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E3 2012: Where dedicated gaming handhelds went to die

Trit_warhol
Sunday, June 17, 2012
EDITOR'S NOTEfrom Eduardo Moutinho

As an owner of both the PlayStation Vita and Nintendo 3DS, I have a vested interest in the future of both platforms. I wouldn't say the recent Electronic Entertainment Expo was a black hole for portable games, but I do see where Tristan is coming from. Let's hope portable players will have something to look forward to in the years to come.

Assassin's Creed III: Liberation 1

I'm a handheld enthusiast, have been since I first saw the full-color glory of the Sega Game Gear.

The proliferation of cheap tablet-and-smartphone games has meant tough times for the dedicated gaming handheld. The Nintendo 3DS had its price slashed within months of release, and the PlayStation Vita has been subject to many a gloomy prediction (including my own) thanks to a lack of support from retailers and a high cost of entry. These machines need a shot in the arm. They need a series of announcements that would make them relevant to gamers the world over. If ever there were a venue for such announcements, it was the 2012 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3).

I read articles and tweets, watched trailers, and sat on the edge of my seat as liveblogs of the Big Three's press conferences hit the Web. I waited for proof of life, for a reason to believe in the future of my favorite platforms.

But the news never came.

 

With regards to the Playstation Vita, we might have seen footage of Assassin's Creed III: Liberation, PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, and the announcement of Call of Duty: Black Ops: Declassified, but it felt like the system was glossed over during Sony's presser. Think about it, the handful of games, apps and functionality (cross-play and original PlayStation support) seen during the conference had been revealed before E3 2012 (in some cases, well beforehand). Even news of the incoming YouTube app hit the Internet before the three-day event began.

Most troubling of all, Sony has at least 25 games to show for the troubled handheld, but I wouldn't have known that based on the coverage of the event that I saw. If not for a good friend -- who pointed me to a NeoGAF thread on June 7 -- I would've only had a handful of games to look forward to between now and the end of the year. Don't get me wrong. Things are still bleak, but at least the system's survival hinges on more than a Super Smash Bros. clone and some franchise tie-ins of which we've seen less than a minute of actual gameplay footage.

Then we turn to the Nintendo 3DS, which fared worse than the Vita in terms of the amount of games on show. During the Nintendo conference proper, a scant showing supported the portable with New Super Mario Bros. 2, Paper Mario: Sticker Star, and Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon being the only games shown in any great detail. Even with a third-party sizzle reel, Nintendo could only bring the 3DS game count to just more than a handful on the day.

Paper Mario: Sticker Star 1

During the painful 3DS Software Showcase broadcasted the following day, handheld enthusiasts were subjected to more forced chemistry among Nintendo's North American executive team. Even though we were treated to prolonged coverage of the three aforementioned and highly anticipated first-party titles, we only saw hints of a handful of underwhelming titles being developed outside of Nintendo's stables. After more than two hours of woefully-delivered PR speak and carefully-edited videos, we emerged with just more than 10 titles to hold on for.

For the dedicated gaming-handheld enthusiast, alarm bells should be ringing. With roughly 40 titles on our horizon, and suspicious absences from Monster Hunter Tri G for 3DS and Killzone for the Vita, I genuinely fear that our time might be at an end. Kotaku might have reported that Mario's master, Shigeru Miyamoto, is hinting at a new generation of portables, but I can't help but feel that such talk is premature with two machines struggling to find support from developers thanks to the mobile-and-tablet gold mine still offering big dividends to all takers.

E3 2012 was Sony and Nintendo's chance to create enthusiasm for their handheld devices, but instead the companies received press attention for all the wrong reasons. Consumers need a reason to get excited for the Vita and the 3DS, or else we'll all be turning to our phones to get our game on. For me, that's a worst case scenario, as I love the responsiveness and sense of enjoyment that's only possible with buttons and sticks.

Are you a handheld enthusiast? What did you think of the E3 2012 announcements?

 
Tags: Super Smash Bros., Monster Hunter Tri G, Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale, e3 2012, New Super Mario Bros. 2, Paper Mario: Sticker Star, Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon, Call of Duty: Black Ops: Declassified, Assassin's Creed III: Liberation
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Karli Winata
June 17, 2012

First up, I agree with the Vita's underwhelming showing at E3. Sony should've taken this opportunity to create anticipation for the system and instead pretended that it barely existed. I think you're underestimating the 3DS's showing though

Castlevania has a good track record on the handhelds. World of Illusion should appeal to veteran gamers, and Kingdom Hearts should sate our hunger for KH until KH 3. These titles on top of the Nintendo titles showed me that the 3DS does have good titles coming up.

You point to having only 10 titles as a bad thing. How many titles you show doesn't matter as much as what's shown. As I pointed previously, six of those titles are worth getting excited over. That's a high ratio of what looks good versus what's shown.

You also don't think that 40-ish is a high enough number to ensure the handheld's future security. I'm guessing you're trying to point to this low number as a sign that publishers aren't releasing games for the system based on a lack of faith in the dedicated handheld market. I think you're mistaking with what's being shown at E3 as the only titles that will come out. I don't know exactly how many titles will come out between now and the next E3, but I do know that it will be far more than what's actually shown at E3. I will even bet you that the final number ends up being over 80.

As for Monster Hunter Tri G and Killzone, neither of those games would have stoked much interest for the handhelds here in the U.S. In Monster Hunter's case I'd be very worried if it didn't show up at TGS or something like that. As for Killzone, you are putting far too much credit on Killzone's ability to attract attention. The last one didn't do all that well, and putting a game whose strongest asset is pretty graphics on a handheld, even one as powerful as the Vita, would not work.

Nintendo did a fine job in stoking excitement for the 3DS if my own personal excitement levels as well as that of my friends are any indication. I just wished Sony would acknowledge their handheld's existence and show something more than just titles that isn't a Triple-A title spin-off or a port.

By the way, I'm not joking about that bet. I keep track of how many games come out for each system weekly, and I tally them up as well. Wanna take the bet?

Trit_warhol
Tristan Damen
June 18, 2012

Those ten or so 3DS games aren't going to appeal to everyone. Further to that, it's hard to convince someone to invest in a platform when it looks as though there's only a small clutch of games on the horizon.

I've not mistaken what was shown with what is coming out. The whole point of this piece was that Sony and Nintendo should have used E3 2012 to reward faith from early adopters and generate excitement from potential buyers. I know there's more games for both platforms in development -- hence why I mentioned Killzone and Monster Hunter 3G -- but it shouldn't be up to me to look for those details: both portable console makers should have been shouting about them to the market.

Those forty games are across two platforms. Two. You'd find forty new games on any given week on the app store that cater to a variety of tastes and players with differing expectations.

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Karli Winata
June 18, 2012

Sorry, but did you just say that Mario isn't going to appeal to everyone? Are we talking about the same Mario? Even if it doesn't, the 10 or so games we're talking about combined will theoretically appeal to, if not everyone, a very broad swath of gaming types. Lego and Rabbids for the younger crowd. Castlevania for hardcore. Heroes of Ruin for RPG gamers. Transformers for action fans. Kingdom hearts for, well, KH fans I gues, and Epic Mickey for veteran gamers as I've stated before. Small as this number might be, they covered a good number of bases here.


As for rewarding early adopters, Nintendo did that already with the unprecedented  Ambassador's Program. They don't need to cater to them anymore.


It'd be nice, but I'm okay. Moreover, they showed us some incredibly alluring games for the system that any 3DS owners would be happy about.


Are we also arguing the quantity versus quality arguement? Because everyone loves to be inundated by the deluge of apps that gets dumped onto iTunes every week, sorry every day. I would also argue that potential buyers also look at what's already available and proven to be good. The 3DS has that department locked down as well on top of what I've argued as a good showing for near future releases.


You're right about the lack of teasers though. It would've been nice to have been teased a little bit more about new projects, but it sort of looked like Nintendo just decided to be more in depth about stuff they can show. I'm happy with that trade-off.


I think this E3 didn't show us a bleak future for dedicated handheld's. Instead it shows us just how low of an opinion Sony has for it. Given how hard they've tried to break into it along with the Vita's soft sales everywhere, of course they have a low opinion of it. They're kinda stuck between a rock called Nintendo and a hard place called Apple.


Fact is, I do worry for the dedicated handheld market, but this E3 was not the death knell that you're painting it. That will happen when the 3DS becomes unpopular, and I don't see that happening based on what's shown.

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Joshua Garcia
June 18, 2012
(This comment was deleted)
Trit_warhol
Tristan Damen
June 18, 2012

To be fair, you can download the Gameboy version of Tetris from the 3DS eShop :P

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Ed Grabowski
June 18, 2012

Well the Vita actually has quite a few must plays. Uncharted, Gravity Rush, Mutant Blobs Attack, Lumines, Super Stardust and Escape Plan to name a few. And you can't get these games anywhere else. They are brand new experiences exclsuive to Vita. Especially Gravity Rush, which besides being exclsuive, it's also completely unlike anything I've ever played before. Oh, and its pretty awesome. 

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Ed Grabowski
June 18, 2012

For me personally, I think the 3DS has a real lackluster line-up. I really don't care about Mario anymore since every traditional Mario game since New Super Mario Bros has looked and played exactly the same. Luigi's Mansion looks, well, boring. And that's coming from someone who loved the original. Castlevania looked rough as well, and doesn't look like it's going to appeal to true Castlevania fans. And don't get me started on Kingdom Hearts.

Yet, I am much more excited when I look at the Vita's lineup. A brand new original Assassins Creed, Call of Duty, Little Big Planet, Sly 4, Killzone, Silent Hill: Book of Memories, Dust 514, Retro City Rampage, etc. These are all games that I'm actually looking forward to playing, and I can't say the same for any 3DS game.

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Chase Koeneke
June 20, 2012

You make some decent points (leading to a less offensive "handhelds are doomed" article than I'm used to,) but I still think you're being too pessimistic. 

The first issue is that Nintendo (and Sony for the most part,) was only showing off games for 2012. Not a single thing was mentioned for next year which, while sad, made it an altogether less surprising show. Not that the titles they showed were bad (if Epic Mickey is even half as good as Dreamrift's previous title, Moster Tale, it will absolutely blow people away,) but it was all well-known stuff.

This issue ties into the second issue of the nature of E3 itself. Becoming a show much more targeted to the mainstream than to the hardcore, a lot of great games weren't shown at the main press conferences (Guacamelee, Epic Mickey,) or weren't even at the show at all (it was an accident that we even learned about Fire Emblem right after the show.) The show was all sizzle for what American audiences would be most likely to purchase for this holiday season. We have to face the fact that E3 is just not solely about the hardcore gamer anymore and should temper our expectations. 

I would love to know about the games on the 2013 horizon and I'd love an update on Smash Bros. 3DS, but I understand where Nintendo and Sony are coming from and look forward to seeing announcements come in a better source than E3. 

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