We all know we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, writes Claire Pulpher . We all know that personality is far superior to looks. As a woman, I’m especially relieved to know that size doesn’t matter – to most people anyway. But when games consoles are concerned, does it? I remember growing up wanting to do nothing but play on my Gameboy. But today, with the existence of smartphones and iPads that have built-in gaming features to compete with a portable console, are they going out of fashion?

Back in the early Noughties, portable games consoles were all the range and very popular. However, if you ask a non-gamer today what portable consoles are available, they’d most likely say the Nintendo DS. And that’d be it. Of course, there are more variants of the DS that you can shake a stick at. DS Lite, DS XL – the list goes on. But, surprisingly, there are more to choose from out there. Sony released the PlayStation Portable (PSP), the PSP 3000 and now the PS Vita. The gaming industry still holds a huge percentage of the electronic market – so why the sudden drop in demand for portable games consoles?

I blame the introduction of the smartphone. Back in the day, you expected to pay about £39.99 for a pretty run-of-the-mill strategy game or a copy of Tetris. Today, the same game on your iPhone will cost you 69p. I know what I’d rather pay. Game designers are even creating popular titles specifically for Android and iOS release, such as Monkey Island and Sonic The Hedgehog 4 at only £5.99 instead of similar PC releases at around £40. Games such as the world-famous Angry Byrds are even free to download on the Android Marketplace.

Don’t get me wrong – the PS Vita is a beautiful piece of kit. The console is the perfect size to fit comfortably in both hands with a glorious screen. It’s WiFi and 3G enabled so you can connect to the internet and download more games or browse online and it has a trackpad on the back so that you can actually interact with the character in the game by swiping or pinching it. Nintendo has gone a totally different route to win the market back by taking its device to the 3D world. The Nintendo 3DS is a completely innovative handheld that creates a 3D experience when gaming without the need for glasses. This is an incredibly exciting feature and when you first get your hands on one, you won’t believe it. But once the novelty has worn off (give it 30 minutes) you’ll probably get your iPhone back out and try and complete that final level on Cut The Rope.

It seems that in order to lure consumers to splash their hard-earned cash on handheld consoles, designers have to come up with something totally different. They won’t give up either Although Sony has suffered with a poor demand for the Vita, Nintendo is trying something different. The Wii U, due for release at the end of the year, is a whole new system designed to be an upgrade to the hugely popular Wii, although it also incorporates a new style of handheld. The clever controller for the system has a large embedded touchscreen so that when the TV is switched off you can continue to play your games via the controller itself, as well as receive messages and alerts during gameplay when using the TV. A similar thing was done before in 1998 by Sega with the VMU for Dreamcast – a memory card device with a small screen that attached to the controller so that games could still be played even when the console itself wasn’t in action.

So although Nintendo is playing it safe by releasing is portable innovation with a guaranteed success in the Wii U, I think in this sort of cash-strapped market, that’s the only way that the handheld console will live on. I mean you’d never pay £300 for a bottle of Lambrini but if you paid £300 for a bottle of champagne and the Lambrini came free, you’d probably drink it. Or maybe that’s just me...

Claire's games not to miss:

Sleeping Dogs
(Xbox 360, PS3, PC) – You can tell by the
gritty cartoons, this isn’t for the light-hearted. Very Grand Theft Auto, this open-world shoot-em-up is based on the True Crime series. Storylines to follow, missions, sandbox-style play... an average  Saturday night?! Due: August 14

 

FIFA ’13
(Xbox 360, PS3, PC,
iOS, Android, PS Vita) needs
no introduction. If you have an ounce of interest in football and gaming, you’ve probably played something from this series before. Fancy taking your local team to play Real Madrid or Barcelona? Personally, I can’t wait for
this. Due: Late
September

 

Dust: An
Elysian Tail (Xbox 360)
could be the game all
old-school gamers have been waiting for. Although the classic style of Rayman and Sonic have been rewarding, a new 2D side-scroller is hugely anticipated. Here we have it. The screenshots alone
suggest it’s going to
be massive

 

 

 

 

A WORD FROM OUR SCREEN QUEEN:

My name’s Claire. I’m 22 and I like girly things. My favourite colour is pink, I wear too much make-up, I’m blonde and I drink wine – lots of it.
Oh and one more thing – I’m a nerd. And not ‘nerd’ as in I go on Facebook, create a ‘group’ and then consider myself to be a website designer. I can program Linux and I know how to clear System 32 of a Trojan. I have a replica pair of Sonic the Hedgehog’s shoes (that I wear) and I was once 4th in the world at Heavy Weapon on the Xbox 360. Nerd as in nerd. Contrary to what you might think, I wasn’t brought up by crazy computer scientists who forced me to learn binary before I looked at the alphabet. Like every other little girl I played with Barbies and was convinced I’d grow up to be a professional princess with 37 ponies. However, one day I discovered the 16-bit games console of the 1990s… the Sega Mega Drive. My earliest memory is of me sitting on the hideous 1970s-style rug at my aunt
and uncle’s house in Croydon, beating my uncle miserably at Sonic the Hedgehog. It started with games and as technology developed, so did my imagination and I.
The general consensus is that
being a geek is far from sexy.
Well. Consider the stereotype changed...