Asustek unveiled its ROG Phone gaming device at the world’s largest computer trade show COMPUTEX 2018 in Taipei, Taiwan, June 4, 2018. In addition to the two game phones released in the first quarter, black Shark and Red Devil, there have been three game phones in the market this year. Is it possible that game phones have become a new trend in the industry?
Game mobile phone development twists and turns, many pioneers failed
Gaming phones may seem like a recent phenomenon, but they are not. As early as 2003, Nokia launched the world’s first game mobile phone, Nokia 3300, which was customized by Nokia. It made special optimization for games and broke through the traditional style of mobile phone in appearance, looking more like a PSP. Not only that, but nokia went to a lot of trouble for the phone when it teamed up with game makers to create a game for the phone (Call of Duty 1) and released a game card that plugs into a slot in the back. But in the end, the market response was lukewarm, and then nothing happened. Why didn’t the Nokia 3300 have a market for this innovation?
First, the market price of the nokia 3300 launched in 2003 was as high as 3,100 yuan. However, the material living standard of people at that time was not high, and the high price of nokia 3300 made most people back away. The second was that the mobile game market was in its infancy and lacked big, good games. Third, at that time, mobile phones were still used to make and receive calls, so the avant-garde design idea of Nokia 3300 was not easy to be accepted.
If the original game phone was the Nokia 3300, then SONY Ericsson’s Xperia PLAY, launched in 2011, was the evangelist. The SONY Ericsson Xperia PLAY looks like a PSP meets a phone, with a slide-out design, 13 physical buttons in the middle for remote sensing, and runs Android 2.3. SONY Ericsson also ported some games from the PSP to enrich the phone’s gaming resources. Despite being the best known of the pioneers, Xperia PLAY’s sales have been dismal.
There are two reasons why Xperia PLAY failed to live up to its name. First, the mobile game market was very young at that time. Most of the games were 2D games, which had no requirements on mobile phone performance and could run even on ordinary Android phones. Second, in 2011, the classic iPhone 4S in the history of Apple’s mobile phone came out, attracting the attention of the world. Moreover, the game and entertainment resources of IOS were far superior to those of Android at that time, and Apple quickly took away the potential users of Xperia PLAY, resulting in poor sales.
Game mobile phone out of the arena, staged three Wars
In 2018, after more than a decade of development, gaming phones are no longer function phones that can only play simple games. Each of the three major gaming phones on the market has a unique skill set.
1. ROG Phone highlights the extensibility of mobile phones
Say ROG Phone we may not quite understand, another word playing games friends must know — player country, ROG Phone is the first mobile Phone of player country series, adhering to the consistent style of player country — top e-sports configuration.
In terms of general configuration, ROG Phone adopts the Chicken Blood version 845 provided by Qualcomm for PC in THE CPU, with the main frequency up to 2.96ghz. The ROG Phone features a customized 6-inch AMOLED screen with a refresh rate of 90MHz (most AOMLED screens have a refresh rate of 60MHz). On mobile devices, a high refresh rate makes interaction smoother, allowing users to scroll through text messages or social media feeds without stuttering or jumping, and a smoother experience.
On the “killer card” side, ROG Phone has three USB Type-C ports, so many ports are prepared for the rich mobile Phone accessories. There are three main accessories: the first is the gamepad of ROG Phone. The gamepad of ROG Phone is special. It has a screen or the same screen as ROG Phone. The second type is the auxiliary heat dissipation module for mobile phones. An important reason affecting the performance of game phones is heat dissipation. ROG Phone provides an external auxiliary heat dissipation accessory, which is matched with the internal “3D steam room cooling system” to ensure the performance of mobile phones to the maximum extent. The third type is mobile desktop base. ROG Phone This base can change into desktop host in seconds as long as it is connected with display screen, mouse and keyboard.
Based on ROG Phone’s years of experience in the game, it is very accurate for players to grasp their habits. ROG Phone has excellent performance in all aspects, no matter in the conventional configuration of “crazy” hardware configuration, or in other aspects of innovation are commendable. It can be said that ROG Phone is the most excellent game Phone in recent years.
Second, Black Shark mobile phone emphasizes the heat dissipation system of mobile phone
On the back of the huge success of smartphone sales in 2017, Xiaomi has a more compact strategic layout in 2018. From high-end to low-end, from conventional to unconventional mobile phones are actively layout. On April 13, 2018, Xiaomi released its first game mobile phone black Shark game mobile phone, officially announcing its entry into the game mobile phone field.
In conventional configuration, The Black Shark is powered by Qualcomm’s flagship Snapdragon 845 processor, which clocked at 2.8GHz, slightly lower than the ROG Phone’s Chicken Blood 845. Even so, the Black Shark can meet all game needs.
At the same time, black Shark mobile phone also added physical game keys on the mobile phone to allow users to quickly enter the high-performance game mode; X-shaped antenna belt is used to make the signal more stable. Each phone comes with a gamepad, making the black Shark’s gaming experience different from that of a normal phone.
On the system, the Black Shark mobile phone system is deeply customized based on MIUI, adding shark mode (game mode) to optimize the current mainstream games on the market and make the game more smooth.
In terms of “stunts”, The Black Shark mobile phone adopts the cooling scheme of liquid cooling, which is the closest part of the whole mobile phone to the game phone. The heat dissipation efficiency of liquid cooling is 20 times higher than that of traditional thermal copper tube, which ensures that the CPU of Black Shark mobile phone will not drop in the game for a long time, ensuring the ultimate game experience.
The performance of black Shark mobile phone in both hardware and system software is quite satisfactory, and it can maintain a high frame rate in mainstream games such as Honour of Kings and PUBG: Battlefields when full of special effects. Honor of Kings has been stable at around 60 frames, while PUBG: Battlegrounds has been stable at around 40. The excellent heat dissipation ability of Black Shark solves a major problem that puzzles game phones. Generally speaking, it is an excellent domestic game phone.
Third, the red Devils mobile phone back adjustable light belt leading the pack
Nubia has always been a maverick in the field of mobile phones, from the small red circle to Nubia’s signature bezel-free, gaming phones also have their own unique style. Despite its lackluster performance in the mobile space, Nubia entered the game mobile space on April 19 with the release of a game phone, the Nubia Red Devils Game Phone.
In terms of conventional configuration, The Nubia Red Devil is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor with a main frequency of 2.36ghz, which is far behind Qualcomm Snapdragon 845. However, when qualcomm Snapdragon 845 is used by various mobile phone manufacturers in 2018, the 835 obviously cannot meet the demand of game fans for games.
In terms of screen, Red Devil uses a customized FHD full screen. In terms of heat dissipation, fans and materials are combined, and there is also a physical button to enter the game mode. On the system side, the UI of a number of popular third-party games has been redrawn.
The Nubian Red Devils are unique in that the back can be adjusted to 12 million different colors of the light belt, in other game phones are only a LOGO light, The Nubian Red Devils light belt will definitely make people look bright. But in addition, the phone has too few highlights, which greatly reduces its appeal to users. It is a domestic game phone with more gimmicks than actual uses.
In general, the three mobile phones have their own optimization in the game, whether performance, heat dissipation or appearance can be regarded as a better game experience of mobile phones, but it is a little gimmick in the game phone, because there are still many urgent problems to be solved by mobile phone manufacturers.
The upsurge of mobile games is difficult to become a climate
In the first half of this year alone, the number of mobile games released is unusual. Many manufacturers develop game mobile phones, called the industry trend to promote, in fact, their own small calculations. Both Xiaomi and Nubia want to use game phones to fill the vacuum period from the present stage to the arrival of 5G. Nubia’s market share is very low, and the vacuum period has a greater impact on them. The player nation has always been in the development of the game, but now it is just the PC layout to the mobile domain, and in general it is still its own domain. Why is game mobile gimmicks more than trends?
First: game mobile phones lack high-quality large-scale game resources. If there are fish without enough water, fish can’t live; If a ship does not have enough water, it cannot float; Game phones do not have enough high-quality large-scale game resources, game phones can not live. Although the mobile phone game market is booming at present, there is no lack of games, but the lack of high-quality large-scale games, such as chu Liuxiang high-quality large-scale mobile phone games are very few. Game phones, whether users or manufacturers, its mission is to run large-scale games smoothly, only to fill the lack of excellent large-scale games on the mobile phone, the game phone can be used.
Second: game mobile phone and ordinary high-end mobile phone performance gap is small. Due to the lack of high-quality games in the current mobile phone market, people are more inclined to online games and casual games, and these two kinds of games generally have low requirements on mobile phones, and generally flagship or sub-flagship mobile phones can run smoothly. The performance gap between game mobile phone and ordinary flagship or sub-flagship mobile phone is not very big, but the experience of game mobile phone in taking photos, system UI, product appearance and other aspects is far inferior to ordinary mobile phone. These two reasons lead to the majority of users are willing to buy ordinary mobile phone instead of game mobile phone.
Third: game mobile phone users have a niche. At present, the game mobile phones on the market are designed for the aesthetic appearance of men, and the appearance is generally rough and bulky. IDC data report indicates that in 2017, the proportion of male and female mobile game users in China was almost half, and it is expected that in 2018, female game players will reach 55%. The status of women in mobile games is self-evident, but the design of game phones with gender bias, which makes game phones lose some female users. Another reason is that the heavy players of mobile games are very few, only accounting for 7.8% of the total number of mobile game players. The data of foreign media shows that 78.9% of the potential users of mobile games are not heavy game players, so the mobile game users have a minority.
In general, game phones are not the trend of the industry so far, and the gimmick component of game phones is far more than the manufacturer’s publicity for game phones. Not only at present, in the future game mobile phone will not become a mature and independent branch of mobile phone, after all, mobile phone is only human integrated entertainment multimedia and other functions in one of the communication tools, can not and cannot put the cart before the horse.
Article/Liu Kuang public account, ID: Liukuang110