 Today, everybody plays video games, whether it's on our iPhones or our Android tablets or our thingamajigs. But there's one problem. We all like to play shit because we go to the App Store and we download something for free and we click and we click and we click and then one day we die. But why? Why suffer? Why not just play the best things on the best devices? Today, I'm going to help you find one. So what do I want from a gaming device? It should have a great screen. It should have long-lasting battery life. It should control well, like it actually feels like I'm playing the game. And it should have a tremendous catalog of games. None of these do all of those things precisely. But one of them does it best, and that's the PlayStation Vita. The Vita has three to five hours of battery life. Three years into my ownership of a Vita, I'm still hitting the high end of that estimate. It has a number of inputs, two thumbsticks, multiple face buttons, buttons on the top, rear and front touch interfaces. It controls like a console, but it also has console quality video games. The PlayStation Network has a variety of games to download, some of them exclusive to Vita, but also games from PlayStation 1, 2, 3, and now 4. The Vita's exclusive catalog is limited to say the least. Sony hasn't announced any big AAA style games in recent memory, but the company has partnered with a number of indie game studios, bringing some of the best indie games from the PC to the PlayStation Vita. There's also this great integration with Sony's consoles. In fact, with Sony's Cross-Buy program, if you've already purchased certain indie games on one of those home consoles, they'll appear for free on your PlayStation Vita. Play-by-play allows you to play games that are in your home, on your console, on your portable device. So if you're sitting on the couch or in bed, you can play Far Cry 4 from 15 feet away. Now I'm going to be honest with you, I don't entirely know what the future is for the PlayStation Vita, and I'm not entirely convinced Sony does either. They did recently update the device to the PlayStation Vita Slim, which has not as nice of a screen, but better battery life and a better charger. That said, the PlayStation Vita is the best option available, with its screen, battery life, and its incredible catalog of games. Of course, there is somebody right on its tail, the Nintendo 3DS. Nintendo clearly plans to overtake the PlayStation Vita, which is admittedly a silly thing to say considering it has far better sales. Like the PlayStation Vita, the Nintendo 3DS offers the improved console-like controls, it has a catalog of new and retro games, and it just feels enjoyable to use. But most of the games you're going to play start Mario, Donkey Kong, and Zelda, which is great if those are the only games you want to play. On top of that, Nintendo keeps fracturing which device you should be using between the 2DS, the normal 3DS, the 3DS XL, and the new 3DS, which isn't even out yet. At this point, the best option is to wait. If you want to play games on iOS or Android, the best option is a tablet. And of all the tablets, the two best options are the iPad Mini and the Nexus 9. Now, they both have similar, let's say, goods and bads. Goods being, you can download lots of great games for very little money, and the bads being, most of those games are utter garbage. To find the good games, you're going to have to dig through a mountain of shit, and you're still going to have to deal with touch controls, which still aren't quite at the level of traditional analog stick and face buttons. Sure, they have great battery life, they have beautiful screens, but the experience of playing games on tablets just isn't at the level of playing on, say, a Nintendo 3DS or a PlayStation Vita. And that's why I recommend those two systems, specifically the Vita, because the Vita feels like what the future of mobile gaming can and should be. I don't know what portable video games will look like 10 years from now, but my hope is it looks something like the forward-facing PlayStation Vita. Sure, Sony doesn't quite show it the love it deserves, but that doesn't mean that we can't.