The very first real game I ever touched was on a road trip to Florida. My dad had bought me a coloring book with crayons and my brother a brand new Game Boy with Mickey's Dangerous Chase and, what it came with, Tetris. My brother fiddled with the new toy for awhile, while I stared at him collecting items, jumping, and dodging on such a small screen. I was intrigued. Once he got sick of getting hit by brutish dogs, he passed it along to me. I tried out as Minnie, not having any more success than him, I'm sad to say. He handed me the other cartridge and I plugged it in. I was surprised to see blocks like the ones I played with back home. I was stuck on that game for quite awhile until my mother made me give Ken his system back. The gateway was opened.
 
As accurate as this picture was at the time, I barely owned more than ten portable cartridges on all of the portable platforms I've owned up until the DS's arrival. I traveled less and didn't have many friends that gamed, or friends for that matter, so I mostly stayed at home throughout the duration of the non-DS segment of the portable gaming timeline. The lack of movement in combination of the small screens, lack of good lighting (on most portables), and short battery life ( Game Gear anyone?) amounted to little incentive to ever use a Game Boy or even Game Boy Advance, and while color, sound, graphics did become more sophisticated, the libraries never bore much fruit.
 
Then the DS changed things. Developers took it seriously, giving full narrative games like those found in the Ace Attorney series, and games that would've been ludicrous to think about doing on previous platforms, such as Kirby's Canvas Curse, Drawn to Life, and Elite Beat Agents, were now possible. That's not to say that the system couldn't use improvement. With Sony's PSP, there's the ability to play movies, download games, and watch porn: all a gamer's delight.
 
So, to get to the blood of the rock, a handheld gaming system today needs first and foremost, a good library. No games means to reason to buy it, and even porn is not enough of a reason (there's always the PC for that), and no good games is double the reason to avoid it (after all, a round of Wild Woody won't be compensated by porn, no matter what the quality). Also to consider are quality graphics and sounds, but this should go with a good library (to those of you now thinking that I'm excluding all 8-bit games, this isn't the case as a good game can still have good 8-bit graphics and stock sounds). To go with the way other gaming platforms have today, the following should be included as well:

• Online marketplace
• No funky currency methods: dollar amounts, please.
• Achievements: I realize Nintendo, specifically Miyamoto, is reluctant to implement this, but the dangling carrot keeps players playing and interested in the game. It creates competition with friends and is foolish not to include.
• No friend codes: just let me add my friend's profile, please.
• More retro games: not necessarily even remakes, but just the ability to have and play more of the old games would be wonderful.
• The ability to share pornography with ease: my friends have similar habits, too. I'd like to make it easier for them to cave into them.