On Wednesday, Sony’s long-awaited PlayStation Vita goes on sale in North America. Our impressions of some of the initial games ranged from outstanding(Super Stardust Delta scored a 9.5), to dismal(Michael Jackson: The Experience HDgot stamped with a 4). The rest mostly hovered around 7. Not bad for a first batch, but with gaming getting better in smartphones, tablets, and TVs, I’m wondering how long before these standalone system become obsolete.
Now, the Vita isn’t perfect. We gave it an 8.5 out of 10, dinging it for hidden costs, a limited browser, and poor battery life, but for gaming it is better by far than any smartphone. So while I think we are seeing the end of this class, I’m going to argue that that this shouldn’t be the case.
Death of the unitasker
The PDA and the two-way pager no longer exist, having been absorbed into the feature and smartphone space years ago.But these were communications applications, and phones are a communications platform, so it was relatively easy for them to become aggregated into the new form factor. As these devices became obsolete, they drag companies with them. Palm had trouble with the migration, and that company no longer exists. Research In Motion (RIM) is currently on death watch.
So there is clearly a precedent for one device eating up everything similar, but I’m not convinced this should happen with games yet.
Gaming: It’s in the controller
Casual games are clearly fine on a smartphone, but if you’ve ever played an arcade-style game or a shooter, the touch screen really starts to suck as a control element.Having physical controls makes these games far less aggravating because you can actually feel the button move, and you can hit several controls at once and not confuse the device.Yes, the phone is more convenient, but systems like the PlayStation Vita are just more fun. I seem to have a vastly lower tendency, after playing a fast game, to need to through the device into a wall out of frustration.
In addition, unlike two-way paging and PDA functions, you play games for hours.It isn’t atypical to find your phone completely dead after playing games for just a few hours on an airplane, meaning you have no power to call your ride when you land and get picked up.If you kill the hand-held game system, you still have your phone to fall back on.
Granted, the Vita only has five hours of batterylife, about half of what I’d think was ideal, but think of this as five extra hours for your phone, which could be a life saver if you need to call for help.Given the power-intensive nature of gaming coupled with the need for a dedicated physical controller for anything above casual gaming, I think the hand-held gaming segment has some potential life left in it.But perceptions may kill it anyway.
The problem with perceptions
Perceptions drive our reality. That’s a problem for both Sony and Nintendo, which are currently perceived as redundant beside smartphones.Given what happened to Palm and RIM, there is clearly a broad foundation for that perception, and gaming developers have been flocking to iOS and Android for some time now.
So the problem isn’t whether gaming systems should be absorbed by smartphones, the problem is that people believe that to be the logical outcome.Sales and demand are well off the ideal for this class of product as a result.
First handhelds, then consoles
If hand-held gaming systems become obsolete, can console gaming be far behind?We’ve seen both Microsoft and Sony move their platforms aggressively towards other uses like streaming video, but smartTVs continue to advance, and at some point they may make standalone consoles obsolete.I think this is the bigger risk, because OnLive has demonstrated that it can provide a rich TV gaming experience on a current-generation smart TV. TVs aren’t battery operated, nor do they require 3G service for networking support, suggesting a vastly faster and easier path for them to replace consoles than for smartphones to replace hand-held gaming systems.
Long road to obsolescence
The difference between the outlook for hand-held gaming systems and consoles really lies in the network connection.TVs can increasingly assure access to a high-speed network, enabling OnLive to replace console gaming on TVs. But 3G data remains expensive, and hand-held games are generally better played individually, not over the Web.This means that ultimately, systems like the Vita likely have a better long-term defense against being gobbled up by a smartphone than a console system like the PlayStation 3 has against being cannibalized by TVs.
In the end, both are on a path to eventually be replaced either by smartphones or TVs. But, particularly in the case of hand-held gaming systems, I think we’ll regret this move once it’s done.
Image Credit: jcjgphotography/Shutterstock
Handhelds will soon be in the history books, but consoles are the future… That’s because they provide the same capabilities… My xbox 360 is the same as “John’s” xbox 360, so whenever a new game for this console comes out, we can both play it, as the games are set on a certain requirements level, so I dont have to spend 200$,£,€ on a video card like i’d have to on a PC… The only way forward for smartphones and smart TVs are onlive-type services, as these still don’t pack enough punch to run games even nearly as requiring as the console ones.
It pains me when I see certain types of games on my tablet that are clearly not meant for touch screens. The kind that give you on-screen controls (kind of like a virtual NES controller) or games that force me to put my finger over the character I am controlling (like on Frogger for WP7). Clearly someone is trying to shoehorn in a style of game that is just awkward on a touch screen.
The games that do use the screen properly and take advantage of the hardware are a lot of fun to play. Tower defense games are a great genre for touch screens, for example. But I would hate to see it is the only option for mobile gaming, especially after all the fun I got out of the Gameboy and DS.
One could compare it to the PC vs console issue. Some games work better with a mouse and keyboard, whereas some benefit from a console controller with the analog thumb sticks.
how is gaming BETTER on smartphones and tablets? I read that 1st sentence and KNEWQ this idiot doesnt have a CLUE what the HELL hes talking about and i havent read a single other word!
Smartphones and tablet games are better than Uncharted 2, Gears of War 3, Batman Arkham City, Call of Duty, Battlefield, FIFA, Killzone, God of war, HALO are they?
Get a grip you damn idiot!
SORRY!! MY BAD!! I didnt read it properly, he didnt say that. But gaming systems will NEVER become obselete for millions of people just like me who love REAL video games not the casual rubbish you can get for 50p on your smartphone.
Apparently the developer’s are already moving: http://www.industrygamers.com/news/xbox-live-exodus-microsoft-must-heed-warning-call-says-tim-schafer/
Rob, did you see http://www.wikipad.com
interesting solution
These are plans and soon to be reality of Nvidia for having games centralized and accessed without consoles, with a smart device to play them anywhere.
http://www.nvidia.com/object/cloud-gaming.html
The Handhelds certainly looking doomed for the future. But talking about consoles,they cannot be replaced by Onlive, cuz it can never match the performance of a local hardware. And there’s the ping issue to while multiplayer gaming.
And the rapid increase in the resolution stuff is pretty bad for the consoles. It definitely seems like the future consoles will be either hardware upgradable or will be having different versions of it for different resolutions and graphics performance levels.
While all these stuffs are happening PC gaming is really shining, there was a reason why people preferred buying consoles, but things are going to change sooner :)
“m not a hard-core gamer, so maybe someone else can tell me some super-secret functionality a console has that could not be integrated into a TV
The super secret functionality that a tv cannot integrate is the fact that YOUR POS SMART TV CANNOT PLAY GAMES LIKE CALL OF DUTY, SKYRIM, FAR CRY 3, OR ANY OTHER REAL GAME THAT A CONSOLE CAN. SO STICK THAT UP YOUR POS SMART TV. if you want proof of this just think does your smart tv have a graphics card, ram,or a power supply that has enough juice to power the “processor” in your faggoty smart tv. I thought so pnus packer!
Some of these comments had me asking what the hell drives people’s thought processes. The consensus seems to be that handhelds are going, consoles are staying. To me, common sense says exactly the opposite. Why? Simple. Because of the controller. Like the article says: smartphones SUCK as controllers. But you could always just plug a real controller into a smartTV.
I don’t think most gamers would mind carrying a phone and a handheld onto a plane, but buying a smartTV, then shelling out another few hundred bucks for a gaming console with the exact same functionality as the TV… that sounds a little far fetched. Who would do that?
I’m not a hard-core gamer, so maybe someone else can tell me some super-secret functionality a console has that could not be integrated into a TV. Because I don’t see smartphones working as game controllers in the near future.
And what’s with the person who said PCs suck for gaming because of the mouse?!?!?!?!?!? They actually make USB game controllers now. No really. I’ve seen them.
I’m going to be playing my two PS3′s for many years to come even after the PS4 and XBOX720.
I can’t imagine consoles ever fading away… ever! I don’t see it happening and the simple reason is that with an ever increasing demand for graphics and Hollywood storylines you would have to get almost every developer to agree to dump consoles and go to something else. And why would they? Do you think Angry Birds could ever produce something as polished as a game like Mass Effect? Nope. Bejeweled producing Call of Duty or Halo? Sorry these developers aren’t going to leave a console behind when they are still hitting record high in sales… especially when the other option are under powered tablets and phones.
People pretty much said the same thing of the first Atari systems, the Palm Pilot, and those Crackberry two way pagers. Single function products haven’t held up well. Just talk to the calculator, typewriter, and tuner folks. Only reason game systems held against the PC is Microsoft favored a game system over Windows, that gets revisited starting with Win 8.
And yet the dedicated consoles didn’t die with the Atari, they’re still marching on to this day. Remember that the VG crash if 1983 came to be because retailers thought videogames were a fad, and was going away. It didn’t. Gaming is quite its own world and can’t be substituted so easily; PC gaming took over for part of the 90′s and early 2000′s but consoles fought back by adding online play (though M$ pimps ki’box users by charging for online play). MS is not the only console maker, so even if they were to kill the ki’box 360 we would still have the Wii/U, PS3 and the future Steam console to play.
“but for gaming it is better by far than any smartphone”
Uh… No shit?