Nintendo pioneered portable hybrid gaming when it launched the Switch, which became the fastest home console to hit 100 million units sold in 2021. Video game consoles are getting bigger and bigger.
The original launch version of the PlayStation 5 weighs 4.5 kg, almost double its predecessor (2.8 kg). Xbox Series X was so big that many on the Internet joked that it was the size of a mini-fridge, prompting Microsoft to make a console-shaped mini-fridge.
But as technology advances, it inevitably gets miniaturized as more battery, processing power, and memory are packed into a smaller phone or laptop chassis. The same goes for video games.
Nintendo pioneered portable hybrid gaming when it launched the Switch, which became the fastest home console to hit 100 million units sold in 2021. Its ability to act as a traditional portable TV console has attracted customers faster than it could possibly be produced.
Now competitors like Steam Deck are entering the handheld gaming market, with better graphics cards, storage and processors. One company that released its notebook PC over the summer is Aya.
The flagship of the Chinese company Neo Air Pro boasts up to 30GB of RAM, decent battery life, and a graphics card powerful enough to run the latest blockbuster games on its journey. When we tested it, games like Overwatch, Call Of Duty and FIFA held up well at graphics settings below 60 frames per second. The unit also has a USB-C output, allowing you to connect to a physical keyboard, mouse and monitor and turn this supercharged Game Boy into a desktop gaming PC. Will video games have their own Netflix?
But mobile phones are also becoming more attractive for games. The advent of game streaming, similar to Netflix, allows gamers to run the most graphics-intensive versions on the market on a mid-range smartphone.
Where your iPhone could have traditionally been used to play classics like Clash of Clans or Farmville, you can now stream huge PlayStation or Xbox games with nothing more than a 5G connection. Xbox, PlayStation, and Google (at least for now) offer cloud streaming services that allow gamers to play compatible games over the internet.
We tested the Xbox cloud streaming app installed on Oppo's flagship foldable smartphone, Find N. The phone's OLED screen (made by the same manufacturer that builds Samsung's foldable screens), opens to double the size of the original screen, greatly enhancing the gaming experience on the go.
With a stable 5G EE connection, we were able to stream Forza Horizon 5, one of the most graphically demanding games on the market, with little or no latency. As broadband and data speeds improve in the UK, cloud gaming could become the preferred medium for gamers.
However, the format took a hit recently when Google announced it would be shutting down its Stadia service. It was one of the first services of its kind to launch in the UK, but it failed to generate enough interest among players for the Silicon Valley giant to continue.
"Cloud gaming is the future"
Mike Rose, founder of No More Robots, a games publisher who recently had to delete his Stadia version of the Soccer Story title, told we: "I think the writing has been on the wall for a while ... it was pretty obvious he would die at some point. It was more a question of when.
"I'm pretty sure cloud gaming will be the future of gaming."
Rose said cloud services like Xbox are more likely to survive because they have a more diverse offering: "The problem Stadia encountered was that it was trying to start a whole new cloud-centric store, instead of letting people get started. play on the cloud little by little.
In a vote of confidence, No More Robots has around half a dozen titles coming to Microsoft's xCloud in the next 12 months. According to the government, 68% of UK facilities now have gigabit-compatible broadband access, with the goal of achieving at least 85% gigabit-compatible coverage across the country by 2025.
How quickly people adopt the ever-growing offer of Netflix-like cloud gaming services will largely depend on achieving infrastructure goals like this one.