Gaming has taken an interesting turn lately due to the rise of smartphones and tablets.  For the sake of argument, I'm going to refer to this movement as Apple.  Yes, I know Android is out there, and many of you are more than welcome to believe that Android is better or what not, I really don't care.  In my opinion, the driving force behind this movement has been Apple with it's iPhones and iPads.  Anyway, the rise of there platforms has generated a whole lot of money for smaller developers who can make very inexpensive titles, and make a lot of money from inexpensive downloads.  The truth is that because of this, Apple has done a lot of damage to Nintendo's 20 year domination of the handheld market.  Is this true?  Is this going to really effect the quality of the games that will come out for handheld platforms in the future?

The answer is yes to the first question.  However, this isn't yes in the way that you're thinking.  Core gamers are still going to purchase the 3DS, and support the platform.  There are two groups that have always have had no choice in the market that now do, and those people will now find their addictions in a much more user friendly and overall cheaper platform in which to get their gaming habits.  These demographics are the elderly, and young girls.  These groups, in the past, were relegated to the Game Boy and DS platforms due to cost and portability.  That's why when you go back and look at the libraries of these games you'll see a lot of Barbie and Crossword Puzzle/Card games.  This is also a major reason why that in the past that Nintendo handhelds were always so damn hard to find at Christmas time.  People would go in to stores in order to get little Suzie or grandma a video game console to meet their personal needs, and Nintendo always had that to offer.  Now Apple has come in and put their name in the hat with a console that might start out a little more pricey, but the games for it are much cheaper than it's competitor.  We aren't talking a $10 difference like DS to PSP, we're talking a $30 plus difference.  That is hard to argue against.  

So the second question, will it effect the quality of the games we get?  No.  Guys, people are always gonna buy Pokemon and Mario.  There's always going to be a market for it.  Also, I don't care how cheap the games on apples iTunes are, you're never going to be able to match up for the overall quality of a well made handheld game on a handheld platform.  The PSP God of War titles are better than 99% of the games on iTunes, hands down.  So they really deserve to be more expensive.  No, the quality of the games will not go down at all.  There will still be Mario, Pokemon and Monster Hunter.  The only games that will be effected will be these more casual games, like the crossword puzzle games and Imagine Baby Daddy titles.  There will be far fewer of these, because the target audience for these titles will be shifting away from proper handheld consoles into the "do it all" iPhones and iPads.  

Honestly, I don't mind this migration.  I don't mind gaming being mainstream, but if you look at this "casual" movement we've seen this generation, you'll see a huge difference in quality.  Developers and publishers were getting away with putting far less effort into making the games good, which is why you'll see a lot Gingerbread Man and Margo's Word Brain crap rather than titles that took time and effort to make good.  This doesn't mean we're going to stop seeing the handheld triple A gold that we are used to seeing.  No one is coming for your Pokemons kids, you can still show them to people.