Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has been talking about handheld consoles, his belief in them, and how Nintendo plan on continuing to compete with ever improving tech found in modern smartphones.
In the interview with Kotaku, Iwata revealed his belief that the dedicated handheld console isn't going anywhere for the foreseeable future.
"I think that if we are able to provide experiences on handheld devices that consumers cannot get on another device, then we will continue creating software and hardware going forward, and if it comes to a point when we're not able to do that, I think, yeah, you will see portable handheld gaming devices go the way of the Dodo, I guess. I don't think that opinion is completely nonsensical," said Nintendo's president.
"I was asked during the Game Boy Advance period by folks who said, 'Hey, now you're able to play games on mobile phones so maybe the time of the handheld is done'. Because we understood that, that's what drove us to create the Nintendo DS. And I believe we were able to offer on the Nintendo DS an experience that you could not get on phones that were available at the same time ... after the DS that kind of slowly faded into the background."
"That being said, with more smartphones and more tablets being on the market now and becoming very popular this conversation has risen again. Obviously it's a fact that smartphone technology is advancing very quickly and the things you can do on a smartphone are much different than what you could do on a regular cellphone back in the day."
But even with the increased competition, Iwata still firmly believes in what Nintendo are doing with handheld consoles: "I don't think there's not a bright future for handheld devices but I understand that the competition, again with the rise of smart devices is different, and I do recognize that."
"Previously we had to think, ok, 'How are we competing with Sony?, How are we competing with Microsoft?, How do we compete with all the other software titles and all the other publishers out there?' That environment has changed. And the games available for smartphones, I'm not saying that none of these are interesting, rich or fun experiences, because I know that there are some. And one way we can ensure that there's a market for handheld gaming devices is by continuing to bring out entertaining and engaging software that will provide users experiences that they cannot get on these other devices."