It’s time to stop lumping portable games in with mobile games.
Gaming is seeing solid signs of portable game systems and mobile gaming converging (Nintendo recently announced that it would take its games to mobile in a new partnership), but it hasn’t happened yet. While the mobile industry gets the full spotlight with its billions of daily plays and dollars earned, portables such as Nintendo’s 3DS and Sony’s PlayStation Vita are left in the dark. And with over 25 years of history supporting portables, it seems wrong to throw it aside for the more popular market.
While your everything-in-one smartphone is quite capable of quality gaming, it’s a wholly different experience from a dedicated gaming device. Yes, portable gaming is a smaller space, but it still has so much to offer.
Above: The PlayStation Vita has a touchscreen, buttons, dual joystick, and several other interface options.
A different kind of portable
Handheld game systems aren’t supposed to be an all-in-one life solution, so comparisons to mobile devices in terms of portability don’t exactly work out. Smartphones are designed to slide into your pocket and feed you email, calls, and social connectivity. Portable game systems are exactly that and nothing more — a portable console gaming experience. You buy a Nintendo 3DS or a PlayStation Vita for a specific experience, one that’s likely more involved than mobile gaming.
I liken the difference to photography. Yes, your phone has a camera. It might even be an outstanding camera. But a photographer is going to carry a separate camera and a phone regardless. I see parallels here — smartphone cameras have certainly impacted the lower end of the photography market — but there will always be serious photographers that prefer specialized tools.
It’s the same with games.
So, yes, you’d have to carry two devices to enjoy what portable gaming offers. A 3DS XL or Vita may not fit in your pocket, but it’s still smaller than an iPad or a Kindle — a device that people carry all the time anyway.
For commuters like myself, several portability-related upsides come with handhelds. Imagine a dedicated gaming experience on your ride into work with no texts or social distractions getting in the way — and no worries about your phone’s battery charge. A good number of the most popular mobile games, including Bejeweled Blitz and Candy Crush Saga, drain phone battles two to three times faster than normal, says Verizon. Wouldn’t it be nice to get to work with a full charge?
For longer commutes such as air travel, a dedicated portable is even more attractive. I’d rather work completely through a nice 10-hour epic on an international flight than loop through countless two-minute casual mobile game sessions.
Deeper games
Not everyone is looking for quick and easy casual game experiences. If that were true, game consoles wouldn’t exist. With the worldwide adoption of smartphones, It seems that the market for dedicated game devices will be smaller than mobile gaming from now on. But that doesn’t mean that deeper experiences will die off.
That’s not to say that mobile gaming experiences can’t be deep. It’s just that games that feature pervasive pay mechanics or are shameless knock offs of others clutter up the space. Games such as Monument Valley, Hitman Go, Frozen Synapse, Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery, and many others prove that mobile devices are fully capable of high-quality, immersive gaming experiences and not just quick casual games.
Above: Square Enix title Bravely Default is one of the biggest and best 3DS offerings yet.
Even then, portable console players are after something different. They want a console gaming-style experience on their person at all times. Outside of some console re-releases, mobile games have yet to give me something like Square Enix’s role-playing epic Bravely Default or Atlus’s 80-plus hour Shin Megami Tensei 4. These are huge, hearty games that draw you into a story and cast of characters for weeks and even months at a time. It’s the exact opposite of killing a few minutes on the bus.
The back-library from Nintendo’s and Sony’s console history is another advantage portable gaming has over mobile. While plenty of rereleases have come to mobile, porting takes much more work when the original controls have to be overhauled. First- and third-party releases of old console games from the Super Nintendo era and even before continue to roll out on the eShop for Nintendo, and Sony still has thousands of PlayStation-exclusive games to bring to retro-crazed gamers out there.
Portables are also a direct line to the creative power of game makers — especially in Nintendo’s case. Its Mario, Zelda, and Pokémon franchises, as well as its unique approach to controls, helped the company move over 150 million DS and nearly 50 million 3DS systems to date. At least for now, these kinds of first-party offerings on established franchises give portables exclusive bragging rights.
More than just touch screens
While modern gaming is increasingly touch-friendly, the pastime has decades of history with games based on button controls. Touch screens are great for many genres, but they’re still miserable for first-person shooters and traditional platformers. And give me a D-pad and action buttons any day for adventure games.
The current crop of portables bring with them more varied types of interfaces beyond buttons. No one knew what to do with two screens when the DS first launched, but nearly a billion software units have shipped since, showing that they were eventually put to good use. The addition of glasses-free 3D for the Nintendo 3DS hasn’t proved to be as useful to game developers, but modifications to the most recent model, the New 3DS, have at least addressed some of the accessibility issues.
The PlayStation Vita’s dual analog thumb sticks are basically an open invitation for developers to port console shooters to the system, and the rear touch pad and front touch screen add additional sources of inspiration.
Both the Vita and 3DS have other unique connectivity features that give them an edge over mobiles. Nintendo continues to push support for its StreetPass and SpotPass features, letting 3DS-carrying gamers interact with others through socially powered minigames. Even Nintendo’s third-party publishers are in on the action, with nearly every major release for the system getting some kind of socially enabled game feature.
Above: Remote Play will let you play PS4 games on your Vita.
The Vita does some neat things for owners of other PlayStation systems, with the most interesting being its Remote Play feature. This enables Vita users to play PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 games on the handheld wirelessly, both at home and away from home. It also opens up support for second-screen experiences for select PlayStation 4 titles.
And with both the 3DS and Vita sporting touch screens and front-facing cameras, nothing is stopping developers from porting mobile games to these platforms. While neither system can match top-of-the-line mobiles for processing power, the wealth of interface options makes these systems more capable in other ways.
Accessibility
Above: Spelunky is just as great (and hard!) on the PS Vita.
While no other platform is as accessible to developers as mobile is, the portable game system space has made great strides in recent years. Both systems have embraced Unreal Engine, Unity, and other popular game-making platforms with official support, welcoming developers wanting to do something bigger or different from mobile games.
In recent years, portables have emerged as a destination for independent games. Developers are finding it easier to port their PC games to all consoles, but it seems that the barrier of entry is a bit lower for portables, making them more attractive to smaller studios. Both the PlayStation Store and the Nintendo eShop see new indie additions to their already healthy libraries on a weekly basis.
The PlayStation Vita is especially suited to console indie game ports with its control layout and its ties to the thriving PlayStation digital market. It’s going so well that Sony might be missing an opportunity to reposition the system as an indie games machine. Spelunky, Limbo, Hotline Miami, Shovel Knight, Guacamelee!, and many others work beautifully on the system. And with all titles coming to Sony’s digital platform, it’s just as easy to download a hot new indie game on the Vita as it would be on your phone.
Portables live on
Portable consoles will likely remain in the shadow of mobile gaming from here on out. But as long as players want the kinds of experiences that these devices uniquely provide, they’ll stick around.
It’s up to hardware makers keep up with the fast-paced growth of mobile gaming to make sure that portables continue to provide these unique advantages. As a lifelong fan and one that still plays his original Game Boy, I hope they keep it up.