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[Livingskeletons]

With the failure of the Vita and the diminishing returns of the 3Ds as well as the ever encroaching mobile market; dedicated handheld gaming devices seem to be on the ropes. Now I know Nintendo has system sellers like Pokemon in its back pocket. But do you see the possibility of the next Nintendo handheld being the last one?

 

[Abstrusity]

The diminishing returns of the 3DS were still very strong for what, 5 years now? Like, the attach rate is really good.

 

[whiterabbit]

If Nintendo sticks around as a hardware and software company, I imagine they will keep making both handhelds and consoles as they have for quite some time... I don't have a crystal ball though, so who knows...

 

[Ōkami]

The diminishing returns of the 3DS were still very strong for what, 5 years now? Like, the attach rate is really good.

3DS attatch rate is among Nintendo's worst.

 

[Busaiku]

3DS attatch rate is among Nintendo's worst.

For their handhelds, it has the 2nd best.
DS was a huge outlier. 3DS is just a bit above GB and GBA.

 

[WiiRevolution1]

While its market is shrunken, Nintendo's handheld's aren't going anywhere. 3DS still sold over 50 million units, which is good for any system, and several million sellers. Its Nintendo's main market and they won't leave it unless they themselves give up on gaming.

 

[Neospartan]

If there's any next handheld at al, then yes it would be the last one. The market has changed, there's no longer space for handhelds.

 

[Toki767]

Doubt it as long as Nintendo continues to make their handheld games and Capcom continues to make Monster Hunter.

 

[Delio]

I think they will keep going for as long as Nintendo wants.

 

[minkymuskyslyoldstoaty]

If it does well I think thy will make another one. By do well, I mean around the 3DS final total.

 

[SinCityAssassin]

It'll work as long as Nintendo takes the steps to make it keep working.

 

[jblank83]

3DS still sold over 50 million units, which is good for any system, and several million sellers

http://gamingbolt.com/nintendo-repo...s-at-58-8-million-wii-u-sales-at-12-8-million

Approaching 60 million. Like any system with a good library, it'll probably keep selling for a few more years, even after Nintendo pulls the cord on its software output.

 

[perorist]

Assuming it has a 5 year lifecycle from 2017 to 2021, then probably.

I don't expect the dedicated handheld market to be viable in 2022.

 

[baconcow]

3DS attatch rate is among Nintendo's worst.

For their handhelds, it has the 2nd best.

 

[120v]

i'd say yes... this will piss off a lot of people but the main market for them outside of japan is children. and even that demo is dwindling to mobile

the caveat is we've yet to see an all in one device that can stream to big screen. (shield doesn't count)

 

[Pancake Mix]

The diminishing returns of the 3DS were still very strong for what, 5 years now? Like, the attach rate is really good.

The 3DS hardware sales haven't been good outside Japan since 2012, and that's kept software sales down, solid attach rate or not.

i'd say yes... this will piss off a lot of people but the main market for them outside of japan is children. and even that demo is dwindling to mobile

the caveat is we've yet to see an all in one device that can stream to big screen. (shield doesn't count)

Why will that piss people off? More importantly, why does their main market being children mean this handheld will do better than the 3DS after 2012?

It could do well, it might even do better than 3DS, but children aren't the variable here. A lot of children get handed down smart devices now, and that's undoubtedly cut into the handheld market from the 230+ million that the DS and PSP sold last gen.

 

[Rodney McKay]

I doubt they'll be stopping it anytime soon.

I think it all depends on what the NX ends up being. If it's a home console/handheld combo kinda thing, then I'd say that's probably the direction they'll go in. Not getting handheld exclusive games, but still having a handheld that plays the console games.

 

[Neoxon]

Seeing as handhelds make the most money for Nintendo, especially in Japan, I doubt it.

 

[AgeEighty]

I think there will still be a market for dedicated game handhelds for the foreseeable future, though it may become more niche as time goes on. There are still a lot of us who demand tactile controls for our games.

 

[jackal27]

When you really think about it, handheld gaming has grown if anything. The market has just changed. I think that if Nintendo can tap into what's attractive about the mobile market for so many while still keeping up the quality and depth of their games, it'll get even stronger.

 

[120v]

Why will that piss people off? More importantly, why does their main market being children mean this handheld will do better than the 3DS after 2012?

well a good deal of people here are handheld gamers. and maybe i'm not clear but i think any dedicated handheld is bound to do worse from here on out

 

[Del Boca Vista]

lol dedicated handhelds are dying so hard. there will be no next nintendo handheld, i mean it'll probably be a phone or at least a tablet

 

[Father_Brain]

Yes, absolutely. I don't understand how anyone can suggest otherwise, looking at the growth of mobile gaming, Vita's abject failure, and 3DS' less than healthy sales trends.

 

[Pancake Mix]

well a good deal of people here are handheld gamers. and maybe i'm not clear but i think any dedicated handheld is bound to do worse from here on out

It's true though, even as a Nintendo fan I can't deny who they market their products to, and frankly, when they succeed in doing so I'm happy because I (usually) want those products to succeed.

If any part of HandheldGAF is in denial, I mean, it's right in the name for the original Game Boy back in 1989, and it was there over and over again through the Micro in 2005. Nintendo makes no bones about it, and it's still true today. You're right.

Yeah, I agree. I think it might be able to do better than the 3DS, but it's an uphill battle as the scene outside of Japan since 2013 hasn't been great. They also have beat that figure with fewer kids as the 3DS arrived early enough (especially in Japan where smartphones as we know them took off later), that it could compete on a decent level at the beginning before the decline outside of Japan. If they can find some way of grabbing the attention of kids away from smart devices and to the handheld it would help.

That Japan stuck to feature phones for so long was good news for Nintendo.

 

[Neoxon]

If there's any next handheld at all, then yes it would be the last one. The market has changed, there's no longer space for handhelds.

lol dedicated handhelds are dying so hard. there will be no next nintendo handheld, i mean it'll probably be a phone or at least a tablet

There will be another Nintendo handheld after the 3DS.

 

[jackal27]

well a good deal of people here are handheld gamers. and maybe i'm not clear but i think any dedicated handheld is bound to do worse from here on out

Yeah that's me. I don't even play consoles anymore really. No time for them. Here's hoping there will always be some form of handheld out there. I believe there will be, even if it's cheap Android or Linux systems.

 

[Ninja Scooter]

While its market is shrunken, Nintendo's handheld's aren't going anywhere. 3DS still sold over 50 million units, which is good for any system, and several million sellers. Its Nintendo's main market and they won't leave it unless they themselves give up on gaming.

Those numbers don't exist in a vacuum. It represents a pretty significant and concerning contraction from one product cycle to the next. And with their inroads into mobile and all the talk of their next gaming endeavor being a hybrid in some way, clearly Nintendo appears to see the writing on the wall. Doesn't mean dedicated handheld gaming is going to disappear overnight.

 

[Father_Brain]

Seeing as handhelds make the most money for Nintendo, especially in Japan, I doubt it.

By the time the NX handheld launches, the Japanese dedicated handheld market will have shrunk somewhere between 40 and 50 percent from last gen, so I'm afraid I don't exactly follow this logic.

 

[Neoxon]

By the time the NX handheld launches, the Japanese dedicated handheld market will have shrunk somewhere between 40 and 50 percent from last gen, so I'm afraid I don't exactly follow this logic.

My point is that the console market isn't doing that well, & handhelds are now doing better over there (though, judging by your numbers, not by much). The handhelds are Nintendo's only true foothold in Japan right now (besides mobile, which Nintendo just got into). Not to mention that a good chunk of Nintendo's existing third party support is a result of their presence in the handheld market.

 

[aesupreme1]

Why does 2012 keep getting brought up like the 3DS fell off a cliff since then? It sold almost 30 million more consoles from 2013 through 2015. That is half of its total sold through. The doom and gloom that continues to be attached to the 3DS is unfounded in my opinion.

No it is not the success that the DS was, but no hand-held system will ever attain that again. 60 million consoles is pretty damn good.

 

[NeonZ]

Those numbers don't exist in a vacuum. It represents a pretty significant and concerning contraction from one product cycle to the next. And with their inroads into mobile and all the talk of their next gaming endeavor being a hybrid in some way, clearly Nintendo appears to see the writing on the wall. Doesn't mean dedicated handheld gaming is going to disappear overnight.

The console/handheld shared development might be more related to their console situation though.

The 3ds itself, in addition to the external competition from mobile, also had to deal with a weak launch and its main selling point (3d) not really working. Even though Nintendo managed to somewhat revert the situation, we aren't talking about a well conceived product in the first place. I don't think its lower numbers are just a result of the market around it changing. It's also due to its own flaws, something that a successor could avoid.

 

[Pancake Mix]

Why does 2012 keep getting brought up like the 3DS fell off a cliff since then? It sold almost 30 million more consoles from 2013 through 2015. That is half of its total sold through. The doom and gloom that continues to be attached to the 3DS is unfounded in my opinion.

No it is not the success that the DS was, but no hand-held system will ever attain that again. 60 million consoles is pretty damn good.

A lot of that later sell-through is in Japan, where the market did not behave the same way and where more 3DS systems have sold than any other region, including all of the Americas. No other Nintendo handheld has distribution like that. That pretty much says it all.

Nintendo is very lucky that they pushed the 3DS out when they did. There might be another chance for a handheld to sell better than the 3DS, and I hope they do, but it is an uphill battle all the same.

 

[Ninja Scooter]

Why does 2012 keep getting brought up like the 3DS fell off a cliff since then? It sold almost 30 million more consoles from 2013 through 2015. That is half of its total sold through. The doom and gloom that continues to be attached to the 3DS is unfounded in my opinion.

No it is not the success that the DS was, but no hand-held system will ever attain that again. 60 million consoles is pretty damn good.

by what metric? You are telling me that a product has lost more than 50% of it's audience in less than 5 years and people aren't supposed to express concern? You act as though that 60 million is static and a number they can count on. Why would or should anyone (especially Nintendo) believe that when just 5 years ago that number was more than double?

Like if Apple randomly starts selling half as many phones as they did 3-4 years ago would people be saying "Well they're still selling a lot of phones, they're alright"?

 

[RedSwirl]

I just said this in another thread, but yes. Maybe not the last stand entirely, but the last stand of dedicated handhelds as we know them, but also the beginning of the end. When I say that I mean the system of unique handhelds surviving completely off of unique libraries of games.

We think the NX console and handheld are going to try to have a shared library. That means to some extent the console and handheld are already extensions of each other. It might make the PS4/Vita strategy of a lot of today's Japanese developers easier. If the NX becomes some kind of enduring platform and software library that Nintendo maintains through multiple generations of hardware revisions though, I could potentially see dedicated handhelds surviving as miniaturized versions of the console form factor, serving a specific role within the family.

Let's say years down the line the pieces of hardware NX originally launched with are pretty mature, and instead of restarting with a new platform Nintendo just decides to keep releasing upgraded models for the foreseeable future. What if Nintendo eventually upgraded the handheld to a point where it's as powerful as the inaugural NX console, and can play games that were originally only playable on that NX console? There you would have the most viable future for dedicated handhelds -- as miniaturized consoles in the literal sense rather than the figurative sense.

 

[DR2K]

I think 3ds is their last dedicated handheld. Not sure what NX will be.

 

[aesupreme1]

A lot of that is in Japan That pretty much says it all.

Roughly 10 million in U.S

About 9 million in U.K.

Roughly 10 million in Japan.

Pretty even numbers across the board

 

[Delio]

I think 3ds is their last dedicated handheld. Not sure what NX will be.

But we already have rumors that they will have a handheld. Even in the off chance the 3DS is the last handheld where do all the handheld franchises go? Mobile I guess? Which honestly isnt that favourable to me.

 

[Somnid]

I don't think phones can really erode more than they have. Smart phone sales are declining. Smartphone games in Japan are larger than the US and yet it still finds its place. I imagine 3DS is at an equilibrium point of some sort. The bigger issue is that Vita died. Taking away competition takes away a lot of attention and ultimately interest.

 

[Pancake Mix]

Roughly 10 million in U.S

About 9 million in U.K.

Roughly 10 million in Japan.

Pretty even numbers across the board

You mean the rest of the world outside of Japan and the Americas. The UK is not even Nintendo's best European market .

https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/library/historical_data/pdf/consolidated_sales_e1603.pdf

Note what happened in FY2013. Japan should not be outselling the Americas, but it started happening and it's a sign of a decline in Western sales, not Japan's strength. That Japan has outsold Nintendo's consistent sales leader (over decades) is alarming.

FY2012 and FY2014 and on have repeated this to a lesser degree, constantly. That's not a good trend, because the North American market is capable of far, far more and used to support Nintendo handhelds better than Japan alone.

I should have clarified, at launch in early 2011 (and it launched later in the West which means fewer days for sales) was the only time when the North American market outsold Japan, that's absurd for a Nintendo handheld.

Other than the 2DS, which only just launched in Japan, the trend generally holds true for re-releases. The New 3DS and 3DS XL are a lot stronger in Japan than elsewhere.

 

[Neoxon]

I think 3ds is their last dedicated handheld. Not sure what NX will be.

Since you didn't see the slide from one of Nintendo's investors briefings (which was a few posts above you).

So yes, there will be another dedicated handheld after the 3DS. And going by what Iwata said before he died, it'll likely be tied to the NX Console as far as the architecture & possibly the library of games go.

 

[Zippedpinhead]

We always talk about the PSP/DS drop off with the Vita/3DS as the true viability of the ha held gaming market.

But what if this isn't a contraction, but a correction? Do we have numbers for the GBA when it was the only handheld on the market? Maybe the DS/PSP era is the Anamoly and we are now shifting back to the original trajectory of handhelds.

i ask the because I find it hard to believe that Nintendo would back out of a market that they could make money in. And I don't see two generations off their highest profits in a market being the point where they no longer make money.

 

[jblank83]

The 3DS hardware sales haven't been good outside Japan since 2012, and that's kept software sales down, solid attach rate or not.

Actually it's doing alright outside of Japan. Approaching 60 million total units sold, only 20 million of those sales are from the Japanese market:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1220892

The EU/NA sales graph shows it's held a steady sales rate with a bump that I'm assuming is the most recent holiday sales period. The graph is from their 3rd quarter financial results in February of this year:
https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/library/events/160203/index.html

Which isn't to say another handheld released in 2016 would achieve the same sales numbers, only that the 3DS has done respectably well for a dedicated gaming machine.

On that subject, contraction of the market due to mobile isn't inherently a bad thing. Contraction can refocus companies on improving their processes and products, as well as attempting new approaches. Case in point, despite cries of the death of desktop computer systems and laptops, and of PC gaming in general, Steam has now grown to over 125 million active accounts and up to 11 million concurrent users a day. Add in the numbers for the other PC gaming services and the PC gaming landscape looks to be among the healthiest in the industry.

Likewise I believe dedicated gaming devices can maintain or even grow a healthy user base as long as long as they're well designed, cater to the needs of a core demographic, while also being attractive to at least some portion of the more casual mass market. That is, there's always room for a good product.

 

[Sterok]

I still say we see what Nintendo has in store for a handheld that was designed for a mobile world. Then we can properly declare the market alive or dead. Worst comes to worst Pokemon will have to keep them alive until they figure something out.

 

[aesupreme1]

by what metric? You are telling me that a product has lost more than 50% of it's audience in less than 5 years and people aren't supposed to express concern? You act as though that 60 million is static and a number they can count on. Why would or should anyone (especially Nintendo) believe that when just 5 years ago that number was more than double?

Like if Apple randomly starts selling half as many phones as they did 3-4 years ago would people be saying "Well they're still selling a lot of phones, they're alright"?

Well of course it looks bad when comparing it to the highest selling portable of all time. I'm not saying that Nintendo should be complacent in their hand-held strategy. They need to continue to grow their audience, market their products better through major TV spots, and snag as much 3rd party support as they can.

I just look at the positives instead of the negatives more often than not; they had several multi-million selling games on the 3DS, the system had a great turn around from its dismal launch, and the system sells at a profit. That is more success than failure in my opinion.

 

[Neoxon]

There's also the issue of the future of the mainline Pokémon games if Nintendo can't get the NX Handheld to succeed. In all likelihood, Game Freak would likely rather go mobile with the mainline Pokémon games than put it on Nintendo's home consoles.

 

[Coffee Dog]

I think that the NX is basically expecting to be the only dedicated handheld on the market. I'm more intrigued in it than the console counterpart as far as possibilities are concerned.

And yeah, if it tanks or otherwise underperforms by a large enough amount, handhelds are dead.

 

[yami4ct]

There's also the issue of the future of the mainline Pokémon games if Nintendo can't get the NX Handheld to succeed. In all likelihood, Game Freak would likely rather go mobile with the mainline Pokémon games than put it on Nintendo's home consoles.

Going mobile would likely mean adopting a business model that GameFreak has outright disowned. They'll try to avoid that as much as possible.

I don't think the NX will flop to the point where Gamefreak takes Pokemon mobile, though.

 

[Spyder_Monkey]

Let's face it, Nintendo has been the only one's viable in that space since the Gameboy. They carved out a niche that can theoretically go on for quite a while. If smartphones didn't kill the 3DS, they probably won't kill the next handheld they make.

 

[GoldandBlue]

I'm still waiting for Valve to enter the portable market.

 

[Pancake Mix]

Actually it's doing alright outside of Japan. Approaching 60 million total units sold, only 20 million of those sales are from the Japanese market:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1220892

3DS:
21.32 million from Japan
19.77 million from Americas
17.77 million from Other

For comparison, DS was:
32.99 million from Japan
59.93 million from Americas
61.10 million from Other

The decline outside of Japan every FY except the 3DS' first (ending 31st March, 2011) for the 3DS has been particularly poignant outside Japan.

The Japanese market has helped carry the 3DS to an extent. To put this into perspective, the N64:

5.54 from Japan
20.63 from Americas
6.75 million from Other

I note this console because I want to point out that the N64 sold more than the 3DS has in the Americas after 5 years, and nobody deludes themselves into thinking the N64 was a huge success. Call the 3DS a success all you want, it is, but it's a disappointment too outside Japan in particular.

Source: https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/library/historical_data/pdf/consolidated_sales_e1603.pdf

I hope the next Nintendo handheld succeeds, I really do, but 3DS does not instill confidence that it can sell, say 70-90 million lifetime. I'd like to be proven wrong.