>console entry at 500 dollars>the handheld market is almost completely deadwhy hasnt anybody made a sub 200 dollar gaming handheld with actual first party games? its just chinese handhelds at this point
>>740302393its called a smartphone
>>740302393coincidentally this leak of dubious source came just todayhttps://www.timeextension.com/news/2026/06/rumour-sega-might-be-releasing-a-low-cost-handheld-with-removable-game-carts
>>740302393If you didn't buy a handheld while America was putting tarrifs on the entire world and AIjeets were boughting out PC parts then you deserve it.
>>740302393No one except the big three has the scope to release a handheld with enough first party games to make it worth buying, and none of them are interested in returning to the golden era of making multiple smaller game with multiple smaller dev teams fueled by passion and innovation when we could instead hire indians to spend 400 million on absolute garbage like the shareholders want
>>740302393They need first party games and they would rather let all the small dev studios get swallowed up in the development of a 50 billion dollar game than make AA games let alone budget handheld games
The future is ARM PC handhelds
>>740302942SEGA or Capcom arguably could make an hybrid console that could be at least an honourable competitor to the Switch's monopoly. Imagine a SEGA hybrid console that has Persona / SMT, Yakuza and Sonic as exclusives. I think it'd have the potential to steal like 25-35% of the Switch's market share in Japan. Ever since Nintendo came with the Switch, the door has never been more open for a new challenger.
>>740302393>sub $200>first party exclusive games you can't play anywhere else
>>740302543>here's your infinite flappy bird and angry bird clonest-thanks dude...
Like it or not, your smart phone and the switch and whatever Sony/xboxs equivalent of the switch is are your handhelds now and this very likely isn’t changing. We aren’t getting ‘dedicated’ handhelds with ‘exclusives’ for them ever again
>>740302393Switch Lite is the closest thing now on the market.
>>740302393Real handhelds require games developed specifically for handhelds because size correlates with power and battery life. That's why you only get fatfuck handhelds made for playing the same games that release on console/PC
>>740303432Yeah probably not. But streaming games from my pc to my deck is comfy as fuck and I'm thinking the console fags could try something similar beyond the Playstation portal. Hire smaller teams to make games specifically for the handheld's hardware and then let it stream more intensive games from the console and your pc. Don't lock streaming to just the console and then you get to get to sell a handheld to a much larger audience while letting it have the exclusive feel with the games made just for it.
>>740303307Its not 2015 anymore, phones can emulate PS2 games and high budget mobile games are about as complex as most console games but are held back by an endless need to make money so all the potential fun one could have with them is hindered by the microtransactions, subscriptions and battlepasses conditioning your enjoyment.
>>740303170>Imagine a SEGA hybrid console that has Persona / SMT, Yakuza and Sonic as exclusives.lmaowhen will they learn
You own a gaming handheld with first party games. It's called a smartphone and it sucks ass.
the 3ds was peak handheld gaming, everything after became too big and heavy to be comfortable
Check out the RS36 retroclones as a starting point.
>>740302583>low cost>2D>traditional carts so it's divorced from the current price hike>probably first party gamesUnbelievably smart if true and with XB and PS floundering it might get Sega back in the running if they do it right. Still, some chump on Reddit isn't a reliable source and the fact it's 2D/Pixel is suspiciously hopeful, but then again thanks to the modern indie scene I doubt even kids would mind that, only problem is how to make it more appealing than the Switch. Guess we'll just have to wait and see.
