Handhelds to rule the industry? Or just crappy and overpriced?

Discussion articles are fun to write and fun to have, so let’s have another one! This time it’s about handhelds. Many people have mixed feelings about handhelds. They’re over priced, they have some of the most fun games, they’ll never be good as consoles, they’re useless, etc. There’s very mixed messages here and there. So let’s take a look at some of the advantages and disadvantages of  handhelds, how they’re treated, the quality of the games they receive, and what role they’ll play in the gaming industry in the future.

Handhelds In General-

So the advantages/disadvantages, quality, etc. of handhelds. Mainly this will be pointed at the PSP, DS, and possibly the iPhone. Anyways, the advantages of handhelds are straightforward for the most part. They’re portable, they allow people to communicate on the go, most act as media players as well. Then there’s the fact that portability means the need of a battery which almost either run out too fast or die down in a year or two. Another advantage however is a handhelds ability to be easily mod-able or hack-able. This obviously allows for home made applications (homebrew) and allowing your handheld to look more unique. But of course following right behind modding and homebrew is piracy (which isn’t exactly bad for the console itself just bad for developers but it makes developers want to make games less).

Games-

There’s also the fact that there’s a large amount of blockbusters released or going to be released for handhelds. Such as the two portable Kingdom Hearts series (358/2 Days and Birth By Sleep), Pokemon games, Final Fantasy (Tactics, Dissidia, Crisis Core, and the ports), good ports (this is mostly aimed at PSP and somewhat at the DS/iPhone) and then there’s much other games that just work fantastically (Bleach Heat the Soul, Phoenix Wright, Trauma Center, Jump Ultimate Stars, Professor Layton). But sadly most of the epic games are drowned out by the large amount of unneeded ports (PSP) and shovel ware (DS, iPhone).

Pricing and Power of Handhelds-

Many people argue (like they do with laptops) that handhelds will never be as strong as their heavy, bulky, mounted counterparts. However looking at some of the recent rumors it seems that the next handhelds will bring more power than my current computer (which isn’t that bad of a computer). Plus there’s the fact that memory is constantly (literally constantly) getting cheaper and much smaller. Most flash memory manufacturers have the ability to make 2 TB cards the size of your finger nail. But on the other sides of things you have to look at the price which isn’t too good. The PSP Go costs more than the Wii and only 50 dollars less than the PS3 Slim. The iPod Touch 8GB costs a little over 200 dollars, 200 dollars, that’s alot for 8 GBs and a touch screen. I know 8 GBs may be enough for some people but that seems a little too low for a 200 dollar price tag. Then there’s the prices of games themselves. If you look at handheld games (this is obviously not including Apple and it’s silly Appstore) you find that they can get up to 40 dollars. That’s only 10 dollars less than an average console game. Seriously think about it, these games are almost half of 100 dollars. That’s alot of money, even if the game does give you alot of content it is obvious that it hasn’t been given as near as much time as an HD block buster like God of War.

User Created Content (or more 3rd party content)-

When you take into account DSiWare, AppStore, and PSP Go Minis handhelds are able to get more user/3rd party content. While they may be limited, it makes people feel happy when they get things they actually want or made. While some consoles may have this, it’s the handhelds that have it more for the most part. The downside to this however is the fact that you have to either buy some SDK or pay to be a considered a developer. Some of the prices can be ridiculous too, and even after your pay for the SDK the company that owns the handheld still gets a cut of the profit.

How They’re Treated-

Handhelds, lately atleast, seem to be treated as a way to get a quick buck lately rather than their own console. Like Sony seems to be releasing a new PSP model every year and each time they just make it a little smaller and give it features you don’t need (or in other words a gimmick). This is is also similar happened with the DSi LL/XL but instead all that was changed was the screen got an inch bigger.

Big screens…oooo…aaaa…

Then you have the iPod Touch and the iPhone. The iPod Touch 3g only got some speed upgrades and voice recognition, even though neither of these are needed or easily supported. The sad thing is that so many people though apple would add a camera and maybe a mic, but then they just pull a 3GS move on all of their iPod Touch fanbase. So a big downside with handhelds would have to be the fact that a year later there will probably be a new one, and you don’t know if it’ll be a real predecessor to your current handheld or not.

To Summarize-

Handhelds look like the may be close to either surpassing/drowning out consoles or just dieing out/down from the industry completely. There’s a large amount of people who don’t like with the way handhelds are going and vice versa for some other people as well. They may end up drowning out consoles with their fun games, portability, small size (everything’s getting smaller baby!), growing power, or even price (even though it is a disadvantage they may end up costing more than consoles). Then there’s all the disadvantages that basically negate each advantage so they may end up just dieing out as the industry matures. Who knows for sure? Anyways, I want your opinion, will the handhelds die, surpass the consoles, or stay where they are now.

Keep in mind this is not a “which is the best handheld” blog/article/discussion. Seriously, none of that please.