When did gamers become size queens???
When did gamers become size queens???
Look right, I can remember retro g*mers making jokes about the Game Gear being 2big and 2heavy back in the day, probably in the 2000s. Classic Game Room watchers remember. Same for the Lynx. The Wii U's tea tray controller was derided for being beeeeg. I can also recall people saying that the PS Vita was kinda large back when it came out, which tbf it is pushing the definition of "pocketable" for the boys and takes up a lot of purse space.
It sort of felt like reality broke down in 2017. The first thing I did when the Switch was announced was make a joke about putting a Game Gear in your pocket, but suddenly nobody else gave a damn that the Switch is like ten inches long. Most dildos are not that long.... 
I get that it's a hybrid, but suddenly the dynamic shifted from "if it can't fit my dude pockets it's no good!" to "aw yeah bruh just get a hardcase and throw it in a backpack!" I do support backpack gang, but you almost may as well get a laptop at that point.
Handheld size has become progressively more comical over the years though, with my favourite example being the Steam Deck which is actually considerably longer than a Wii U Gamepad at an XL 13" 
Tell ya what, I couldn't fit that!!
I'm not really against the existence of larger handhelds on its own, I have long fingers and a DS Lite or PS Vita will give me handcramps sometimes. But it's like a weirder version of when all phones became "phablets" and impossible to use with one hand, suddenly all handhelds are as big as the Wii U pad. (Switch Lite excluded, though it's still larger than a Vita) It also seems like the PS Vita and 3DS primed everyone to accept hilariously short battery life? The PSP 3000/Go and DS Lite/DSi could get anywhere from 8 to 20 hours depending on your settings, that was awesome. The 3DS and Vita won't hold out for more than three hours under duress, though. Most modern portable PCs have worse battery than that, even...
I guess I'm just wondering wha happun??? I know there's a large contingent of people who never take handhelds outside the house anyway (based) and just use them on the couch, but I don't think the Deck would be much more pleasant to handle in an armchair or whatever. That's one thicc-ass boi.
the handheld market died with the 3DS
The actual handheld size handheld market is now all chinese emulator machines from companies like powkiddy and anbernic (and also smartphones)
They have to compete with smartphones, and that seems to have settled on the switch/steamdeck size.
Different niches I guess, figures amerikkkans would want handhelds to be hueg too...
Wtf is a "g*mer"?
Stay unsullied comrade!
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The GBA was peak handheld tech. I had the SP too but honestly still preferred the OG over it.
Do you just not remember the screen at all? Or the cost of all those AA batteries? The SP's screen and rechargability was a huge deal at the time
I don't understand this meme :/ the GBA is more comfy than an SP but that's not saying much. The GBA itself had enough graphical and processing capability to go around but its sound setup suuuuucked. I think the DS was probably better tbh.
the sp was clearly superior to the gba in almost anything, but it was a pain to play with (for me at least). i could have long sessions on a gba without any problem, but playing with the sp for long time was painful and uncomfortable. it was okay for rpg or games that did not require high reflexes or button mashing
Why was the game gear too big, but the steam deck isn't?
Well you see, as you grow older and become an adult, your eyes get worse but your hands and pockets become larger (usually
)But actually though, I think people would've complained less about the game gear or the Lynx if the size of the screens was much larger than they were, in comparison to the size of the unit. Screen-to-Body ratio is more critical than you think for handhelds, and people are more willing to put up with a large device if the screen is appropriately larger. If the screen on a steam deck or Switch was only 4 inches diagonally, people would be bitching a lot more.
The Wii U gamepad, you've got me there. Idk, I think people just weren't ready for it yet, and it was literally just a controller that you couldn't even use while charging or as the main display at launch. The form factor of the gamepad was thinking so far ahead of where the software or hardware was that it probably shouldn't be surprising that
s didn't get it.Also, this week was the first time I've charged my 3ds in over a year and I still play a ton of New Leaf, idk what you're on about with a 3 hour battery life.
I did think about the childhood -> adulthood pipeline =) and you might be right about the screens.
Depends which 3DS you have, I think the New/XL gets a little more mileage but a launch 3DS has a stated battery of 3-5 hours and Fire Emblem Awakening drains it in about that.
Metal Gear GZ had a cool thing where the idroid could be handled via your phone or an iPad so you didn't need to real time pause and could glance down at your lap for a real time map with tagged guard movement within a certain range. It was like having the solution radar again but because you had to look at a different screen yourself working with how gz works, it was fucking perfect and it's such a bummer phantom pain didn't use it. Having the cassette tapes play from a different speaker was way better too. I have no idea why phantom pain didn't use it cause it made the experience SOOO much better and had that metal gear meta, instead of snake pulling put his phone to call in the helicopter you do it on your irl phone and the TV screen stays in gameplay mode, it's also cooler to drop you phone on your lap and scramble for.the controller when you spot a guard on the TV while looking back and fourth between thst and the menu on your phone instead of a no pause pause menu. Other games could do this and should, it works.
I have been saying for years that dual screen (or asymetric screens. can't really remember the name) was one of the best ideas in gaming that got fully abandonned no clue why. there are just a few games outside the ds line that actually did that and they were great (GZ did great. wiiu having two screens by default did not use it as much as it should). the DS games having usualy the map or sometimes inventory management on the secondary screen was simply great. many games would totally benefit from that
Have you considered that maybe everyone is wearing jncos again so pockets are bigger?
most dildos are not that long...!
Uhhh volcel police? We've got another one here
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people started to demand console game experiences on handheld for the most part.
comoanies decided they wanted to close the gap more, to avoid the situation square enix had with DQ11 (where they basically designed the game side by side with the PS4 version)
handhelds with it got both bigger, and required active cooling, which is part of the reason it got bigger.
demand console game experiences on handheld
I lol/lmao at this assertion because for all the size-queening, the Steam Deck has long since fallen behind intensive games. I do sympathise with wanting the same games on the go and portable, though.
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For smartphones I think a significant driver of their ever-increasing sizes is that battery technology is lagging behind power demand. The worst thing of having a small phone these days is that the battery lasts less than a day. Big screens used to be too power hungry to be practical but LEDs are extremely efficient these days.
My prediction is that we'll return to the miniaturization craze of the 1990s whenever the next breakthrough in battery technology happens.
I will say power demand is at least partly driven by constantly on tracking and advertising. Most of what I actually do on the phone could be done with an irc channel and text-only Web browser
Real, I guess battery tech hasn't moved a lot in ten years...
I want to retvrn to small stuff honestly...
Battery tech has improved a lot, but enough power for a mobile device is a moving target too.
We can only have smol screens when we kill touch screens
As with the phallic-obsessive throughline of the post, the bigger the gear, the lazier and more incompetent you can be providing a serviceable ride. Anybody can build a gmer rig in an atx case. You can shit out a steamdeck without needing to order too many specialized parts or actually figure out what you're doing, and gmers are by nd large hogs hooked on the easiest available dopamine supplying skinner box so it makes sense they'd give in to the thickness
If people need to scratch a gaming itch on the go, their smartphones will tide them over now. The new "portable" systems work best when you're settled in either at home or on the go and are pretty awkward in other contexts.
Mobile gaming is either smartphone games or retro systems/emulators at this point
Smartphones have no games, smartphone gaming is fake. They're only used for emulators too, but thr control setups are painful, be it weird clippable controllers or touch...
I don't mind the Ambernic/Powkiddy emusystems though. I could play PS1 games forever.
You seen this thing? First smartphone add on controller I've seen that looks like something that could actually plausibly be carried around.
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I want shorter games with worse graphics made by people who get paid more for less work etc etc
The adoption of active cooling in handhelds was such a mistake, death and infamy to Nintendo...
Personally I just care way more about performance than size. Power of a computer part generally correlates to size, and the smaller a form factor you cram those parts into the harder it is to manage the thermals. So I'd much rather have a bigger thing that works better than a smaller thing that sucks
I think this is probably the reason why Deck Beeg, and it makes sense, but I also don't see why we can't have cheaper 7" devices with those 5-watt Athlon Gold APUs...
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I wanted g*mers to have to consider the absolute length of the hardware they're handling, you know?
I like this take though, it makes a lot of sense actually. Especially for stuff like the ROG Ally or Lenovo Whateveritis that have almost entirely generic parts...