But then reality sets in for me. And it's never a problem of battery life that dissuades me from sending the inventor every ounce of my PayPal account. Something that some dude just constructed on the internet is bound to have a few issues like a short battery life. That's the nature of the beast, as far as I'm concerned. No, what dissuades me is always the question that I ask myself: "Am I going to enjoy playing this on a four-inch screen as much as I enjoyed playing it on a 30-inch screen?" The Nintendo 3DS has done a decent job of porting old games like Ocarina Of Time and converting series like Super Smash Bros. into dual-screen nirvana, but I bet that Nintendo would do it way more if they could figure out a way to make it, well, work at all.
It seems really cool to revisit all of that former joy until you realize that most Nintendo 64 games, and other games that were made for bigger consoles, were never meant to be seen on something as long as your ring finger. They were meant to be seen in an enrapturing television experience as your father sobbed behind you, begging you to play catch. Nintendo does a lot of weird stuff, like creating consoles that our earthly human bodies aren't meant to fully cope with. But they're not holding back on turning all of your favorite games from 1997 into portable 2017 games because they hate your smiles. Outside of licensing issues, they probably hold back because they haven't yet figured out a way to both turn it into something you can play on the subway AND not burn your eyes out of your face in the process.
Evan-Amos/Wikipedia
"It's nice that they gave us GoldenEye, but I'd love it if my pupils weren't bleeding right now."