In a world where mobile gaming is quickly overtaking just about everything else, do you see a future for dedicated handheld gaming platforms? The 3DS is an excellent system and has been a sales success, but the dropoff in sales from the DS and even the GBA is quite evident, and it will likely be the lowest-selling Nintendo handheld when all is said and done. What will it take for such platforms to survive and compete with smartphones and tablets?
Following up on this, I think that there's definitely a place for dedicated handhelds - albeit more of a niche one. Games like Candy Crush or Bejeweled are great on mobile, and there are some decent experiences to be had. But for more "serious" games I think most gamers would prefer a device that's going to have traditional controls rather than touchscreen-only. I think Nintendo may have the right idea with having a device scaling down from their console, if that's what the NX turns out to be. Shared architecture at the very least would make it easier for both devices to have a more expansive library and would help alleviate some of their development woes.
Prior to the Pokémon phenomenon, the Game Boy was still a phenomenal success in large part to stuff like Tetris, Dr. Mario, and pinball games. The larger scale games, like Zelda, Mario, Kirby, Pokemon, Wario Land were still well suited to a pick up and play style. Levels were short, or you could easily save anywhere, etc. The first aspect, the mobile game market has corned. The later just isn't really existent anymore. A lot of what I've played on the DS and 3DS (I won't speak for PSP and Vita owners, although I assume it is a similar experience), feel not like tiny version of large-scale games; but rather compromised versions. They don't feel perfectly tailored to what should be a typical handheld experience. They've grown beyond that tiny screen. But it's still pretty dang convenient a lot of the time.
