I love handheld consoles. I loved the PS Vita and I loved loved loved the 3DS.
But I’m wondering if Sony will ever make a handheld console again? And I’m wondering what the NX will even look like. Will it combine home consoles and handhelds in a way we’re not used to?
Is the standalone handheld console dead in the water?
I sure hope not. But what are your thoughts — would you buy another handheld console? Are you happy with just your mobile? Personally some of my favourite gaming experiences of the last decade have been on a handheld console: Fez on the Vita, Luigi’s Mansion 2 on the 3DS. The best Zelda game since Wind Waker was on the 3DS.
Anyway, this is my way of saying that I love handheld gaming and I hope it never goes away.
Comments
46 responses to “The Big Question: Would You Buy Another Handheld Console?”
I haven’t used my 3DSes for anything but StreetPass in months upon months. Hell I haven’t even gotten around to transferring over to the n3DS I bought at some point late last year.
But yes I absolutely would, because I have a problem. Many problems, and hoarding is one 😛
I have a child who’s just getting old enough, so probably will be getting two of Ninty’s next offering.
Prefer playing the smaller indie & arcade style titles on a handheld.
Also, I remote play a lot on my Vita & I spend about 2 hours a day travelling to & from work.
So yeah, handhelds are a must have.
Me too on the travel thing. Also, awesome for playing on the toilet and also after you tell the missus you will stop playing on the PS4 and go to bed now… (secret gaming is sweetest gaming)
I’m a serial toilet gamer.
But the Mrs thing isn’t an issue. I dont understand how it works, but playing on the tv is a big no no with her, while a handheld is nothing.
Once she goes to bed though, the living room is mine, MINE!
MWA HA HA HAH
HAW HA HAW HA HAAAAA HA HAAAAAA
Yeah, I have the opposite problem. My missus is a big night owl and goes to bed around 3-5am so I have virtually no chance of getting the living room to myself. So I have the bedroom to myself (and my Vita) for some sexy times.
I’ve been a toilet gamer since the original Pokemon – I was lucky my family had two toilets! I really only buy handhelds for Pokemon these days, so I’ll be buying them until Nintendo puts Pokemon on something else, which I don’t see happening for a while yet.
Yeah I take public transport, and this is just my personal experience, but I think phones suck for gaming. I like buttons! So bring on a 4DS or whatever.
Depends… Is there more Legend Of Zelda, more Harvest Moon / Rune Factory, and more Monster Hunter? Then sign me up!
Edit: Another bonus would be to make it waterproof so I could take it into the shower for an all new level of sad.
Up vote for the invention of shower gaming!
And again, best idea ever
*Raises Hand* This is what my Z3 is for – Shower youtube, shower music, shower gaming.
I like the sound of a waterproof 3DS though .
Certainly consider another PS Vita or whatever the next gen version is (particularly for remote play but cross-play would be awesome as well)
However I’ve been burnt by Nintendo with the Wii and Wii U.. I’d be very unlikely to get the next one and the 3DS was very lacklustre so I gave it to my wife.
Hell no. Bought a 3DS and Sky3DS earlier in the year then sold it after a few months because I played all the good shit.
I wish I could have that kind of efficiency. Backlog would no longer be a thing.
Just like less stuff
Get them to make less stuff that’s so likeable!
Wait no don’t do that.
Leaning towards no, but that may very well change when they announce the next shiny thing. The games that appeal to me on 3DS and Vita have been very few and far between.
I have a Vita and I love it, although I mostly only use it when I’m travelling, which isn’t all that often.
I really don’t see any need for one as yet – the existing hardware is plenty powerful enough to run the kinds of games that I want to play on the go. I’d certainly consider buying one, but the price would need to be pretty compelling to get me interested. And yeah… cheaper storage, too.
I’ve had a DS since launch (still got a first gen one actually) that was a godsend when commuting. As I no longer commute, it sits on a shelf as a dust gatherer. Also the reason I never upgraded to a 3DS.
So I’m on the fence. I clicked yes, because for significant gaming handhelds are far superior to phones, but these days I dont have the travel time that warrants one.
I think the larger problem is that mobile phones are making it far easier to play popcorn games, which is enough for most people. Add in that the AAA games on mobile are actually pretty damn good, and the catalog of a handheld starts to look weak.
I wont know until a new handheld comes along thats worth it. And what sort of tech will that need to be? PS3 level? Thats a big ask.
If it was something that could grab me like the Game Boy did all those years ago, I’d be all in.
I go through long periods of not touching it. Now Fire Emblem has been released I can’t put it down. As long as it gets supported properly I will buy it. I can’t stand playing games on my phone. Sony have given me child get about buying a Vita though.
MAYBE. I kind of want to, even though I have absolutely no need for one, have tried a few times in the past and never end up using them because I have dedicated machines couch/desktop which do games so much better, and don’t run quite the same risk of getting lost. Making matters worse, the pricing seems to always be crap.
‘Portable’ gaming is never really ‘portable’ in that you can’t really do it while driving, it’s difficult to do during commutes unless you’re playing only the most basic of drop-in-drop-out games, battery life is pretty much universally shit-house unless you’re camped out near a charger (in which case it’s hardly ‘portable’, is it? Unless you’re on holiday or something, in which case WHY ARE YOU WASTING THAT TIME GAMING? GO GET DRUNK IN A FOREIGN BAR/ENGAGE WITH YOUR HOSTS!).
That said… There’s easily a good half-dozen platform exclusives for the 3DS that have me very interested in the idea of getting an XL.
Portable gaming is awesome for getting some time to play those 100+ hour JRPGs. The Vita’s instant on/suspend is great for that. I’ve put 90 hours into Trails in the Sky SC on buses in the past 6-8 weeks.
I would be perpetually trying to remember where the hell I was up to, and/or losing the edge on all my title-specific skills. I experienced this hardcore with pokemon and TWEWY.
(This is likely due to my ‘binge’ style. I don’t come back to things on a regular basis – I go hard til I’ve got my money’s worth, then put it away/forget about it/get distracted by the newest shiny.)
Yeah, I think you are right. You need to be able to play frequently to be able to maintain the experience.
I will buy another handheld if they start creating an ecosystem with the console space rather than just sharing saves or porting games. I really don’t understand why Nintendo didn’t make the 3DS be able to act as a pad controller for the WiiU as it seemed like an obvious match. It also disappoints me that Sony never pursued that avenue with the Vita either despite their initial marketing making it sound like they were (Heck even the PSP was originally touted as being able to act as a second screen but only one game used it). I absolutely adore my Vita and love the 3DS as well but it’s always disappointing that I can only use them on their own and not in conjunction with my PS3/4 and WiiU.
I’d buy the shit out of another SOny Handheld.. if they actually support the damn thing with more games…
Here here! These days it just feels like a poor man’s Steam.
Or rich man, with the lack of decent sales 😛 hahaha
Not on the US store, sweet sweet 99c flash sales.
Awwwwwwwww yeeeeeeeeah
Like others, for me it depends. Don’t get me wrong, the 3DS has great 3D effects but the DRM has absolutely wreaked it for me.
I had an earlier model then got the Majora’s Mask edition. I thought this was a joke but it turned out that the 14 step process to transfer one’s data from the old unit to a new one is both real and freaking painful!
My requirements are very simple:
1. A good selection of games I like,
2. No region locking, and
3. Not making transfer processes resemble US tax forms!
Don’t use remote play at all? I get my money’s region locking is absolute bullshit.
Imagine you took one traveling overseas. I remember grabbing DS games in Taiwan & Advance games from Japan.
Isn’t Remote Play a feature of the Vita? I have one of those (the original OLED model) but Sony basically left it to rot in the game department.
I’m really confused as to the location of the middle of my comment & am suspicious that somehow it’s added another comment to the top.
I think the RP thing was aimed at someone else. Not sure what’s happening.
It depends on the games made for it.
I so wanted a Vita but none of the game released for it interested me.
Currently playing my N3DS XL on public transport and I still have a pile of shame games on my DS, PSP and Xperia Play to keep me busy until the next gen handheld(s) come out.
Sony should have made a “Xperia Vita” as I’m sick of carrying a phone and a handheld.
I absolutely adore my 3ds and my vita, but I travel 3 hours a day. I have a load of games for both handhelds and I would absolutely hate to see them die out. A smartphone just doesn’t have the same oomph for me.
Both Nintendo and Sony have some lessons to learn. I want to see more third party on 3ds and the death of region locking, and more first party on Vita, and the death of proprietary memory cards. Oh, and the ability to swap accounts on the Vita so I can move between PSN regions.
If a gaming device comes out and it has at some point in its lifecycle has at least 3 games on it that I want to play that require that device, then yup.
Nintendo all the way, anything else probably not. I did own the original PSP and I did like it but I there was never enough games on the Vita that took my interest to warrant buying one. At least with Nintendo you know off the bat there will be at least a dozen solid titles made by Nintendo themselves over the lifespan of the system.
For sure, Got given a 2DS this year and have been loving it! Wish I got one earlier!
Also it can play DS games, so the back catalogue is huge!
Im really hoping the NXT is the handheld hybrid which has been rumoured.
nah, I barely play my 3DS because I don’t have anywhere far to go to justify playing the damn thing XP
Yes very much so, I have a two hour commute each day.
I did have a Vita and a 3DS, but I got over the Vita and sold it.
If Nintendo really sort it out properly and really are going with a unified OS with the NX and next handheld, I hope this means more cross platform games from them.
I love my vita and am still going to get a 3ds at some point
I don’t think Sony will make another handheld. Nintendo? Maybe. Hard to say for sure. I personally believe the NX is going to be some kind of hybrid.
I’ve only recently purchased a 3DS. I do catch the train every day so I have that time to kill. But just like any other console, I wouldn’t buy one until there are games on it that I want to play.
Probably – I still crack out the PSP occasionally for a sneaky bout of Sid Meier’s Pirates
Hell yes. Just as soon as the next Pokemon game comes out on it.
I don’t know why Nintendo doesn’t just make Pokemon a launch title with every new handheld as they would undoubtedly sell more units faster.
I’m not a big fan of phone games, I’m keen to see what Pokemon GO will be like but I seriously doubt it will compete with the traditional games.
Other than Pokemon there are just so many good games on there I love (admitedly mostly RPGs) like Bravely Default + Second, Fire Emblem Fates, Zelda, I recently even got Starfox 64 3D after finding out Starfox Zero was basically Starfox 64 just more disappointing.
At this point probably no, i got very good mileage out of my Nintendo DS and 3DS but now they are mostly collecting dust, i can emulate most of their games on my phone as well so that took it’s place and a few decent mobile games helped to make that decision also.
I had a PSP before that and it was also similarly great but ended up collecting dust so i sold it =P
It would have to have some pretty damn amazing games AND be region free to get me to consider buying another one, no idea why Nintendo thought that would be a good idea for the 3ds to be region locked.
Only if they work to their strengths
recently i payed 80 for a gameboy micro. I love focused Handheld experiences: the DS lite and GBA were terrific. What the 3DS and (especially) Vita did wrong was trying to cover too many bases, and thinning themselves. Everybody has mobiles; we don’t need browsers, fb and netflix on our handhelds.
DS Lite had 4 things to do: DS game, GBA game, Pictochat or download play.
Concise. Eloquent.
It’s something the current gen of both consoles and handhelds have forgotten