Smartphones and tablets are widely available and used as gaming devices in today’s market. However, the 3DS has managed to sell 19 million units and Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata thinks that the market for dedicated handheld consoles can exist alongside that of smartphones/tablets.

“I think a lot of this discussion is based on the premise that the handheld gaming device market is shrinking or vanishing and I don’t think that is true and I’d like to address that,” said Iwata. “Something that [Nintendo of America president] Reggie [Fils-Aime] said at E3 was that the Nintendo 3DS hardware was selling more or faster than the DS, and I think that’s something… that a lot of people are aware of. But something that Reggie also said is that the 3DS software sales were exceeding DS software sales.”

He notes that the 3DS sold 10.5 million units of software in its first 14 months, greater than the DS sold in the same period of time. “I think this is proof that even though we see an increase in smartphones and tablets and whatnot and there’s obviously a huge flood of games in the market, I think the software sales that Reggie alluded to and pointed out really prove that these people, even with this flood of free games and whatnot for these portable devices-[these] non-game-centric devices-are not keeping people from purchasing software for dedicated hardware,” Iwata said.

“I think within games you have two needs that people fill. One is the time-filler need. The other is that it’s a very important time for me and I want to have a rich experience. Those are two separate needs, I think,” theorized Iwata. “The other thing is how much are consumers willing to pay to play. I think that consumers who are willing to pay money for a gaming experience are looking for something that is more rich and are willing to spend some of that valuable time on that experience. I believe that as environments change and as the world progresses we’re going to have different ways in which people want to spend their time. That being said, I don’t think we’re going to see the desire to have, again, rich and deep sort of gaming experiences… we’re not going to see that vanish. That’s not going to go away.”

Source: Kotaku