RIP Handheld Gaming
John Boyle
November 16, 2009
A few years back for my old job I reviewed the DS Lite, a piece of kit I still believe to be without parallel. Style, feel and build quality were all perfect, it was Nintendo at their best delivering the perfect console for handheld gaming. Granted it should have been the console that launched and not the DS Phat but nonetheless it was a triumph of design. As I write this I am sitting looking at my DS Lite and I’m beginning to wonder if this isn’t a beautiful bookend to an era of single purpose handheld gaming devices. You see, I don’t actually play too much on the DS. I picked up Scribblenauts, and along with Professor Layton they were the only games in an entire year. This isn’t through lack of enthusiasm for handheld games but instead a simple matter of maths. The money to buy the games versus how much I actually play them makes it not worth my while to invest in it. But as I already said, the DS Lite is a brilliant piece of kit, emblematic of everything Nintendo did right in the industry and if the games are there to be played then why aren’t I playing them?
Simple, the handheld console as we know it is dead.
I grew up as a child of the Sega/Nintendo rivalry. Where Sega kids were cool and Nintendo kids weren’t. I owned everything Sega, I flew the flag high and led the way into the abyss Sega were headed, yet even during this gaming civil war Sega fans were given allowances to buy a Gameboy. It was no betrayal, just an acceptance that there was only one console worth owning if you wanted handhelds. It was huge, clunky and needed natural light to play. Games had cardboard boxes and those little plastic holders, it needed batteries and with hindsight was not particularly portable but it was still the best of the bunch. As the industry evolved the handheld market continued to be owned by Nintendo and Nintendo handhelds evolved with the times. Size decreased along with weight, backlit screens came in as did rechargable battery packs in a drive to keep them portable. Now I can slot my DS Lite into my inside pocket and game on the move, but it’s this evolution which has killed handhelds as we know them.
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Because in that pocket there is now competition. In my youth mobile phones were a rarity, and portable music was a walkman… again a rarity. Three years ago when the DS Lite launched people had their phone and an mp3 player in their pocket, neither really suited to gaming so the console still had a right to be with you. After all, you have devices for everything else so why not one for gaming? Now though Apple have changed the way we view devices, it’s all about portability and ease of use. Why have three devices when you can have a jack of all trades? The iPhone is now delivering all experiences to you, and the assumption that your pocket should reserve a space for your DS Lite is questioned. Why should I take a now clunky console with one game when on my phone I can have a few dozen high quality games at much lower prices? It’s all about portability and ease of use and for the first time in my lifetime Nintendo look very dated in this market.
The DSi is aiming to remedy that with digital distribution but I refuse to buy another console when the writing is on the wall. The Gameboy remained unchanged for years because it was perfect for the market, the fact Nintendo have rolled out mp3 player attachments and online stores shows me that the DS is no longer suited to the market it’s in. Handheld gaming as we remember it is gone, in its place will be a battle between multipurpose devices delivering a weaker but more user friendly gaming experience. The ironic thing is Nintendo created this market. Their drive for portability and simpler experiences would always question the existence of handheld gaming hardware and it’s getting to the point where the next Nintendo handheld will not be compared to the new PSP but instead to phones and mp3 players, unless it offers more than gaming then it will fail.
If you’d told the young me that one day you’d be playing a game only to be able to stop, phone someone and then download a new game all from the one screen he would have laughed at you. Hell even a few years ago I wrote of how handheld gamers don’t want the multipurpose PSP offering, and that dedicated hardware will always offer the experience the consumer wants. I’ve been proved wrong though, consumers want one device to rule them all and for once it isn’t Nintendo branded. The high sales and untouchable nature of the DS is a fitting end to an era of handheld gaming, we’re moving into a new era where it’s truly mass market and considered essential to portable entertainment.
November 16th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Oh, well done :D
When I saw the title I thought, “But it’s a massive industry!”, yet by the end you had me nodding along to myself and thinking you were absolutely right :D Good stuff.
One (small) thought tho; never ones to willingly walk away from money-making opportunities, could Nintendo fight back with an all-in-one of their own?
If it looked the part (i.e. unbelievably gorgeous), a Nintendo Phoneboy could be the first piece of must-have kit to give the iPhone a run for it’s money. Massive installed user-base, instant brand recognition, and (in Japan at least) a product for the whole family could give them the start needed to make it possible. Also, they’re still software kings, and they’ve got some killer IP :)
Anyway, ’s just a thought :) Good blog, man.
November 16th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
It’s an interesting thought, but I don’t agree. Smartphones are not designed for gaming, and they’re simply not as good as a dedicated handheld gaming device. I play on my DS, an original model (I don’t like the Lite, it’s too small for my hands, so I for one am quite happy the Lite was not the first release), quite often. Right at this moment in time I’m playing through Scribblenauts, the newest Professor Layton, Pokemon Platinum, and replaying the first Phoenix Wright. Whenever I go away on a trip, the DS comes with me in much the same way my GBA SP used to. When I go into hospital, the DS is utterly invaluable, because mobiles are simply not allowed, for fear they might interfere with some vital equipment. Nurses do not accept the “but my phone has a flight mode that shuts down it’s ability to make calls”, but they’re utterly oblivious to the fact that the DS has wireless capabilities or know that they must be specifically turned on. I would have gone insane by now with boredom on hospital visits, and back when I used to go on a lot of business trips abroad on plane, without my DS or my GBA.
Then, there’s the ergonomics. Mobile phones are too fiddly. They’ve gotten too small. The buttons on my current mobile are so small that every time I try to scroll to the right I accidentally hit the cancel button and shut down what I was doing. That’s never going to work for gaming. An iPhone doesn’t even have physical buttons. A DS has all the buttons you need to play handheld games as well as the touchscreen, and they’re laid out in a fashion that suits extended gameplay, and they’re big enough for anyone to use. I’m not fat, far from it, I just inherited my grandfather’s massive hands. I need proper buttons with some decent space between them. And I can’t be the only one.
Finally, downloadable games are just never going to be able to compete with physical media. With physical cartridges you can take as many games around with you as you like. With downloadable titles, you can only take as many as you can get on your device’s memory. Not to mention that most downloadable titles are complete crap, because of size limitations. For every good DS title there are a hundred rubbish ones. But for every good iPhone app there are a million rubbish ones, because of the distribution system, and because of the way they are developed. It’s all well and good to say that advances mean that future handheld devices will have much larger capacity and all, but those same advances in memory storage allow for cartridges of comparable exponential expansion, so the cartridge is always going to have the edge in how big and expansive and good a game can potentially be, compared to games that have to fit onto inbuilt memory and still allow space for others.
It’s an interesting read, and certainly a valid interpretation, but I just can’t agree with you on this one, because I think that handheld gaming will continue to evolve and adapt and carry on, and that the mobile smartphone fad will eventually start to pass. Before long, everyone and their dog will have a smartphone the same way they did with basic mobile phones. A dedicated handheld though is special, and will still be special to those with a passion for games. It’s a little unfair to say that handheld gaming is dying on the basis of the DS seeming dated, because it is old. It’s near the end of its development cycle. The GBA seemed very dated in its final days, and then the DS was released and sold millions and renewed interest in handhelds. Nintendo probably has a replacement for the DS waiting in the wings as well. Hopefully one which will avoid the folly of the latest PSP design and still support physical media.
November 16th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
nah the control scheme on the iPhone only works for certain games and the experiences on offer are limited they are also expensive and nobody wants to give there kids free reign on a iTunes account.
I think devices like the DS still have a place but they have defiantly been marginalised (to kids i would say), whereas a smart phone is currently seen as a grown up device. Although as prices come down and iPhone devs start expanding what there games can do and if they can push the prices up to support complex development (pretty big IF thus far) Then maybe the DS and its ilk will snuff it.
We’ll just have to wait a few years and see…
November 16th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
Khannnnnn i mean Ramsdennnnnnnnnnnnnnn
good points tho man
November 16th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
It’s not about what’s best for the games though. I agree that a dedicated device will always deliver a better experience, but the vast majority don’t care and the iPhone app downloads are showing that people are viewing mobile media in a very different way. As for digital media it’s the way of the future, whereas in the past people would grab carts and stick them in their bag now people will boot up iTunes and manage their apps before heading out. It really is the way of the future for all media, but mobile media will lead the way I am 100% sure of this. The good/bad software ratio on DS is already atrocious, with every New SMB you have 8 “Imagine” titles from Ubi. You talk about all that’s great about the DS but don’t mention why the iPhone is so popular as a device for gaming. People love the simplicity, the accelerometer, the ease and cost of downloads and in the end it’s a judgement call as to which you prefer. The thing is there are increasing numbers of the latter and I don’t see this changing.
Darach, a Nintenphone would be pretty interesting. Heard those rumours for ages and I refuse to believe a company like them haven’t at least investigated it. If they did though it’d be the final proof that the industry changed, after all Nintendo are the last company to move their console away from games. Hell even the Wii doesn’t support DVDs!
November 16th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
Ramsden – “downloadable games are just never going to be able to compete with physical media” – come back in 15 years! It’s happening! Can you really say it’s easier for people to carry around a wallet full of physical cartridges rather than storing all of the same games on one drive? And even if I agreed that the size of new games will increase at a greater rate than the storage capacity of devices (which I don’t), those games aren’t necessarily going to get much bigger – is there a push and rapacious demand for better and better graphics in handheld devices?
The PSP has lost the battle to the (far inferior in my terms) DS already – at great cost to Sony. The money and the market for something like a handheld Gran Turismo doesn’t compare to the market for “Brain Training 7 – Now with Pie Charts!!!!111!!!!”.
I guess we’ll see. Personally, I want to see better and better graphics in handheld games, and more and more computational power in the devices themselves. For me, that empowers developers more than a little plastic pointing wand. At the moment, that push and development from the market leader seems a couple of generations away, whilst we all get bogged down in little puzzle games and Mario clones.
Although…….aren’t Nokia touting that super-tech that allows massively increased portable computing power? I can’t remember its name.
All in all, it’s all moot once Football Manager comes to iPhone. Then I will be truly lost.
November 16th, 2009 at 7:19 pm
Digital media may well be forced on people as the medium of the future, but it still has a very long way to go. And I maintain that the iPhone and other smartphones are a fad. They’re currently in fashion, but it won’t last. And inevitably with things that are ultra-fashionable, a lot of people make themselves think they like everything about it because they don’t want to stand out. Personally I don’t have such shallow concerns. The iPhone’s simplicity might be seen as a good thing, I concur. But Nintendo have added simple accelerometers to special GBA carts in the past, and if they really wanted to they could do it in a special DS attachment for the GBA slot. They never will though, because of the stupid idea of removing the GBA slot from the DSi. As for the ease and cost of the iPhone for downloading apps, I would contend that any price is too much for 99% of the apps out there, because they’re rubbish.
You’re right, it is a judgement call. But I’m hoping that manufacturers will continue to take into account the desires of dedicated gamers, instead of looking to make a cheap buck flogging fashionable but inferior gimmicks to the masses as their primary marketing strategy. In the past I would have absolutely counted on Nintendo at least doing this, but with the way they’ve handled the DS and the Wii, playing up the casual gaming side of them to make them fashionable for the general public at the expense of quality software, my confidence has been shaken. If gaming does become second fiddle to being the “in-thing” and making money, it will be a very, very sad day for everyone who has a serious love of games.