Smartphones were supposed to kill off portable consoles and for a brief moment they did. It took 2-3 years until people realized dedicated hardware was so much better and Switch happened to launch at perfect time.
this post was submitted on 13 Mar 2024
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Well, we've now got Steam Deck turning your portable console into a full PC, just connect a keyboard. Also no need to buy a Steam Deck version of that game you bought on Steam ten years ago, it's already there and probably runs great.
It might be that proprietary, single purpose gaming portables are going to lose to more flexible portables even if smartphones are too limited to do the job.
Also no need to buy a Steam Deck version of that game you bought on Steam ten years ago, it’s already there and probably runs great.
Android could have had this same advantage too, but Google's now pushing this whole framework version check thing.
There's also the fact the mobile gaming industry worked hard to make it an ad riddled, predatory monetisation & whalebait laden skinner box hellscape.
I don't deny there's a few gems mixed into the dogshit, which is a shame because I'm not going digging for it.
long response sorry
I think smartphones could have done a massive amount of damage to consoles and ultimately will occupy a large section of gaming as they should.
This has been forgotten and it shouldn’t, but mobile gaming really wasn’t a business movement to transfer existing video game development practices to a mobile environment, it was a business movement to apply corporate business practices to gaming. Mobile gaming wasn’t ever given a fair chance because there has always been a huge headwind of money shaping the mobile gaming industry into the toxic shithole it is.
Not to mention the Apple and (more so) Google app stores have never valued creating reliable game suggestions and review databases that people actually trusted. Neither has either company given a shit about encouraging a cottage industry of mobile game critics, instead they have pretended like people are seriously going to keep looking for new games through the recommendations of an algorithm that is so obviously tuned to spit out crap and point you at the same old couple of popular slot machine microtransaction games over and over again.
If you forget all that nonsense though and take a look at games like Call Of Duty Mobile, Farlight 84 and Pubg Newstate, touchscreen interfaces are getting extremely good for shooters and many mobile players have gotten extremely good at creating custom arrangements of buttons so they can use three or four fingers to play almost competitively as the average mouse and keyboard player (farrrr better than a controller player without gyro).
Games like Call Of Duty Mobile and the now maddeningly defunct Apex Legends Mobile also allow the use of a controller hooked up via Bluetooth to your phone. Using an xbox x/s controller and the PowerA Moga gaming clip 2 you can mount your phone on your controller in a very sturdy fashion. You can then turn gyro input on your phone on too (which is normally for touchscreen users directly holding their phone). In this way I was able to aim in Apex Legends Mobile without auto-aim far more competitively than someone playing normal Apex Legends on console could do with a controller and no gyro even if they had auto-aim turned on.
This clip only costs about $17, so that with a used Xbox x/s controller for let’s say $35 gets you the ability to comfortably play Wreckfest on your phone anywhere in your house with your phones beautiful AMOLED screen at a close enough distance to give you a high fidelity viewing experience. The clip also easily pops off and can be stored in a pocket.
You can’t argue the potential of mobile gaming especially if people continue to buy phones with fairly powerful processors and high quality screens. Sure I love gaming on a computer or a console, but those cost money and most people only need to drop <$50 on some peripherals to game with their phone. I game on a steamdeck and I am satisfied with that right now but in many ways the balance of my phone in a moga clip was better and anyways everybody already has a phone so it was dead easy to wrangle friends in on actually good mobile games.
The problem is all the business/corporate bros in mobile gaming are keeping the industry from innovating or really even just replicating the experience of normal gaming because they have been hellbent on enshittifying mobile gaming from the start.
We would ALL own Diablo Mobile if it was actually a phenomenal Diablo game that we could play with any friends we wanted and was satisfying to control on mobile. Blizzard just catastrophically shit the bed and made people feel icky for participating in this corporatization of gaming.
Made a comment in another thread the other day, but as a gamesir x2 pro owner the telescopic controllers are really good now too.
I got the USBC one so no input delay or battery to recharge, cost me $100AUD, built solid and there are mod guides out there now (I'm gonna add a 30mm fan or two to keep my phone cool it can get a bit hot under heavy load.
Isn’t it amazing this capability was basically right there from the beginning of mobile gaming?
It really shows badly corporate business practices utterly destroyed the ability of mobile gaming to innovate and improve as a medium for years and years. We might as well be almost 10 years behind where we should be in the evolution of the mobile gaming scene and it is honestly appalling.
I am so glad we have options like your gamesir x2! I use an Xbox controller just because I already had one, actually for awhile I was using a wired Xbox 360 controller which would sometimes work for games that weren’t even designed with controller input because compatibility is so good with 360 controllers lol.
How do you like the joysticks and buttons on the gamesir?
The pro is the one to get I'll tell you, unless you have a Z-Fold, in which case get the X2C (I think) that just released, that one's got the port on the left, meaning when unfolded it sits with the screen unfolded upwards.
The standard X2 has buttons for the triggers, pro has travel. The joysticks aren't hall effect on mine iirc, but they're very accurate and it's surprisingly comfortable. You can also swap the ABXY around as they're magnetic button caps, and they're held in so well I need pliers to pull em. Only issue I've got is left on the D-pad is a little finicky and it makes combos a bit difficult at times on some games.
You can mod the X2 pro so it stretches out and fits a 10/11" tablet but it'll stretch the springs out, or add fans if your phone gets a bit hot like mine under heavy load (I'll likely be adding a 30mm fan or two).
I give it a 9/10, -1 for D-pad jank.
Phones are by far the most popular gaming device.
It's just not the same market, might as well say that smartphones are killing tabletop gaming. DS lifetime sales were 155m, Switch is at something like 140m and still going. There's not that much room for growth probably but smartphone gaming is saturated as well.
The comment about killing a market came from you; phones are, as I said, the most popular device for gaming. Likening video gaming to tabletop gaming is silly and irrelevant; phones can and do play the same games which consoles do, board games are not the same market or sphere.
Billions use their phones for games, the Switch accounts for over a hundred million consoles, which are essentially large phones/tablets with controllers. It depends what you mean about dedicated hardware, as there are phones which are more powerful. If it's based on the controllers, sure, although there are also pads which can connect to mobile devices to make them into little consoles in themselves.
I'm not sure what you mean by smartphone gaming saturation; in terms of how many phones have been sold and who has them? I guess. But the market for mobile games is absolutely huge because of how many exist, so you have a potential market of billions rather than millions.
What I'm saying this is not "this or this" dilemma so the whole premise that one unrelated market is going to snuff out another is a fallacy.
Mobile space is a completly different to any kind of PC or console gaming. It's not about buttons, it's the whole thing. You can't get into hardware because profit margins are laughable. You can't compete with Google or Apple on market commission because they have a monopoly. You can't do AAA games because positioning and advertising is a tossup. You're left with trying to get another gacha game which is akin to trying to do another live service game on traditional platforms and we all know how predictable this business is.
I've used portable consoles as an example because years ago argument that they'd be replaced by smartphones had some merit. We now know that was kinda dumb. To replace Xboxes and Playstation you'd have to have tech that's just not there yet and won't be there for the foreseeable future (vast majority of people play FIFA, CoD, Fortnite etc so lag just kills it). People who could put up with deficiencies of streaming are likely not the same ones that game on existing hardware. There will be people who will jump on it if it grows but for different types of experiences, creating new market segment.
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I can't believe we're talking about this again. Feels like every five years or so, some industry has-been wants to talk about phones changing gaming.
Last year was one of the best for games in recent years, all of which I wouldn't want to play on my phone.
Wake up, Touchscreens aren't ideal, it's just convenient. The market is bigger than just people wanting to play on the phone.
EDIT I reread and think my rant isn't really applicable to this, but I'll leave up how I feel anyway.
exactly, touchscreens are only good because they take no extra space and are terrible in every other way
Remember when Blizzard was like "You guys have phones right?"
What the world needs right now is Steam boxes. Just build a $500 PC, slap Steam OS on it and you're done. The ecosystem is already there. I really don't understand why nobody has done this.
Ah yes, the steam machines. Combining the downsides of PC and Consoles since 2015.
Have you been living under a rock for the past three years? Have you heard of the Steam Deck?
Which is a device that combines the downsides of an UMPC and a handheld game console?
I have.
But you've obviously never used one. Maybe you should try to see beyond your preconceived notions.
I have it sucks. What do you want me to say?
It is expensive to buy, it is not especially well built, has a display from 2009, has specs from about 2013, has fans so you cant leave it on a bed turned on, it takes up insane space, honestly more than a laptop because of the stupid shape, needs a case, because it doesn't fold like a laptop or a nintendo DS, the matte screen is only for the top of the line one which is taking the piss.
The software it runs, for better or for worse is linux... Some games work, some don't. There. What should I have missed?
Edit: The battery life is poor.
What are you comparing it with?
Maybe you should approach it with more realistic expectations? It does what it does really well but I guess you can't please everyone.
Edit: Oh and I just checked: they go for pretty high prices on eBay. So if it's so terrible, you can just get rid of it.
They did try this a while back, steam machines were around at 2015. I could see it getting a rebirth in a similar design to the steam deck in a few years though.
Steam OS and big picture weren't very mature yet at the time. I think now that the Deck has proven the UX, they could definitely revisit this idea. And I pray that they do because it could mean more Steam controllers on the market
Seriously, I ordered a steam controller right before they were discontinued, and got a refund :(
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Yes, I'm aware of that. But the software just wasn't there at the time. But now it definitely is.
Can you build something like that for the same price as a higher end console? These consoles are designed to be loss leaders so it's hard to beat if you just focus on the hardware price.
Yes you can. You can build a PC with a RX7600 CPU for about $600. That's about in the same performance ballpark as a PS5. If you mass produce those and trim down some features, you'll be able to hit $500. And you won't have to pay the Microsoft tax. Sadly, this is also why it's not happening. I'm 100% sure MS are furiously working behind the scenes to prevent anyone from coming out with a system like this.
I'm a millennial and the last consoles I've owned were the PS3 and Wii.
I'm a millennial, and the last pc I owned was around the left 4 dead 2 era. Consoles are doing ridiculously well right now, as is pc, everything is flourishing. anecdotal remarks don't mean much.
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Do you own a PC?
Do you think you're a gamer?
If the answer is No, and Yes. Then that's interesting otherwise, it's nothing new.
I had a Ps4, and A Xbox One. Now I game on PC. Honestly I'm sick of modern games so I mostly retro game, but a PC is a gaming "console" in that respect.
The last console I owned was a PS5 controller. Hooked up to a PC running YuZu. :D
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This guy seems to be full of takes that sound like theyre really, really bad. Only time will truly tell, but I feel pretty confident in saying that whatever this guy says is probably mostly incorrect.
Maybe that why he’s the former and not the current boss.
Well, he was an exec at SEGA before the Dreamcast was killed, so I mean... Maybe youre onto something...
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Heard this two generations straight already.
Maybe PCs. IF Microsoft brings out a cheap and form factor PC instead of a Xbox whatever they call it. And that'd be a good thing. Besides, a Xbox Series X and a PC is about the same thing except less configuration on the console, and that's fine... Microsoft still makes games, they just bring it to PC as well as their console. We should applaud that.
But no, Consoles and PCs will be in gaming as long as people buy millions of them, and the good news is they don't buy millions, they buy HUNDREDS of millions.
And Gen Z continue to buy them too. Because GenZ is 22-38. I hate the phrase but I feel like "OK Boomer" is actually appropriate here.
GenZ is 22-38
Um, no?
Gen Z is 12-27.
Millenials are 28-43.
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