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This Is How Today’s Portable Gaming Dies

This Is How Today’s Portable Gaming Dies

Sit down, friends. Ever since I wrote this little ditty about my ideal NX something has been bothering me. I followed a new train of thought that eventually led me to the conclusion that we are on the brink of death for handheld gaming as we know it. Please notice that I’m not saying handheld gaming is going away, simply that the way games are developed and published for handhelds – independent of their console counterparts – is going to change drastically with the next generation of consoles. Let me take a step back and address the two possible features of the NX (which are both probable features of future consoles) that led me to this conclusion.

For those of you who didn’t read the article, it was basically a wishlist of NX features I’m hoping Nintendo will reveal this year. Two of those features are dependent on the NX being some kind of hybrid console with a portable, handheld component. Those two features are what I call “omni-compatibility,” the ability to eventually play every Nintendo game ever released for any of its consoles or handhelds (through downloads and emulation), and seamless remote play capabilities. Considering that cloud storage and cloud processing may both have roles to play in the success of Nintendo’s next console, both of these features seem perfectly plausible to me.

Now imagine for a moment that the NX handheld component is highly portable, rechargeable, and utilizes internal and cloud storage. That would mean that as long as you have even a decent internet connection, you’d be able to play any Nintendo game from the days of NES and Gameboy, to the latest 3DS and NX titles. That may sound farfetched, but if the technology is there – if it’s possible – doesn’t that just make sense?

Are you still with me? After I had that thought I realized that Microsoft and Sony would likely follow suit. Innovative, successful tech is always imitated and even improved upon, even when the original idea is locked behind patents. Retro gaming is thriving on all three current-gen consoles, and handhelds have already played a big part in Sony and Nintendo’s gaming histories. In Sony’s case, my vision for the future has already seen its first iteration.

This Is How Today’s Portable Gaming Dies

The PS Vita is a brilliant device, and it had some fantastic games. If you were thinking about buying one now, however, very few would heartily recommend it unless you have a PS4. The Vita and PS4 work well as a team. Cross-buy titles and cloud saves make many of our favorite games more accessible than ever, and even though the remote play is really spotty (actually it usually sucks), it’s great being able to occasionally play some Dragon Quest Heroes while lying in bed.

Don’t you see? The death of handheld gaming as we know it won’t come from consoles being too awesome or smartphones taking over, it will come from consoles and handhelds coming together to work as one unit. Developers will soon be thinking about the big screen whenever they think about the small screen, and vice versa. How you play games on the go will influence the way future hardware is designed for the home. I predict that the big three will soon (within a few years) develop portable compliments to their home consoles that make your favorite games accessible no matter where you are. For late adopters with no console looking for a mobile fix? The teleological end of the smartphone gaming evolution is to fill that void.

So what do you think? Are we only a few years away from console gaming going portable? Will the 3DS go down as the last independent handheld from Nintendo with its own games? Sound off in the comments with your own predictions, or tell me how wrong I am.

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