Best & Worst Handhelds

Between the Nintendo 3DS, Sony's NGP, and game-friendly
smartphones from Apple and its Android rivals, the future of handheld gaming is
incredibly bright. But it hasn't always been. For every big-time handheld over
the years, there exist more than a few ill-fated efforts that, for one reason
or another, were dropped faster than an AT&T call. We take a look back at
the best of handheld gaming -- and the devices we'd just as soon forget.

Panasonic Jungle Panasonic finally saw the Jungle for the trees.

The consumer electronics company has abandoned its plans to
create a handheld gaming device - which was codenamed 'Jungle' - that would
have focused on massively-multiplayer online games for the portable audience.

"Panasonic decided to suspend further development due
to changes in the market and in our own strategic direction," the company
said in a
statement given to Reuters.

The Jungle was first announced last October and ran full
speed into a wall of skepticism and indifference from games. Panasonic, after
all, has a dubious reputation in the industry after the ill-fated release of
the 3DO system in 1993 (which carried a shockingly high

"The Empire of Tamriel is on the edge.  The High King of Skyrim has been murdered...
Dragons, long lost to the passages of the Elder Scrolls, have returned to
Tamriel."

This all sounds like bad news, but is it really?  For gamers, at least, it means a couple
hundred hours of dungeon-crawling, sword-wielding, spell-slinging fun, set
against the backdrop of a sprawling open world. Bethesda Game Studios has just released the second video trailer for Skyrim, the fifth entry in its venerable Elder Scrolls series of fantasy role-playing epics.  Where the first video was just a tease, this one gives you plenty of gameplay footage to feast your eyes on, with narration by the formidable Max Von

Sony PSP - SCEA With its next generation portable system looming, Sony is giving the PSP one last moment in the spotlight. Effective this Sunday, the company will cut the retail price of its portable gaming system by $40, from $170 to $130.

The move not only lets Sony access a new audience with the PSP, it lets the company get out in front of the launch of the Nintendo 3DS, which will hit shelves on March 27.

The PSP hasn't been the category-changer that many expected it would be when it was unveiled in 2004, but it has hardly been a failure. The company has sold 67.8 million units worldwide as of the end of 2010, 23 million of which were sold in North America alone.

To date, there are more than 590 games