled to kill Chill Penguin! (easiest boss in the game). I see no reason why a good turn base game wouldn't work, but everything else needs proper buttons.



companies can make phones with buttons for gaming but they would likely only have a niche market and most developers would prefer to make the little time killers that work on the phones that only have touch screens.