When I hear people discuss it they tend to suggest that we're trending away from portables in many ways. Here are a few scenarios.

Shared Content
The NGP seems to highlight this potentiality. Games could come as available for both the NGP and the PS3 and would be able to sync up. Sync up your NGP on the way out the door, play some Uncharted while you're out, sync it back up at home, continue your game where you left off on the NGP on your big TV.

What I keep hearing is that to a large degree people don't want this. They don't want big console experiences shrunk down to their handheld. It loses some of its grandeur and bombast. They want to enjoy those types of games at home with nice audio and a big screen.

I would absolutely welcome it as an option, but I'm not sure how attractive it is to the mainstream.

One iOS to rule them all
Balk as much as you like, but even the serious gamers are starting to lean toward iOS devices. All of the podcasts that used to laugh at the iPhone and complain about controls sucking because fingers cover the screen and how it will never be good enough... yeah, most of those guys are singing the praises of amazing iOS releases like Infinity Blade, Dead Space and Plants vs Zombies to say nothing of the ubiquitous titles like Angry Birds, Cut the Rope, and Fruit Ninja which have infected the general populous of FB gamers.

Sure, there are a few holdouts that still say it doesn't matter, the more common thing is to hear people say they no longer carry their PSP or DS because they have an iPhone/iPod Touch and they can't justify carrying two devices. I'm a person who will probably always want my game specific hardware, but I'm starting to find myself in their shoes. It's easier to slide my Touch into my pocket... which I'll have anyway for apps and mobile internet. I just realize that I'll be satisfied enough with playing a floor or two of 100 Rogues if I get the itch and it's not worth lugging a bulky portable that's harder to pick up and put down on the fly.


My Thoughts
Personally, I think the handheld market will continue to thrive, but not necessarily grow significantly; at least it won't grow they way you might expect. I think mobile gaming is taking off, but rather than iPhone gaming luring new people to Nintendo and Sony platforms, it seems to be trending the other way. Either DS/PSP style gaming will continue at a plateau or it will slowly drop off as people start to prefer a simply solution... one device in their pocket that does it all... like and iPhone.

Even among the largest demographic I see with DSes (kids) it will probably go that route. If a parent is deciding between a Touch and 3DS it'll be a tough call considering the prices and what all else the touch can do. Kids will want a music player anyway... why not kill two birds with one stone.

I'm really excited about the NGP, but it's going to be large and is going to exacerbate the issue of portability next to the iPhone.


Also, I think your estimate of 10-20 years is a bit myopic. In 10 years the tech will make this thread look silly as crap. It's ridiculous difficult to predict things in tech due to unknowns. Plotting a course for know tech almost always underestimates its speed and the other problem is not considering new tech. Iceglow, I'm pretty sure you're close to my age and if you think back 10-15 years at how quickly things like the internet swarmed us... how quickly phones went from lol Nokias to amazing computers in our pockets.... yeah. Tech moves so fast we can't even imagine. Most of the things we were predicting then were ridiculous and didn't even imagine a world like we have today.

Jesus, in 10-20 years we might just be doing some neural interface with our portable computers via wireless to play augmented reality games on our 3D display contact lenses. Seriously... stuff can get that crazy that fast. But in the short-term, I see us leaving gaming only devices to hobbyists.