Are smartphones beating handheld consoles at their own game?

Which? Conversation: With the Nintendo 3DS on sale in March, and last week's announcement of the Sony NGP, handheld gaming is in a stage of renewal. But does the rise in smartphones present the beginning of the end for handhelds?

[MechaGear]

No cellphone will feature two quad-core processors anytime soon simply because devices this small would have severe cooling problems. Cellphones are just starting to go dual core with the main processor. The NGP should be safe from being matched for at least 5-6 years from it's release. As for the 3DS, Nintendo is all about the software. No cellphone can compete there.

[jony_dols]

I have yet to see any smartphone game come close to rivaling Ghost of Sparta, in sheer scale, gameplay or graphics.

And the PSP is a 6 year old device.

[ABizzel1]

The advantage smart phone have is that people generally have their phones on them most of the time, and games on them are almost always under $10.

The PSP and probably NGP has minis which are the same games, but they need to be $1 like their mobile counterparts or why would you buy them.

[Samk18]

I beg to differ in terms of graphics Infinity Blade which is on the Iphone/Ipod touch looks better than Ghost of Sparta.

[ABizzel1]

Ghost of Sparta is a device that's 6 years old. Infinity Blade is on hardware that was released last year. It should look better. But you can put God of War up against the iPhone/iPad library and it looks better than 99% of the games on there. Now fast forward to this year, the NGP make iPhone/iPad touch games look last gen.

[klado]

..."NGP should be safe from being matched for at least 5-6 years from it's release. "

Dud...where the heck are you coming from with this?, expect a phone featuring the NGP chipsets/CPU around January to June 2012.

And no, they are not beating Handheld just like Pc(Steam, Onlive) ain't beating consoles(Psn, XBL) anytime soon.

What could this mean to NGP though?, that most,if no all of its multi-platform software could/may find their way easily on there android/Iphone counterparts(Do not forget the Xperia play = Pad, Apple or Any other Smartphones company can jump the video-game industry any time they want, that is, if service like Pssuite find their way through, given the Appstore 's success, it is more likely that it will.)

Pros = More money to the devs, more competition.
Con = More fanboy wars LOL.

So expect something like this, and just like nintendo, Sony's exclusive are there only thing to put the NGP apart from androids & Iphone,

[geodood]

Expect a phone with dedicated developers taking advantage of this quad-core gpu/cpu combo in... never.

That's the point. Why do you think GOW:Ghost of sparta looks better than any phone game despite it running on 6 year old hardware and there are dual core CPU/tegra phones out there now? Developers are key to harnessing hardware's abilities and we won't see dedicated developers doing that on phones in the way PSP devs have for years to come, or at least until phones become comparable gaming devices to PSPs/Nintendo DSs

Also there'll be many more titles exclusive to the NGP/3DS than the obvious first party stuff. Cell phones won't feature the tech found in the NGP for a good year or two, even then the control schemes found on phones will make it impossible to port some games and also remember how much power is drained by background processes in phones vs. handheld gaming devices.

@Below: researching the tech /=/ announcing a phone with a quad core CPU. Let alone a phone with a quad-core CPU and tegra 2 combo (the only graphics chipset being developed with capabilities close to the NGP's graphics card)

EDIT: Really? the PSP2 has been announced and dated... phones using quad core CPUs, let alone Quad core CPUs AND tegra 2 chipsets have not been announced or dated...

[Sarcasm]

^geodood

Good points. Might I add that why in the world would a phone need a quad core CPU to begin with? The amount of multi-tasking on the phone wouldn't even NEED it. A dual-core is probably all that would be needed considering most people with phones might run just a couple apps at the same time. Otherwise, it's overkill. If anything, phone companies might look into adding more speed per core than just adding cores.

And I highly agree that its going to rely on the developers. Right now, most mobile platforms are 1ghz which is starting to be the new minimum standard. Then of course the Tegra 2's which is 1ghz dual core. Even then, the PSP2 with 333mhz is producing games like Ghost of Sparta and Peace Walker. Its because they are dedicated to that platform. I'm pretty sure once the PSP2 ships, we'll see some amazing stuff down the line.

[WhittO]

^^ Actually Motorola and others are already developing quad-core tech to be put into their smartphones & Tablets.

Still, 2 separate quad-cores is ALOT of power in such a small device, hope it doesn't overheat.

Technology today is advancing so far so fast it's crazy!
I bet in like 20 years we will have robots working construction etc and in another 10 will be fighting them in a war hahaha j/k...maybe.

Some links:
http://www.biggtech.com/mob...
http://www.intomobile.com/2...

As you can see these quad-cores are not exactly sony exclusive and expect smartphones to have them next year.

And about research tech /=/ bringing out a phone, Sony may have announced NGP, but it doesn't even have a name yet and is far from finished. It is only because games consoles get announced way earlier than new smartphones etc do that makes it look like it's coming years ahead.

[klado]

Also sony can rely on the Xperia play as well, upgrading the dvice as tech advances, so it sure wouldnt hinder them anyway.

The only company I can see suffering from this is solely nintendo as their hardware struggle with age, I mean, the most powerful phone now a day is around 1.2, soon to be 2GHZ, what about 5 years from now that is the intended life span for the 3DS? 3GHZ in ours smartphones or even more, who knows.

Fact is, Smartphones will be overcoming NGP's capacities with age and FAST(that doesn't mean they are going to be better device), indie gems like infinity blade powered for a even powerful device, lets say a 3.2GHz smartphone for around 2013, that would put Ngp graphics to shame kiddies.

Come on guys, you should be excited about this, it only mean more competition for sony and companies, better for us.

[teedogg80]

Yeah...until PSP2 arrives.

[Stealth20k]

what a poorly written article

What about the part of dedicated handhelds being number 1 in every region? And what about the part of dedicated handheld marketshare growing exponentially this gen?

These joker article writers just make up arguements.

[_Q_]

Until a touch screen starts feeling like a controller smartphones arent touching a damn thing...Just because a few million soccer mom DL'd a simple mindless ported flash internet port doesnt mean that dedicated handhelds are just dead and have no chance. I think the NGP is geared to fill a void that a smart can never touch. The console experience..

[femshep]

nope cellphones are and will never be hand held gaming....the NGP (and i still totally buying it) is nothing more then the psp2 that will have better graphics apps are gonna be added to make people feel better about themselves but apps are just a waste of time and space
not a fan of touch screens but im sure they can do it right

[klado]

Why I believe people neglecting the entrance of smartphones handset to the portable gaming race are likely overlooking the Xperia play as a neat example of a smartphone designated for gaming?

Sheez, http://www.youtube.com/watc... it is not like kids are gonna get that instead of a 3DS or NGP but you know, a all in one tool should become the standard, just look a it, the promises is there mate.

[geodood]

*premise is there :P

Yeah, it's definitely a step in the right direction. However it's a step you can bet most phone companies won't take. They'll continue with the capacitive touch screen route for a long while yet. The next step after that most certainly won't be buttons :/ (holograms?)

[klado]

Lol sry, my spelling isn't that good on this mini laptop, holograms?

http://www.sciencemagnews.c...

Or maybe, have a version with features buttons just for the sake of getting a place into the gaming market? Apple could do that tho, not that inrested in an Iphone with buttons.

[femshep]

still phones still has no place in the gaming world just like facebook no place in gaming

[Spinal]

Totally agree, I for one im one of those consumers that is looking to buy the Xperia Play as my all in one device. I cant see me buying the NGP or 3DS day one and probably will end up not getting either of them if the Xperia Play works well as a Phone most importantly.

I got my iPhone 4 and yes touchscreen gaming is OK Sometimes but it has NOTHING on having ACTUAL BUTTONS. So id replace my iphone with the xperia play.

[dredgewalker]

NO! NO! NO! and a big NO! This has been going on since last year and I still say that smartphone games are half-baked and would never fill the gamer within me. It is heresy to call these "things" proper gaming machines....it's like comparing a pc to a pda.

[Rybnik]

By the numbers, smartphones WILL beat both the 3DS and the NGP combined. Also, it will not take 5 years for cell phone tech to catch up to the NGP. I give it 2, the reason is that Cell/ tablet tech is advancing faster than ever before. It took 2 years to go from aprox. 600 MHZ processors to 1.0 GHZ. It will likely only take only about one to go from Dual-core 1.0+ GhZ to Quad-core 1.2+ GHZ (and 3D) (First 3D phone will be officially anounced in less than 2 weeks at MWC).

Now, for hardcore games, I believe that 3DS and NGP will hold their own simply because the control interface is far more suited. Smartphones will have to integrate REAL controls in addition to touch interfaces, in order to unlock their true potential in competing with high end dedicated devices. However, I can almost guarantee this will happen well before the next-next generation of systems..I think the Experia Play is good evidence of this assumption..and barring that phone being an utter failure,I would estimate that before 2015 or so this will be a reality with many phones. Thus, I have a strong feeling that NGP and 3DS will be part of the final dedicated handheld generation.

[Sprudling]

600 MHz to 1 GHz was a much bigger leap in effective processing power than dual core to quad core was.

[Rybnik]

This is not entirely true. Otherwise the NGP would simply use a high clock single core instead of quad-core processors. The problem is heat..Going multi-is how we got around those constraints and now can continue on to more and more powerful devices. A quad-core 1GHZ processor will absolutely DESTROY a single-core even 2GHZ processor when coded for... Checkout benchmark figures, they don't lie!

Part of why you think multi-core isn't a big deal is because software (especially mobile) isn't yet optimized for multi-core architecture...that will change as soon as Android (Starting with Gingerbread and Honeycomb) and iOS5 (for the dual-core iphone 5) are released as they WILL be geared towards this effect.

[Sprudling]

I'm talking historically. Right now, Hz isn't even a good measurement for how good a CPU is.