Hello! Pardon the vanity link, but it’s late and I’m out of root beer. Over at Eurogamer I’ve written a little thing about possible trends for handheld gaming in 2012. It was easy to write, actually, because I mainly got other people to do it for me, roping in contributions from people at 5TH Cell, WayForward, Sony, Q Entertainment and Popcap.
It’s a long, confusing ramble, really, and in that sense it reflects the confusion, and, I suspect, fear, within handheld gaming fairly well. What struck me as interesting, when I was reading it back, was that it’s not really about trends in general, but one particular trend in particular: where is handheld going, and is there room for £30 games and machines that play them when iOS and Android are delivering so much for 69p?
I suspect there is room – games like Gravity Rush simply aren’t feasible at a 69p price point, for example, and I know I want to play that – but it’s still going to be an interesting and unpredictable year, I imagine. The only other thing I’d add here is how much I personally enjoyed reading the thoughts of Dakko Dakko’s Rhodri Broadbent. He’s a PSP Mini developer, and his intelligent optimism and delight at new gaming hardware is really inspiring. He makes amazing games, too.
Also, and somewhat inevitably, Parkin has written another trend piece on the indie scene. You can read it here, and it’s a bit better than mine.
