It's a big day for gadget launches in the UK, with both the iPad 2 and the Nintendo 3DS arriving in stores. One is a new games console, the other a multi-purpose device which offers games and much more. But which will rack up the biggest sales and which will do more to change the video games industry?

It's the new iPad which is creating all the buzz but, amongst young gamers, it's the Nintendo device which is the focus of more excitement. Which is interesting because we keep hearing about the death of the console, as gaming goes casual and moves onto a whole host of different devices. From Farmville on Facebook, to any number of games apps on smartphones and on the iPad - gaming has undergone a revolution in the last couple of years.

I've noticed this trend in my own home. My 12-year-old son Rufus asked for my credit card the other day to pay for a game called Minecraft. This, like a number of other games he has found recently in the limited time allowed for gaming by his very strict parents, is played on a PC.

And what with Maple Story and Grand Fantasia on a computer, Plants v Zombies on the family iPad, and Angry Birds when he grabs my phone, he seems to have little time left to play on a console.

But now Nintendo claims that the 3DS will breathe new life into handheld gaming on a specialist device. With millions of children already familiar with the DS experience, there's a big potential audience for the new model, which boasts a 3D camera and promises games and movies in three dimensions, all without using glasses.

As someone who has both poor eyesight and a profound ignorance of game play, I decided I was not in the best position to test the 3DS. So I contracted the job out to Rufus - he was told that he would get a couple of days to play with the console, and would then have to hand it back after completing his homework. Here's his review:

"The 3DS is a marvel. It's one of the first pieces of technology in history to show 3D without glasses. It's bright and brilliant, and although it doesn't have any games currently (mostly), it has a Mii maker, an online Mii game, a bunch of Augmented Reality games and a game called Face Raiders, which all make use of the 3D and the motion sensors.
 
"But, know it for a fact, the 3D can damage your eyes if you play it to an extent. Tone it down every once in a while. 9.5/10."

A couple of footnotes - a Mii is a player's avatar, as used on a Wii console. And when he wrote about the 3DS not having any games currently, that was before I gave him Nintendogs to try out.

Anyway, if my son and his friends are anything to go by, the 3DS will be a big hit and parents can expect plenty of pestering.

Apple's iPad 2 - which costs at least twice as much - may struggle to match Nintendo's sales numbers, but will probably earn more, both for Apple and perhaps for games developers too.

All sorts of industries - newspapers, television and education have invested an awful lot of hope in Apple's tablet as the platform for a digital profitable future. But it's games makers who seem to have done best from the first generation of the iPad. The chart of best-sellers in the Apple app store is full of games, from Angry Birds, to Shrek Kart HD to Real Golf 2011.

Now Apple is hoping that the new version, with its gyroscope to make action games that bit more engrossing, will make further inroads into the market. I had a quick demo of one first person shooter game, and was impressed by the way the landscape moved around me.

But Nintendo, for one, is determined to prove that there is still plenty of room for a dedicated games device. Apple may be changing plenty of industries but it's too early to write the obituary of the games console.