The Last Generation Of Handhelds?‏

So, (sigh) the 3DS looks like it has been the biggest hardware disaster that Nintendo have had since their last 3D outing, the Virtual Boy.  But hopefully the fact that some decent games are coming out for it will change the trend (Yes, Super Mario Land 3D and Mario Kart 7 I’m talking about you two bad boys… oh, and how hard would it have been to have brought out a new Zelda and Starfox game… really?). The great new handheld hope is the PS Vita (although I still prefer ‘NGP’, but I guess a focus group at Sony said if they gave their new handheld a name that sounded like a mineral water more chicks would buy it. Well, not this chick… not yet anyway). It has a touchscreen, wi fi, 3G, a back touch screen, but somehow, I don’t feel that it’s going to set the world on fire… unless it’s made from actual fire.

Why is this, I hear no one ask? Because I think it’s still a little behind what anyone else wants.  Look at the Xperia Play.  For those of you that don’t know, it’s basically an android phone blended together with a PSP Go. You can use it as a portable and download all the stuff you already have from the PlayStation Store (like those free games you got when the site was hacked) and also use it as an Android phone.  The problem is, they should have done it five years ago. Back then, Sony Ericsson was one of the gold standard phone manufacturers, the PSP was just a year old and the iPhone was still a year away. A PSP can still blow the iPhone 4 away in terms of graphical power, even after the Apple produce has gone through its fourth iteration. If it had been a choice in 2007 between an Xperia Play and an iPhone, that would have been a real choice.  Now you would get an Xperia Play because you couldn’t afford an iPhone.The new demo of Uncharted: Golden Abyss, the Vita version of the game has gone online and it demonstrates that you can use the touch screen to control the game like a iPhone game.  It has a proper joypad and buttons.  Why do you want to smear the screen with your fingerprints if you don’t have to! You have a whole touch pad on the back so you can ‘touch’ the screen without obscuring the action with your finger! If you want to make the console like an iPhone why don’t you make it a real competitor?Make it a phone! Why not? If you’re going to have a 3G antenna anyway (which you have to pay the equivalent of £17 to join in Japan, and then if you decided to drop the monthly 3G service, £17 every time you want to reconnect! Say whaaaaaat!) With the iPhone 5 coming, (and the dual core Android phones like the Galaxy S 2 .. and soon quad cores) the consumers are likely to see few advantages to buying a Vita than getting a new generation phone.

I have an Android phone… and I love it but sometimes I feel I would love it more if the bottom corners of the display of every game weren’t taken up by my thumbs. (I hate thumbs, especially my thumbs after eating YumYums). Games have evolved to be played in a square, not a top heavy triangle.  Plus, as strange as it sounds, people seem to forget how satisfying the feedback of actually pressing a button is. I love it. I would push the ‘DO NOT PUSH’ button if I knew it was gunna give me feedback. Plus, the dual analogue stick system that has been toyed around with in various ways since the Dual Shock 2 seems as though it will be the ultimate evolution of the joypad until we develop the science to give us an extra set of thumbs!

What would I really like; I would like to take the PS Vita, and also make it a phone (Android, I guess but I would be happy if I could just make calls on it so I could stop having to carry another thing around in my pocket). Also, I would merge it with a 3DS, so the screen could be glasses free 3D with a slider if I wanted it and the thing could be a clamshell so the screen is protected and not always getting smudged, and you have the option of using a stylus.  Also, it would be pretty cool, and not impossible for it to have one of those laser keyboard projectors in it when you set it on a table in the bottom of the clamshell and a pico projector on the top so you could put the image on your phone up on the wall, (and it could also include a handy bottle opener, a Star Trek style replicator and a telescopic Samurai sword for the inevitable zombie attack… ok maybe not those three). The point is, this is all existing technology and if you want to take on Apple, you have to offer something much greater than the current technology is.  And I know, the Vita is a handheld console, not a smartphone but those worlds are merging.  It’s no longer apples and oranges… it’s apanges and orples, erm yeh, (I assure you I’m not having a stroke). And once again, it seems that the handheld consoles are moving behind the times of other technology. It happened with Sega when the Dreamcast wasn’t a DVD player when the PS2 was and a lot of PS3’s sold on the strength of their Blu-Ray players and the constant hours worth of Come Dine With Me.

It seems like a bold statement, but unless they start offering a lot more, the 3DS and the PS Vita could be the last standalone hand held consoles… before Sony and Nintendo go the way of Sega and realize they could make more money producing apps for the iPhone than they can trying to market their own consoles.