Handhelds

As I've mentioned in previous posts the market of video games is vast and continues to grow. The idea of controlling something else in a virtual world has shown to be a demand that isn't going anywhere. Well isn't going anywhere in terms of profit, however these virtual worlds may be traveling all across the country soon. This being because handheld games have overtaken console systems in sales as of late. Handheld systems have been around for a long time, the first handheld system of any sort being released in 1979. The first handheld system to grab a real marketshare was the Gameboy in 1989. Although the Gameboy enjoyed a lot of success, it never matched the marketshare of the Nintendo console sytems. Recently the Nintendo DS shot past 50 million unit sales, putting it halfway to the total Gameboy sales in just three years.
The DS has also become the fastest selling console in Japan.So what does that say about where our society is going and what our needs and desires are. Does it mean that we are tired of paying over $300 for a game system that we can't find time to play? Does it mean that we are beginning to get away from the graphics often portraying extreme violence as I've talked about before? Do we not want a game that will last forever like Spore?
My take is that we as a society are in such a hurry that we simply don't have time for game systems that take up as much space, time and money that sytems like XBox 360 do. The scary part in my eyes is that these game sytems are for the most part being sold to people under the age of 25, meaning that a lot of the people under the age of 25 are too hurried to sit down and play normal game consoles. I think that there are pros and cons to this situation. It could mean that the youth are doing more productive things than playing video games of endless violence, but as I've mentioned video games can also provide substantial motor skills amongst other things. It also could mean that we are exhausting our youth to the point that they don't have a sense of recreation. And there is a fine line between understanding recreation and being lazy, the latter which is a problem our country currently faces. But we can't underestimate the value and understanding of the ability to relax and enjoy yourself. A value that I don't believe can be found playing a handheld game when walking to class or riding the bus, a time in which interpersonal skills can be developed. Thats another negative I see is that handhelds are often used to make transportation time to be less painful. This meaning handhelds would be contributing to the lack of interpersonal skills our country has as a whole. In the end, the extreme rise in handheld sales is a distinct sign that our country values our time more than it does recreational time playing video games. This isn't necesarilly a bad thing but could be contributing to our countries lack of interpersonal skills. Regardless, it will be interesting to see where handheld and console sales go.