Before the Steam Deck came out, it looked like the handheld market was dead. But now, we have the Nintendo Switch, Steam Deck, AYANEO NEXT, and more handhelds coming soon. In this article, I'll take a look at why the handheld market died, and the factors of its return.
Why the handheld market died
The market for handheld consoles started to die when the iPhone released, but really began to crash when the iPhone 3G came out, with the iPhone SDK, more powerful internals, and casual mobile games. However, the Nintendo DS, the current most popular handheld at that time, was still riding high at this point, having struck a chord with both casual and hardcore gamers. The DS continued to do well enough, but it was clear that smartphones were taking over.
On March 25, 2011 in North America, Nintendo released the Nintendo 3DS. This system had much more going on with it– a 3D display, step counter, 3D outer camera and 2D inner camera, and an Internet browser. These were mostly features Nintendo threw in there to compete with smartphones, but it really didn't matter. The 3DS sold 75 million units worldwide, but that's mostly because there were six models of the device. Casual gamers just played games on their phone or tablet, so the 3DS really just appealed to core fans. It was clear that the handheld market was shrinking into more of a niche. It didn't help that some big games were making their way to the iPhone– BioShock, the PS2-era GTA's, Minecraft Pocket Edition, and the smash-hit mobile games at the time like Angry Birds, Cut the Rope, Flight Control, and more.
The 3DS continued to sell well enough during its life, but when the Nintendo Switch launched as a hybrid console, handhelds took a backseat. The Switch was a home console you could just pick up and take with you, so there was really no need for dedicated handhelds anymore.
In 2020, when the coronavirus put us all in lockdown, the handheld market really died. Nobody needed a portable console anymore, they were just at home all the time playing on their PCs and Wii Us and whatnot.
It seemed like the handheld market was dead, with only one major player in the market, and even that wasn't entirely a handheld.
But it seemed like there was still a niche market that still wanted a handheld, so Valve decided to release the Steam Deck in February 2022.
Return of the Handhelds
After most COVID lockdowns were over, people started going places more. People started playing PC games during the COVID lockdown, and now they wanted to take those games with them.
Enter the Steam Deck, a behemoth of a portable that's really more of a gaming PC shrunken into something you can fit in a backpack and take wherever you want. This launched a market of portable PCs with controls tailored for gaming.
The Nintendo Switch and Steam Deck can show us where this market is headed– portable home consoles and PCs, rather than portable versions of these devices. Nintendo and Valve have proven that we have the technology to shrink something as powerful as a Wii U or gaming PC into a portable, and that's clearly where the market is headed. People don't want to play portable games, they want to play console games on the go.
