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I've been playing games all my life on many different platforms, but some of the best fun I've ever had has been on handhelds. Even when I also have the PC or

I've been playing games all my life on many different platforms, but some of the best fun I've ever had has been on handhelds. Even when I also have the PC or console version, some games just feel more at home on a handheld, and more appealing when you don't have to commit to a whole session of playing them. On one hand, handhelds take less focus than sitting in one place staring in one direction, so you can play on them in bite-sized breaks, putting them away at any time and instantly resuming where you left off. But on the other hand, something so close to your face, that you can snuggle with in any position anywhere, also has a level of intimacy not found in bigger screens and bulkier controls. Nothing can compare to dozing off in bed while engrossed in a game with a captivating story, mechanics, and music.. Laptops are too bulky, and phones or tablets don't have built-in physical controls. Which is why I'm a bit concerned about there being only one handheld left. The Vita was amazing and I still love it but Sony did everything they could to kill it off, and the Switch's success hasn't inspired them to try again. If anyone feels like making a new handheld that anyone can develop for, my money is yours. :)

mikepurvis 6y ago
There are a whole bunch of those OGA-derived handhelds (see https://obscurehandhelds.com/ https://obscurehandhelds.com/). I have an RGB10 on its way to me right now. Unfortunately, the library of native titles is very, very small, basically just Tux Kart and whatever open source engine recreations have been packaged for the particular distro you're running on it. So it's mostly about emulation, which means that what you're seeing is a pretty far cry from the "real" capabilities of what that processor could do on a 480x320 display. For my part, I'm hoping to get the toolchain set up enough to try compiling OpenJazz for it. On the other side of things are deliberately wacky low-powered, lo-fi devices with novel distribution mechanisms, like Playdate: https://play.date/ https://play.date/
- Razengan 6y ago
  Ah thanks, some of these look pretty cool, like the Retroid 2 and the RG350, and I love Panic so of course I know about the Playdate. :) The problem as you say is the lack of native titles, and an uncertainty about how long the devices will be supported for. In this day and age an official distribution channel like the App Store/eShop is important too, even if it's just a website you can download from onto an SD card. But I'll try one of these out!
  - mikepurvis 6y ago
    The whole value proposition of emulation handhelds pretty much assumes rampant piracy of old titles, which gets especially murky when you have, say, a SNES game which is abandonware, clearly unavailable except at collector prices, whatever, but then it got remastered for the GBA or DS, and is definitely still available for purchase in the 3DS online store (alarm bells). Besides that the population of these devices is relatively small, it seems there are a lot of subtle incompatibilities between them too, in terms of button quantity and layout, number of analog sticks (ranges from zero to two), etc. So yeah, I'm sure someone will try it at some point, but it's not hard to see that this isn't a super appealing target for trying to stand up a paid app store. The best-case scenario I could imagine would be an all-you-can-eat Netflix-style affair where you pay $10/mo for access to a rotating catalogue of titles that are a mix of native ports, emulation under legal license, etc. On the other hand, if legal emulation was part of the pitch, it's hard to imagine it going anywhere without classic NES and SNES titles, and Nintendo would have basically zero incentive to legitimize such an effort by playing ball with it, when they're actively selling those titles under emulation on their own storefronts for their own hardware.
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ThatPlayer 6y ago
Phones don't need built-in physical controls. Attachable controls like the Nintendo Switch Joy-cons have been becoming more popular as phones have replaced handheld gaming system for the majority of people. The new Razer Kishi looks good though my phone is too big to fit it. ASUS ROG and Xiaomi Black Shark gaming phones also have their own official controllers. A new handheld will probably not be able to succeed without software. That's what killed Windows Phone.

mikepurvis 6y ago

There are a whole bunch of those OGA-derived handhelds (see https://obscurehandhelds.com/ https://obscurehandhelds.com/). I have an RGB10 on its way to me right now. Unfortunately, the library of native titles is very, very small, basically just Tux Kart and whatever open source engine recreations have been packaged for the particular distro you're running on it. So it's mostly about emulation, which means that what you're seeing is a pretty far cry from the "real" capabilities of what that processor could do on a 480x320 display. For my part, I'm hoping to get the toolchain set up enough to try compiling OpenJazz for it. On the other side of things are deliberately wacky low-powered, lo-fi devices with novel distribution mechanisms, like Playdate: https://play.date/ https://play.date/

Razengan 6y ago
Ah thanks, some of these look pretty cool, like the Retroid 2 and the RG350, and I love Panic so of course I know about the Playdate. :) The problem as you say is the lack of native titles, and an uncertainty about how long the devices will be supported for. In this day and age an official distribution channel like the App Store/eShop is important too, even if it's just a website you can download from onto an SD card. But I'll try one of these out!
- mikepurvis 6y ago
  The whole value proposition of emulation handhelds pretty much assumes rampant piracy of old titles, which gets especially murky when you have, say, a SNES game which is abandonware, clearly unavailable except at collector prices, whatever, but then it got remastered for the GBA or DS, and is definitely still available for purchase in the 3DS online store (alarm bells). Besides that the population of these devices is relatively small, it seems there are a lot of subtle incompatibilities between them too, in terms of button quantity and layout, number of analog sticks (ranges from zero to two), etc. So yeah, I'm sure someone will try it at some point, but it's not hard to see that this isn't a super appealing target for trying to stand up a paid app store. The best-case scenario I could imagine would be an all-you-can-eat Netflix-style affair where you pay $10/mo for access to a rotating catalogue of titles that are a mix of native ports, emulation under legal license, etc. On the other hand, if legal emulation was part of the pitch, it's hard to imagine it going anywhere without classic NES and SNES titles, and Nintendo would have basically zero incentive to legitimize such an effort by playing ball with it, when they're actively selling those titles under emulation on their own storefronts for their own hardware.

deleted 6y ago

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ThatPlayer 6y ago

Phones don't need built-in physical controls. Attachable controls like the Nintendo Switch Joy-cons have been becoming more popular as phones have replaced handheld gaming system for the majority of people. The new Razer Kishi looks good though my phone is too big to fit it. ASUS ROG and Xiaomi Black Shark gaming phones also have their own official controllers. A new handheld will probably not be able to succeed without software. That's what killed Windows Phone.