Why is it in the tech world it has to be one or the other? Handheld gaming has to compete with mobile devices and every time a handheld struggles the blame is squarely placed on the rise of the mobiles. Yet when handhelds do well, much like Nintendo's 3DS currently, you never hear that the mobile market is suffering from this. Perhaps in the tech world we can have our cake and eat it too.

Since the rise of the iDevice we've constantly heard that this will be the death of handheld gaming. Companies like Nintendo and Sony will suddenly find themselves on the outside looking in as people drop their 3DS's and Vitas in favor touch based gameplay found on nearly every smart phone and tablet. Yet the market lives on. No matter how many games are released in the App Store, no matter cheaply these games are priced, and no matter how many smart phones and tablets are sold; the handheld market continues to thrive.

Could it be that there isn't as big of a competition here as we were lead to believe? I think so.

Smart phones and tablets are excellent devices that do so many amazing functions I often wonder how I got by without one. Being able to browse the web, check my email, fire off text messages, update my Facebook, and more in the palm of my hand is nothing short of incredible. Even the games have come a long way and I often find myself pulling out my phone for some Plants vs Zombies from Popcap Games or whatever the flavor of the month is when I've got a couple of minutes to spare.

Now why is it the 3DS and Vita need to do all of this and more at the same level? Both of these devices are built with gaming in mind first and everything else second. There's no need for my 3DS to do everything my smart phone does because Nintendo knows that I'm always going to have my smart phone with me.

This same concept carries over to the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. Neither of these consoles perform all the extra functions my PC does and the ones they do you can barely compare. Facebook on my PS3 and 360 is something of a chore. Internet browsing is nonexistent on my 360 and the browser on the PS3 isn't that great either. Email is pretty much impossible on the consoles unless you use the PS3's web browser.

At the same time you never hear complaints about the consoles not competing with the PC platform despite offering many of the same games. Often the games on consoles don't look nearly as good as their PC counterparts. Take a look at Battlefield 3 from DICE. The PC version blows the console versions out of the water in nearly every aspect.