I like think I’m responsible for that little blip in the early 2000s, around the time I got my first job. Strictly so I could buy whatever games I wanted without begging my parents.
Is the switch not handheld? Is the stream deck not hand held? I get they don't have to be, but that's what their primary use case is. It's pretty obvious we're going to have a lot of screen with controllers on the side form factor in the next decade. I don't think this should get lumped into either console of PC.
How could you split out steam deck revenue from PC revenue? If I buy a $30 game on steam, is that $30 for PC or for the steam deck/handheld? Or does it get split between the two based on how hours I play on PC vs steam deck (and how would that work if I never actually play the game)?
Personally I don't think it's worth having a handheld category at all. If I bought a Gameboy game for $30 but I actually played it on a super Gameboy instead of a Gameboy then it's not technically handheld either. Just call the Gameboy a console and the steam deck a PC.
I suppose you could argue that pre-installed games still counts as part of the market. Not sure how you'd could the value though. Like a small part of the phone cost?
Otherwise the earliest store/system seems to be i-mode in 1999.
Well, I know there are some good android gaming and iOS gaming communities on Reddit and perhaps here too, I know opinions are biased, but at least you should get human recommendations and interactions (for the most part I think) so I'd try searching there.