The Sony Vita has met with disappointing sales numbers according to Forbes contributor, Tero Kuittinen. This underscores deeper problems with portable gaming, Kuittinen argues: I very much agree. I’ve argued in the past that Nintendo should get into the mobile app business since they have no intention of making their own phone. This was met with much controversy in the comments.
But really, how much life is left in mobile gaming? The smartphone is the future of mobile innovation. As these phones get better, faster, and more powerful and as touchscreen technology improves, how long will it be before mobile phone games become better and cheaper than Nintendo and Sony portable console games?
Likewise, the mobile app market dwarfs the market for portable console games. Of course, this may be like the death of the desktop PC – an occasion that hasn’t happened in spite of predictions, the rise of the tablet, and the drop in price of the laptop. Maybe portable consoles will simply have to stay cheap to compete.