The Nintendo Change Ended Handheld Gaming as We Knew It

Being mid-session, totally settled right into a sport, solely to then have the ability to stick the Pleasure-Cons on and stroll off together with your Nintendo Change is cool. Very cool. You go on about your life and sport as if nothing occurred. Nintendo constructed one thing that solved an issue many people by no means knew we had, and the corporate doubled down on this idea with the discharge of the Nintendo Change 2 in 2025.

While I might love for this to be an article gushing all about how nice the Change is, you don’t really want that. None of us do. The Change is Nintendo’s best-selling console ever, with over 155 million items offered. What doesn’t get mentioned sufficient, nonetheless, is how its success additionally erased a whole class of gaming.

Handheld Gaming Was By no means Simply “Console, however Smaller”

If we take into consideration the place all of this actually began, we arrive again in 1979, again when handhelds weren’t making an attempt to copy console experiences. They had been nonetheless very a lot doing their very own factor, however did borrow just a few ideas. Then, technical progress and prowess was not close to something we’ve seen in recent times, and this meant that nobody ever anticipated them to compete on {hardware} energy.

The Milton Bradley Microvision laid the groundwork again then by introducing interchangeable cartridges, which sounds extremely fundamental now, however again then? The concept opened the door for handheld gaming to change into far more than only a fad. A decade later, the Recreation Boy entered the fray. Between the unique mannequin and the Recreation Boy Colour, Nintendo moved over 118 million items and outlined what handheld gaming may very well be.

In fact, different firms tried to comply with: Atari with the Lynx, NEC with the TurboExpress, Sega with the Recreation Gear. Out of all of them, solely the latter managed to achieve some visibility, topping out at round 10.6 million items. Every thing else pale into obscurity, together with later makes an attempt just like the Genesis Nomad.

Whereas it appeared that handheld gaming had already discovered its id, in some methods, it didn’t want the market to be as crowded or aggressive. Methods just like the WonderSwan or the Neo Geo Pocket didn’t have to outsell Nintendo to justify their existence, as a result of they existed individually to console gaming, and that separation gave builders room to strategy issues in new methods.

Limitations Didn’t Maintain Handhelds Again, They Outlined Them

The Recreation Boy Advance is a superb instance of how that philosophy was carried ahead. It wasn’t making an attempt to catch as much as consoles. In actual fact, with the restricted know-how accessible on the time, this might have been a foolish concept to even recommend. It doubled down on what handhelds already did properly, while ensuring your present library nonetheless mattered, due to backwards compatibility.

Then got here the Nintendo DS, and immediately, the concept of what a handheld may very well be shifted once more. Twin screens and contact enter meant that over 154 million items later, it was tangible proof that gamers beloved embracing one thing that didn’t attempt to imitate the console area.

The 3DS adopted the identical line of considering. Positive, there have been many individuals that didn’t make the most of the 3D characteristic fairly often, nevertheless it’s not likely the purpose: seeing how many individuals fortunately purchased one while the Wii U struggled confirmed that handhelds had been allowed to experiment in ways in which console releases couldn’t actually afford to.

This had a really direct affect on the sorts of video games we received, which had been primarily spin-offs with an insane quantity of creativity that felt genuinely completely different, and smaller initiatives that didn’t have to justify AAA budgets. There have been whole design approaches constructed round handheld consoles’ constraints as an alternative of simply making an attempt to beat them.

The Change Mixed Two Worlds, and Changed One

Which brings us again to the Change. When it first launched, it was framed as one of the best of each worlds. A house console and a handheld, multi function machine. That is, after all, correct: You get sofa co-op, a giant display, higher visuals. You additionally get portability, flexibility, and the power to take your whole library with you wherever you go. It’s seamless.

Positive, the {hardware} is beneath powered in comparison with its rivals within the console world. Backwards compatibility is proscribed. The Pleasure-Cons have properly documented points, and the touchscreen is barely utilized in any video games, because you wouldn’t have the ability to use it when docked. However by some means, none of that appears to matter, as a result of the Change matches into your life with ease, while delivering video games of top quality; larger high quality than any of the earlier handhelds may’ve ever dared to.

And while 155 million items and a successor later, it’s very clear that this strategy is working, you may end up a little bit disenchanted.

However Wait, There’s Extra

The merging of Nintendo’s handheld and console sequence will not be the one growth we’ve just lately seen within the gaming world. If the Change managed to blur the road between console and handheld, the discharge of the Steam Deck erased it by managing to increase your PC into moveable gaming.

Whether or not it’s the ROG Ally, Legion Go, MSI Claw: all of them comply with the identical route. Players have extra entry than ever, while possibly having to compromise the least quantity in historical past. Having the ability to carry your full PC library round at a kind issue that’s not too completely different from the Change is extraordinarily spectacular, and only a decade in the past would’ve sounded unrealistic.

It does, nonetheless, additionally spotlight the shift within the trade. We was amazed at what handheld gaming can do in a different way, however now the main focus is on mirroring present experiences.

The Wider Trade Is Shifting within the Similar Course

Microsoft, or moderately its Xbox subdivision, launched an official assertion wherein they are saying that they aren’t transferring away from the concept that its {hardware} defines its ecosystem, however the Xbox Sequence unique video games look scarily skinny. Sony’s PlayStation seemingly began to comply with this development with the PlayStation 5, having vastly much less unique titles than in any of the earlier generations. Modifications like this have a really actual threat of wounding the fastidiously curated model id these firms constructed up for the final three a long time.

Nintendo is a transparent outlier right here, as a result of while they merged their two traces into one, they’ve by no means modified the strategy to exclusivity. Nintendo video games dwell on their very own {hardware}, and that consistency performs a giant position in making the Change really feel cohesive, with the opposite a part of the cohesion clearly stemming from the truth that every part is constructed round one system.

When Every thing Lives on One System, Video games Begin to Look the Similar

All of those ideas are thrilling to no finish, however the collapse of handheld, console and PC growth into simply a few platforms means there may be little distinction between them left.

Video games are not constructed particularly for a smaller and fewer highly effective machine first. They’re anticipated to scale throughout a wide range of display sizes, and most often I’ve seen, this naturally pulls them nearer into the route of conventional console design decisions. Realistically, because of this video games are actually constructed with larger expectations in thoughts, since their scope reaches a lot additional with much less division inside the viewers it’s constructed for.

Handhelds was the place the place franchises can be pleased to experiment. Builders had been capable of take dangers with out the load of a full console launch connected to it. Distinctive quirks and tighter {hardware} limitations meant that not every part may very well be a mainline entry, and video games additionally didn’t have to justify themselves in the identical method. Within the present gaming panorama, expectations have shifted.

I Miss What Handhelds Used to Be

In the end, I don’t wish to sound overly nostalgic. I actually get pleasure from my Steam Deck, and I’ve additionally been very a lot having fun with each the Change and Change 2. And regardless that I do get pleasure from these, there may be considerably much less room for bizarre concepts.

Positive, plenty of that has moved into the indie area. In some ways, that’s really the place a few of the most attention-grabbing work is occurring, and it additionally is smart why that’s the case. Between smaller groups, much less overhead, and easily extra freedom normally, creativity has a a lot larger probability of surviving.

However personally, I yearn for the time wherein spin-offs from in style franchises weren’t all the time simply strictly about extensions, however about experimenting. Initiatives typically felt like somebody simply actually wished to strive one thing completely different as an alternative of becoming right into a unified multi-platform launch technique. I beloved handhelds as an area for exploration.

The Change completely didn’t kill creativity per se. There are nonetheless many releases that carry a few of the power I used to see on the DS and 3DS, however I additionally don’t assume it’s an surroundings that’s significantly encouraging in context of the broader adjustments within the sport trade. With the success of the Change 2, it’s in the end troublesome to think about a world the place this surroundings comes again.