With the advent of smartphones, handheld consoles have somehow lost its popularity. Gamers now have an alternative mode of gaming medium that is cheaper and readily accessible.
However, there are still many who prefer the traditional console than the touchscreen feel of smartphones. The Nintendo 3DS and Sony's PlayStation Vita are among the two most popular handheld gaming gadgets widely used by gamers who prefer to use the devices over smartphones.
Design
The Sony PlayStation Vita maintained the traditional look of a handheld console. Its design somehow mimics Atari Lynx and the Sega Game Gear.
On the other hand, the smaller Nintendo 3DS looks like a clamshell. This also makes the console more portable and a better competitor of smartphones.
Under the hood
A 2 GB of removable storage and 1 GB of internal flash memory come with the the Nintendo 3DS. It is also powered by a dual-core ARM11 MPCore CPU and another single core processor.
Meanwhile, the PlayStation Vita 64GB of expandable storage, 1 GB flash memory and 512 MB of RAM. It runs on quadcore processors which makes the console faster than the Nintendo offering.
Available games
The Nintendo 3DS is well-known for the classic Nintendo games it offers for the gamers. Some of the popular titles for this console include "Pokemon X & Y," "Mario Kart" and "The Legend of Zelda."
First-party games like "Monster Hunter" could be played on the PlayStation Vita. The console also later on offered indie games and titles from Japanese and independent developers.
Drawbacks
Despite the numerous features, there are still concerns on these consoles that sometimes become the deciding factor for users in deciding what they want to buy. For one, a variant of the Nintendo 3DS has a rechargeable battery but does not come with an adapter. On the other hand, the PlayStation Vita has limited the access of players to popular titles from major developers.