Switch (and to a greater extent Switch 2) is brilliant hardware, don't get me wrong. I like it. It's well built, great screen, suspend works great, docking is awesome, etc.
But I don't like that it killed (or at least marked the end of) the old handheld gaming paradigm. Some of this is undoubtedly nostalgia, but I think there's things that were objectively better about the old way.
Around the time of 3DS launching smartphone gaming was taking off, and for a moment it looked promising which really hindered sales of handheld consoles. There were tons of innovative, fun experiences available at low prices. This pushed companies away from handhelds. It's a lot tougher sell when people have smartphones now.
But then smartphone gaming turned into a barren hellscape of ads and fremium mtx ridden slop. I don't know about you, but despite owning high end smartphones I have literally no games on my phone. Not to say that no good smartphone games exist... But they have such a huge uphill battle - nobody buys mobile games because they assume they're trash, and they don't have the necessary advertising budget to fight the big names in mobile gaming. So the selection is small and hard to find.
Then there's the ports like Minecraft and Fortnite/etc, which are also loaded with mtx nowadays. But smartphones seem like the absolute last choice platform for these titles. Nothing I hate more than playing a game designed for a controller on a touchscreen.
So say I go to pick a friend up from the airport and I have 20 minutes to wait because their flight was a bit late. What to do? I could play a game on my Switch. Totally a feasible option. Except, I almost certainly didn't bring it. Why would I? It's a fairly large device. And with the big exposed screen and analog sticks I'd have to case it up too. I'm not grabbing that thing "just in case". So I grab my phone and doomscrool. Not because I want to, but because... What else am I gonna do?
But let's say I had a 3DS.... Pocketable (or easily fitting into a modest sized purse). I can take it without thinking. No case needed, it's a clamshell. May as well keep it on me. Plus I can grab some Streetpass passes (when that was a thing) which basically gamifies the action of taking it everywhere. I'd probably spend those 20 minutes playing something on the 3DS.
That's the thing. Tablet sized portables like Switch/2, Steam Deck, etc are technically portable, but I have to plan it. If I'm going on a road trip yeah awesome those consoles are insanely good. But in my day to day life they never leave the house. The extent of portability really means I might play them in bed instead of the living room. The Switch Lite is definitely an improvement, but it's still not the size it would need to be to become effortless to bring around.
And the games. Switch/Switch 2 games are mostly just home console games that can be played on a handheld. We don't get nearly as many of those smaller games designed for 10-30 minute play sessions. The type of games that used to be developed for handhelds. This is 10x as true on PC handhelds. I mean, such games do exist no doubt they're just a lot smaller part of the market. We don't see big studios putting money into them like we'd see them do for dedicated handhelds of the past. That's not to say there weren't big epic stories meant for long sessions on old handhelds, but they weren't the main type of games on them.
I understand why things are the way they are. I get it. But I don't like it. Some might ask why I don't just carry an old handheld - I have been! With the modern modding scene the 3DS is insanely good. I've had a blast with it and have been playing a ton of games from the library I never got around to back in the day plus emulators for older consoles etc. You can even play online again with community servers. But it would be really sweet to have new games to look forward to, and an active community and support.
Then there's new like, boutique handhelds out there like the Ayn Thor etc. They look awesome and I'll probably pick one up one day, but honestly it has the same problem as my 3DS. No new exciting stuff coming. No big community.
I don't forsee things changing anytime soon... But I feel like if things were just a bit different they could. Like, graphics have kinda plateaued in the past 2 generations of consoles. Developers can't really say their games are held back by graphical limitations much anymore. Let's say the Switch 2 has an 8 year lifecycle - the Switch 3 could be a dockable handheld clamshell the size of a 3DS XL. Skip the 2 screen thing. With advances in processing/battery tech, I think in 8 years they could do that and still have graphics marginally better than S2 (but maybe not as big of a leap as S1 -> S2) and with a lot more RAM/vRAM assuming the RAMpocalypse ends by then. It could be a pocketable handheld that can still do 1080p gaming on TV while docked, keeping the single device benefit for development cost savings that the Switch brings.
I don't actually think that'll happen, but a person can dream eh?
Anyway thanks for reading my rant.
There's an add-on for smartphones called MCON by OhSnap, and it looks pretty darn yummy IMO: it really seems to have totally solved the issue of portability for smartphone game controller addons (such as the Gamesir x5 lite mentioned by lurkerlady), it seems to have good ergonomics to boot, but the problem… is that it's fucking expensive. And also it only supports a limited number of games. As usual, el problema es el capitalismo: I really like the idea of modularity, that instead of buying more gizmos than we need, we just add or remove components to make one gizmo better suited for a specific task; but when both software and hardware are proprietary, you're pretty much inevitably going to run into these issues of controllers being overpriced while also only having limited support.
This being said, I have a decent number of games on my phone without one of these fancy controller add-ons, and I'm broadly satisfied with them. I get my games from Fdroid, so they're all FOSS.
Edit: And this isn't necessarily to put down the "traditional" smartphone game controllers or excessively praise this one gizmo made by some corporation, there are other kinds of smartphone controllers and people will have different preferences.
I bought a used PS4 controller years back at a garage sale. Some of the best $5 USD I've ever spent.
Don't even have a PS4. They just hook up to most mobile phones. (Even a few of my old Qualcomm BREW based phones know what bluetooth controllers are, but their bluetooth stacks are iffy.)
All I want is this but a keyboard. NO CLICKS DOES NOT WORK that vertical blackberry bullshit turns a phone into a meter stick you can't even fit in a purse.
I have an LG Rumor Touch, and that phone's physical keyboard is uh.... Not great.
Also doesn't help the software on the phone is poorly written. Think the LG Voyager was a bit rough? Well try key legends that do absolutely nothing!
Can't even type in symbols. You HAVE to use the on-screen symbol menu. Doesn't help the resistive touchscreens on these ancient phones are all flaky. Eugh!
The LG Voyager is fricken goated tbh. Want to get into Qualcomm BREW and possibly even into developing for it? The LG Voyager is honestly a solid option.
AUGGH CDMA detected. My hell.
And don't get me started on the web browsers that run on these things. They activate my gag reflex.
Disconcerting software decisions, like having everything running in "supervisor" mode. (Which essentially gives you full control over EVERYTHING on the phone, including the memory mapped hardware registers! Very handy for overclocking the display controller though.)
But user interface wise, it's nice! You can even ignore the touchscreen portion as it has a keyboard with all the navigation buttons on it.
Hell I can't even complain about the software development experience. You ask the operating system to do something..... And it does it.
You might think I'm being facetious here, but the bar is so low with these ancient proprietary operating systems where some implementations have fundamental stuff that's broken. You genuinely have to wonder how some of these devices boot up when so much of the underlying operating system is broken.
Steve Jobs was a horrible person, but he was dead serious when ranting about these things when revealing the iPhone 2G.
Phones were truly broken. I spent 3 years stuck with a Samsung device which would randomly become inoperable sometime after the 2 hour mark of being powered on, and would emit a horrible shrieking noise at full volume over speakers and any headphones plugged in until the battery was pulled. It would do this whether it was being used or in standby, sometimes in the middle of the night. Could be charging on the counter or while you're responding to a text, black screen followed by demonic wailing that only ends after power is fully disconnected.
I went through 6 replacement units before I realized it was a bad model not a lemon. I gave up and just had to wait til my contract expired to have a working phone again. This was also a CDMA device. In my experience, these Telus/Verizon phones were consistently the least reliable.
This one android tracfone I had in middle school was plagued by garbage NAND flash (The entire model.👌EVERY👌 single one of them.) It kept locking up and resetting from the watchdog timer, garbage data would be drawn to the screen, the phone would shriek, etc. Factory resetting the phone shuffled the blocks around and eeked a little bit more life out of it, but eventually it gave up.
Oh, and the incoming call dialog box was broken. The phone would ring, but you couldn't accept to decline the incoming call. You had to wait for it to stop ringing and THEN call that person back.
....Or was that a different phone? I don't quite remember, I was ~14 or something!
The online reviews of the thing consisted of 1 star reviews complaining of the phone doing the same weird stuff. Ran Android 5! Don't remember the model sadly.
Tbf other then being slow and being incredibly locked down, every other android based tracfone I've used was fine.
Ah the dark ages. Pantech, ZTE, Blu, Alcatel... Truly so many abysmal devices. Really the only good android phones were the Nexus phones and now they're dead too, replaced by the far less open Pixels.
Ahahaha that sounds like an Alcatel device to me.
Oh god, I just remembered how my mom yelled at me for not answering her despite explaining the situation.
Of course now I know she's a scumbag.
The funny thing is, I have a few Alcatel devices and I enjoy messing with them.
I do prefer the semi white label Mediatek based phones. Those tend to be quite easy to open up and root.
the droid 4 had this and remains my favorite smartphone from factor and it isn't even close.
Literally all I want from tech companies is to give me my fucking Danger Hiptop/Sidekick back.
oh god that thing is sending me back to the days of snapping so many extra bits and bobs onto a gameboy that it looks like a fucking satellite lmao
All in glorious transparent plastic, I miss the days of see through tech
look at this contraption
Pocket Taco
oh that's so crispy, pretty much exactly what I'm interested in getting, although for the price i feel like the pocket taco mentioned elsewhere in the thread makes a stronger case for a phone addon. $100+ feels like "buy a dedicated handheld" range.
I got one of those at the kickstarter price and tbh I hardly use it. The form factor makes it easy to throw in a bag or pocket but at that point I have an android handheld that’s the same size and a hacked psp go thats significantly smaller.
I think options like the game taco or the 8bitdo flip are more reasonable size-wise but then you’re pretty much limited to ps1 and older (no joysticks).
yeah i wouldnt say the x5 lite is as pocketable as this appears to be but this device you linked would give me hand cramps 100%
i actually quite like gamesir's controllers, it works surprisingly well on android. i sometimes use them just for browsing when i want my hands to be more relaxed. ive also found the usb-c connection for the controller is nearly mandatory on android because android doesnt seem to give proper priority to bluetooth controllers leading to some pretty bad and distracting input lag
itd obviously be better if it was open source. i kinda wish valve would make a controller in this variety with their little track pads on it seems like itd be great for more games
Not shown in the GIF above is that it actually comes with handles that you can fold out for better ergonomics!
But yeah, something like those gamesir controllers, it does look a bit less awkward to hold, but that comes at the cost of being less pocketable.
original prototype was great, think they are making a slim version that matches it, got way too bulky