I'm right there with you, buddy.
No touchscreen game has ever been able to match the stuff I've played on the Vita or PSP--or even my old Game Boy. Not having physical controls limits what games can work on phones and tablets, and there's no push to offer a standard set of buttons to that end. Plus I love games let you sink your teeth into them over time, rather than being quick and dirty time wasters like Fruit Ninja or something.
And frankly, the whole mobile market is looking real 80's Atari right now. It's trading more on volume and hype than anything else; it's gotten so bad for indies, for instance, that they've been seeing sales just as good on the 3DS and Vita despite the massive install base disparity. There's simply too much on the App Store and Google Play for all the good games to stand out, and most of it is shit. It's not anymore sustainable than the ever increasing budgets in the AAA space, TBH.
But there was a more casual market on dedicated handhelds before stuff like the iPhone came along. Stuff like Brain Age and Nintendogs sold a metric fuckton of copies on the DS, for instance, and helped push the device as much as staples like Mario and Pokemon. Neither of their 3DS successors did anywhere near the same numbers; indeed, 3DS software sales in general are lagging FAR behind the DS's in the same timeframe. And the less said about the Vita compared to the PSP, the better. -_-
Between that and how Vita/3DS games are more expensive to make, it's no wonder most third parties have pretty much abandoned those platforms outside Japan. Sony, meanwhile, has shifted it's focus towards the PS4 and mobile phones, letting the Vita wither and rot on the vine. It's hard to be too hopeful about the long-term prospects of handhelds in light of that.
