The Nintendo Switch Ended Handheld Gaming as We Knew It

Being mid-session, fully settled into a game, only to then be able to stick the Joy-Cons on and walk off with your Nintendo Switch is cool. Very cool. You go on about your life and game as if nothing happened. Nintendo built something that solved a problem many of us never knew we had, and the company doubled down on this concept with the release of the Nintendo Switch 2 in 2025.

Whilst I would love for this to be an article gushing all about how great the Switch is, you don’t really need that. None of us do. The Switch is Nintendo’s best-selling console ever, with over 155 million units sold. What doesn’t get discussed enough, however, is how its success also erased an entire category of gaming.

Handheld Gaming Was Never Just “Console, but Smaller”

If we think about where all of this really started, we arrive back in 1979, back when handhelds were not trying to replicate console experiences. They were still very much doing their own thing, but did borrow a few concepts. Then, technical progress and prowess was not near anything we’ve seen in recent years, and this meant that no one ever expected them to compete on hardware power.

The Milton Bradley Microvision laid the groundwork back then by introducing interchangeable cartridges, which sounds incredibly basic now, but back then? The idea opened the door for handheld gaming to become much more than just a fad. A decade later, the Game Boy entered the fray. Between the original model and the Game Boy Color, Nintendo moved over 118 million units and defined what handheld gaming could be.

Of course, other companies tried to follow: Atari with the Lynx, NEC with the TurboExpress, Sega with the Game Gear. Out of them all, only the latter managed to gain some visibility, topping out at around 10.6 million units. Everything else faded into obscurity, including later attempts like the Genesis Nomad.

While it seemed that handheld gaming had already found its identity, in some ways, it didn’t need the market to be as crowded or competitive. Systems like the WonderSwan or the Neo Geo Pocket didn’t need to outsell Nintendo to justify their existence, because they existed separately to console gaming, and that separation gave developers room to approach things in new ways.

Limitations Didn’t Hold Handhelds Back, They Defined Them

The Game Boy Advance is a great example of how that philosophy was carried forward. It wasn’t trying to catch up to consoles. In fact, with the limited technology available at the time, this would have been a silly idea to even suggest. It doubled down on what handhelds already did well, whilst making sure your existing library still mattered, thanks to backwards compatibility.

Then came the Nintendo DS, and suddenly, the idea of what a handheld could be shifted again. Dual screens and touch input meant that over 154 million units later, it was tangible proof that players loved embracing something that didn’t try to imitate the console space.

The 3DS followed the same line of thinking. Sure, there were many people that didn’t utilize the 3D feature very often, but it’s not really the point: seeing how many people happily bought one whilst the Wii U struggled showed that handhelds were allowed to experiment in ways that console releases couldn’t really afford to.

This had a very direct impact on the kinds of games we got, which were mainly spin-offs with an insane amount of creativity that felt genuinely different, and smaller projects that didn’t need to justify AAA budgets. There were entire design approaches built around handheld consoles’ constraints instead of just trying to overcome them.

The Switch Combined Two Worlds, and Replaced One

Which brings us back to the Switch. When it first launched, it was framed as the best of both worlds. A home console and a handheld, all in one device. This is, of course, accurate: You get couch co-op, a big screen, better visuals. You also get portability, flexibility, and the ability to take your entire library with you wherever you go. It’s seamless.

Sure, the hardware is under powered compared to its competitors in the console world. Backwards compatibility is limited. The Joy-Cons have well documented issues, and the touchscreen is barely used in any games, since you wouldn’t be able to use it when docked. But somehow, none of that seems to matter, because the Switch fits into your life with ease, whilst delivering games of high quality; higher quality than any of the previous handhelds could’ve ever dared to.

And whilst 155 million units and a successor later, it’s very clear that this approach is working, you might find yourself a little disappointed.

But Wait, There's More

The merging of Nintendo’s handheld and console series is not the only development we’ve recently seen in the gaming world. If the Switch managed to blur the line between console and handheld, the release of the Steam Deck erased it by managing to extend your PC into portable gaming.

Whether it’s the ROG Ally, Legion Go, MSI Claw: they all follow the same direction. Gamers have more access than ever, whilst maybe having to compromise the least amount in history. Being able to carry your full PC library around at a form factor that is not too different from the Switch is extremely impressive, and just a decade ago would’ve sounded unrealistic.

It does, however, also highlight the shift in the industry. We used to be amazed at what handheld gaming can do differently, but now the focus is on mirroring existing experiences.

The Wider Industry Is Moving in the Same Direction

Microsoft, or rather its Xbox subdivision, released an official statement in which they say that they are not moving away from the idea that its hardware defines its ecosystem, but the Xbox Series exclusive games look scarily thin. Sony's PlayStation seemingly started to follow this trend with the PlayStation 5, having vastly less exclusive titles than in any of the previous generations. Changes like this have a very real risk of hurting the carefully curated brand identity these companies built up for the last three decades.

Nintendo is a clear outlier here, because whilst they merged their two lines into one, they have never changed the approach to exclusivity. Nintendo games live on their own hardware, and that consistency plays a big role in making the Switch feel cohesive, with the other part of the cohesion obviously stemming from the fact that everything is built around one system.

When Everything Lives on One System, Games Start to Look the Same

All of these concepts are exciting to no end, but the collapse of handheld, console and PC development into just a couple of platforms means there is little distinction between them left.

Games are no longer built specifically for a smaller and less powerful device first. They’re expected to scale across a variety of screen sizes, and in most cases I’ve seen, this naturally pulls them closer into the direction of traditional console design choices. Realistically, this means that games are now built with higher expectations in mind, since their scope reaches much further with less division within the audience it is built for.

Handhelds used to be the place where franchises would be happy to experiment. Developers were able to take risks without the weight of a full console release attached to it. Unique quirks and tighter hardware limitations meant that not everything could be a mainline entry, and games also didn’t need to justify themselves in the same way. In the current gaming landscape, expectations have shifted.

I Miss What Handhelds Used to Be

Ultimately, I don’t want to sound overly nostalgic. I really enjoy my Steam Deck, and I’ve also been very much enjoying both the Switch and Switch 2. And even though I do enjoy those, there is significantly less room for weird ideas.

Sure, a lot of that has moved into the indie space. In many ways, that is truly where some of the most interesting work is happening, and it also makes sense why that is the case. Between smaller teams, less overhead, and simply more freedom in general, creativity has a much higher chance of surviving.

But personally, I yearn for the time in which spin-offs from popular franchises weren’t always just strictly about extensions, but about experimenting. Projects sometimes felt like someone just really wanted to try something different instead of fitting into a unified multi-platform release strategy. I loved handhelds as a space for exploration.

The Switch absolutely did not kill creativity per se. There are still many releases that carry some of the energy I used to see on the DS and 3DS, but I also don’t think it’s an environment that is particularly encouraging in context of the wider changes in the game industry. With the success of the Switch 2, it is ultimately difficult to imagine a world where this environment comes back.