John Carmack on this point: “I was really happy that when mobile came along with the more ‘pure’ games, they didn’t have to be a $50 game that had man-centuries in them,” Carmack tells Ars Technica. “You can have these small things that cost people a couple bucks.”

“I don’t have a lot of free time and I don’t have 50 hours for Skyrim. That’s not to take anything away from the massive titles, but it’s great to have this broad spectrum of gaming,” Carmack added.

Yes there will still be blockbuster games that can't be made on the current devices (although I'd argue tablets and TV consoles will surpass game consoles not long after the 2013 refresh). The idea is that you have so much competition that games and innovation have to become more fun. On controlled environments that level of competition is not explored because of the high dollar amount needed to play or compete.

Game companies like Halfbrick, Firemint, and others wouldn't exist without the openness of mobile. If consoles were truly open there would be games that the bigger companies cannot even risk trying that are immensely fun. PC games allowed anyone in and companies like id software appeared, leading to PC games from Valve as one example. Market determination of good is better when bigger.

The internet itself is an example of this. Would Hacker News exist if there were only 10 publishers of content on the web? Bigger and more open always makes for better content. Even if not now, it will shortly. Games have gotten back to arcade level fun rather than trying to create movies. Controlled, top down ivory tower markets never create better content, the currents get too stagnant.

While this might be true in isolation, ie. a widgetbox with 30M sales is a strictly a better economy than the same widgetbox with 10M sales, I do not believe it to be transitive ie. Widgetbox @ 30M sales vs PlayBox360 @ 10M sales. This played out in the last console generation with the wii vastly outselling both the ps3 and the xbox360, but having an inferior library.

Smartphones and tablets are by no means new, nor niche platforms at this point (outselling every other gaming platform by a mile), but id argue that by and large they have failed to produce the kind of quality games available on say, the DS/3DS.

I cannot even think of one mobile title that measures up to even an average DS game.

I more or less agree with this. The major problem to me though is the input mechanism. Touch works for casual games like Angry Birds and Candy Crush, but have you ever tried playing Another World?

I hold out some small hope for an Android console, if it standardises a reasonably good controller.

They are coming, iOS7 has gamepad support, OUYA has a game controller. This will continue.

I would rather have a PS4, XBox or Wii U designed for high quality games using a controller, and then play smartphone games on my phone.

Buying a separate Android or iOS console seems pointless, and plugging a controller into a phone into the tv seems like a fairly convoluted and niche offering.

XCom, in a direct port from the PC version, was just released.

Final Fantasy Tactics, III (ironically enough, ported from the original DS code), IV, and other FF titles. Spectral Souls, ported over from the Playstation portable, and Warhammer Quest, in a new version, are also present for your tactical RPG needs.

Knights of the Old Republic was recently released with all the content from the PC version, but a revised control scheme.

Board and card game conversions have been quite popular lately with things such as Stone Age, Agricola, Ticket to Ride, Elder Sign: Omens, Magic etc.

Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes- a game originally released on the DS

Phoenix Wright, also from the DS.

Minecraft PE

Waking Mars

Plants vs. Zombies

King of Dragon Pass - the unusual and very interesting kingdom management, RPG, interactive fiction, really-doesn't-fit-in-any-categories game.

Battle Academy and Battle of the Bulge: two PC quality turn-based wargames. In the case of Battle Academy, this is a direct port from the PC version.

I'm really just scratching the surface with the games I've played recently. There's tons more. The amount of iOS quality games is rapidly approaching equality with the DS market if it hasn't already surpassed it.

The question is, if id software was a small or medium company today, would they be able to afford getting onto a controlled environment? Would Valve have existed on a closed, publisher happy market like consoles are? (they built off of Quake II)

Now there are lots of exclusives and games that are killer on console (Little Big Planet, Halo) but they also have immense budgets. It is not a small/medium sized company playground. No risks are taken there.

I also loved Red Dead Redemption and GTA games but I always have more fun on the PC, so sad Red Dead never made it there.