I doubt you’ll be sitting around playing Angry Birds for the 2 hours it takes your kids to watch Cars 7. Or maybe Cars 7 will actually be good.

I feel like the handheld market for epic games is dwindling to the ever cheaper home consoles and cheap TVs.

Or maybe I’m just getting old and would rather be relaxing in a couch looking at a big screen as opposed to sitting on a park bench squinting at a 3″ screen.

In any case, Microsoft has sales the same as Steam does…I think Steam has fewer restrictions on their service though in terms of what they can sell product at and how cheaply they can sell it.

Also, you cannot compare bite-sized entertainment on phones to handheld or console games and pretend it is the same as the jump from CD to mp3 or DVD to Bluray. Aside from some minor aesthetic touches, the experience is pretty much the same. I cannot perceive the difference between a song on CD and a song on mp3 (although I’m told that an mp3 has lesser quality). Similarly, in most older films, I cannot perceive the difference between a Bluray and a DVD. Only in the past half decade of newer films is the difference truly noticeable, and no matter how much a studio tries to upscale graphics, it doesn’t look like too much of an improvement. The same is true for TVs. I’ve seen these 3D TVs in stores that say they are the pinnacle of technology and they look virtually the same. I think you really have to be well-versed in all the alternatives to even notice a difference. Your examples of “premium experiences” need to be – essentially – pointed out by experts to be even noticeable by the common man. That being said, I think even a casual gamer would notice the difference between Meganoid on an Android phone and New Super Mario Bros. on the DS without anyone spelling the differences out for them.

With video games, the experience is more than just the visual or auditory. There is a certain complexity or depth of gameplay required that I still – even after discovering some impressive Android phone games – do not think can be replicated on anything but a proper handheld system (and obviously a console).

In my opinion, phone games versus proper handheld games is like the difference between a cheesy romance novel with Fabio on the cover, and Harry Potter. People can tell the difference in quality (although like phone games, people still read those cheesy romance novels as a guilty pleasure).

How many people do you know buy CDs as opposed to lower quality MP3s? How many people are satisfied with a DVD or an Xvid compressed movie as opposed to a Blu-Ray or other high definition content? What about people caring about the quality of the picture on their brand new TV as opposed to just grabbing the biggest one that is on sale?

And now let’s look at the software market and see how the pricing structure of that has shifted in the last few years. Valve is a company that understands this and has sales that attract an audience of gamers to better reflect the expectation of software prices. But I think that Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft are behind here. And all of them are in danger if they can’t start to match the expectations of the average individual.

If Nintendo can shift gears and design a traditional handheld device with all the trappings of an iPad (not in interface, but in digital app downloads), and all the polish of a service like XBox Live (which I have grown to love), I think they can stay competitive. The way I look at it, portable gaming was always the thing I turned to when the TVs (in my family of six) were otherwise occupied by people. I would play a game for hours on end (as I would have on my TV) and it was great because other people could be using the TV and the computer but it didn’t impact my gaming.

However, I was recently in a similar situation where Katie was playing Viva Pinata on my XBox and I was left without anything to do, so I turned to my Android phone and her iPad. I was bored of those gaming experiences after less than 15 minutes.

The gaming experiences may be plentiful on this mobile devices, but they are nowhere near as rich or engaging as a traditional gaming experience. Handheld gaming devices have always provided the richness of a console experience in a much smaller package, and if handheld gaming truly dies, it is that that I will miss.

Also, it should be noted that I recently found some interesting and polished games for Android, but they are still woefully lacking when compared to DS games from the past four or five years.

The culture of mobile gaming has transitioned away from larger gaming experiences in favourite of smaller games with quick returns. I don’t personally see a way back for Nintendo or Sony to reclaim that market. But the home entertainment market is still up for grabs.

I absolutely agree that software is just as important, if not more important than hardware. Apple’s successes have always been in software. Despite the beautiful objects that they make, in terms of hardware, it isn’t that special. What is special is how the software operates. I guess in those terms, Nintendo can come up with something innovative to do on a handheld. But that certainly hasn’t been their direction in the last few years.

Plants vs Zombies
http://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/plants-vs.-zombies/id350642635?mt=8

Battleheart
http://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/battleheart/id394057299?mt=8

Solomon’s Keep
http://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/solomons-keep/id365183754?mt=8

LEGO: Harry Potter ($5!)
http://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/lego-harry-potter-years-1-4/id404086528?mt=8

Phoenix Wright!
http://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/phoenix-wright-ace-attorney/id372166015?mt=8

Order and Chaos Online (MMO on an iPhone?)
http://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/order-chaos-online/id414664715?mt=8

And then the massive EA catalog of hits. Tetris, Risk, Battleship, Sim City, The Sims, 10x EA Sports.

Even with the 30% Apple cut, developers can make an absolute killing on these games. I think there’s a lot more out there that Nintendo/Sony should be fearing than just Angry Birds and clones.

I can see a future where customers are willing to pay 99 cents for an Angry Birds experience and forego the $40 Zelda experience on DS. It’s an easy decision for me and that’s the way I predict the market to go.

There may be a market for kids without phones that the DS/Vita can fit into, but I see a major problem in the future for dedicated handheld gaming machines. Phones are cheaper, more portable, have better battery life, better networking, and did I mention cheaper?

It isn’t going to kill Facebook. Facebook has done a fabulous job at entrenching itself in our very civilization. Google+ is such a fabulous unification of all Google services that it demonstrates they are making some serious steps in the right direction.