Console vs Handheld

As a product of the 90s and early 00s, console games are near and dear to me. For generations, people have been using consoles to play the next big game to hit stores. However,while that excitement of going out and buying a game still exists, handheld games have taken up more people’s time in recent years. With console games, people are restricted to only being at home. With the transition to handheld gaming, people have been able to bring their virtual reality into their everyday,real world activities. Nowadays, it’s nearly impossible to take the train without seeing someone playing some sort of game, or even playing one yourself.
The idea of parents passing the gaming torch to their children is one of the main reasons that console gaming is still relatively prominent. Like the article stated, people who grew up on nothing but consoles are now having children that they can play their favorite games with.
This parent-child gaming added onto the fact that children have smartphones with games doesn’t help the fact that children are lost in realities that aren’t their own. When it was just consoles, kids would leave their house and live their lives normally. Now, they walk down the street and attend school constantly tapping and swiping away for the newest game app that has hit the App Store. Back before handheld games, people would have to wait until they got home to finish a level or defeat a boss. Now, all people have to do is take out their phones and ignore the world around them that they should be immersing themselves in.
I also found the idea of silver gamers interesting. I agree with the fact that console gaming is going to retire with a certain generation. Now that gaming apps are venturing into the real world with merchandise and more augmented realities, console gaming is slowly running its course. Once the children who play with their parents grow up, they’re going to introduce handheld games to their children because that’s what they mostly grew up on. The main market for console gaming now is YouTube, where people watch gamers play the game, so they don’t have to buy it but can still see how it plays out.
Handheld gaming has been in it for a long haul because of the ability for people of all ages to play as long as they have tablets or smartphones. Handheld games have brought us closer to entering ourselves into the world of our games than consoles ever has. Now people are patiently waiting for the next Pokemon Go augmented reality game to come out so they can make their regular lives entertaining again.