Handheld gaming is the future — again
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Welcome to the verge cast the flagship podcast of thun sticks I in your friend David piers. And this is the first in a new many serious episodes that we've made all about the future of gaming. We're doing this series, as you might expect with some of our friends from polygon, Chris plant and rush rush stick.

And we're gona talk about some of the biggest open and big ideas that we're thinking about in the gaming world in general. Me very fun. This week, for instance, we're talking about hand health gaming, know the switches and the steam dex and the rog allies and the analog pockets and the iron and all the things on amazon, whose names I can't pronounce, but seem to be selling very well.

basically. The question is, is this portable all in one form factor? The future of gaming, like is the game boy back? That's really all I wanted know.

I'm going to consult with Chris and russ, and then i'm going to go out and see if I can find some answers, something to talk to people and reduced some research. And then i'm going to bring back what I found out and see if they degree about the future of coming. Let's get into IT. Chris.

Man, hello. Hey, how are you doing? ross? Freshwater.

ck, hello, hello. Welcome to the verge cats. It's a millions years since we've had polygon people on the verge cast, and it's because we hate your guts. But i'm very excited for both this very exciting.

I respect that sometimes you do need interesting things to talk about and that's when we show .

up that's very and speaking up. So the way that we've set this series up is basically for the next three episodes are going to take on sort of three big things happening in gaming. And the way it's gona work is that ominous? That's not like a shack. That's just largely true, especially when I comes to video games and you guys are not. So what what we're all going to do is try and sort of answer questions together and you're essentially going to send me on some adventure and i'm going to have to go figure out what is going on and come back and see if i've learned anything real and true that feels right. That make sense.

you guys this work so yeah okay, that make little sense. I will also sorry, but you're not in idiot. I wouldn't say that.

I would say we know a lot about like the the beats in the books, right? We can talk about the pack mans and the assassins creed. You have the brain that tells me, how do these things work? I feel like if I look at a sheet code, I say, throw over to the verge gure IT out IT.

Also, if I need a printer, I know the guy who is gonna get IT for me. Listen.

if you need printers, we've got yeah. So the first thing we have decided to talk about, which I think is actually like a perfect cross over of all of our interests, is handheld gaming. This is a thing that I have been sort of rooting for for many years.

Like going back to a bunch years ago, there was this company called shadow that was like we're just going to stream a windows PC so that you can play all of your games on a windows PC, but it's in the clouds so you can do IT anybody want? And I like that the best idea ever. And IT failed for a bunch of what turned out to be extremely predictable reasons.

Really quick, let's just sort of set the scene on where we are right now. I feel like we talk a lot about the intendo switch, we talk a lot about the scene deck. But in this lake reboot phase of handheld gaming, how big is this market? Like how much do people actually care about what's happening with hand?

You mention the switch, I mean that really, I think rebooted the whole concept of hay there's money to be made here has been a number of handhold over the years, the SONY PSP, the SONY video, which were like below, but realistically not very successful. So the switch prove them oh, there's actually money here and well followed suit and made their own with the steam decks, as you mentioned. And since then, we've seen a number of other companies jump into the space and there is so much demand for IT that I I mean, it's great because it's honestly IT allows for way more flexibility in terms of gaming.

And then I I would say the market is even bigger with all of your mobile games, your smart phones, your I O S devices and android tablets. I really sound like a real verge. First right now, I can't wait to give you shorted for saying your IOS devices.

But now I think there are kind of three phases to what got us here. One is the iphone launching and abroad with IT. And then that sort of phase of social gaming. There is the end of the intendo formula, which was at the D. S.

And the three D S, which is when you had a kind of design games for that system, right? And in the switch and steam deck, what they really changed, I think, and why I think it's it's really blown up is a lot of what is being designed for PC or x box or playstation can now also be handheld. So it's not just that like, oh, hand tell is blowing up, is that the line between traditional gaming and handle is is blurrier than ever before, right?

And this seems like if also headed into this face of cloud gaming being the thing, and it's like most of the work of really powerful gaming hardware can happen somewhere else, the recipe should be right here. Ah something .

you're going to look into. But I think we're not quite .

there inten scepticism. But I would say devices are more powerful than ever that your new iphone can play the brand new res and evil. Maybe you don't even need the cloud gaming part of IT that doesn't work.

but get to that OK. I think that's right. So okay. Still trying to figure out what sort of the big overarching question is here.

Because on the way here you have, how big is this gonna be? Because like you guys said, we've been at for a while, and I think I think we have to throw the iphone out. This is gonna my my hottest take so far as that. I think if we talk about mobile phone gaming you up just a completely different road and it's like, yes, everybody has a mobile, everybody plays games on IT.

I think we can just like mark, that is like done check on the checkbox I want to talk about like gaming specific devices and that goes all the way down from like the the things you have to like emulate or games boy games, like the animal pocket, whatever everyones obsessed with. And then from there are all the way up to like the steam deck, which is essentially just trying to be like a gaming PC in your in your hands. Is that a fair way to define this?

I think so I think the larger question that you're trying to answer is, is this the norm? So when SONY or microsoft creates the next console, are they making IT with handhold gaming in mind? Where's right now they are not. And is this just the future we're going to live .

in from now on? And that's why I wouldn't rush to throw out your iphone on this case because I think that apple is trying to start to pull these like triple y games the same year that they come out onto the iphone. That raises the question of are they even trying to finally, I mean, it's a forever question. I don't want like me, charlie Brown missing the football here. But like are they also trying to get into this if if hand told us the future of gaming, they are the best position to take advantage of that?

Yeah ravil four is not a hand health game that is like a again that you'd play on a place station five or x box or gaming PC. The fact that is running on the iphone is crazy. So IT is genuinely kind of a new era for mobile games in ways that IT was not previously. But you're write IT has been a struggle to get people to do that. Okay, right.

So maybe the question I need to go figure out is, basically the people who make games and make the hardware to bunn them, are they thinking about you holding a device in your hands? Or is IT just another screen on which you can play games, right? Because hand help gonna change the way that we play games? Or is IT just going to be another way to play? Resident feels like kind of the big open question here.

Yeah and I and I think they're comparisons and other pop culture. You know, the shift to people watching movies on their iphones and Christine nolan getting furious for the car test when you are mixing pop music and making sure that IT works as well on a car radio or like to pad phones as IT with anywhere else.

I'm curious, ous, is that something people are thinking about when they design games now? Because especially everything from like the text on the screen to having control options, there's a lot that goes into how you designed for IT. I'm curious what you'll find out.

Yeah, you're just trying to get me to really pissed off all the purists. That's what i'm hearing here. Everyone who believes in like the fidelity of the sound and the frame rates is gna hate me at the end of the episode and it's going to folk.

well, it's funny because the paris are playing all the game boy our games on their like ancient game boy hardware so like, i'll be on board yeah .

and in like video game pests are like naturists the common chill. So are you .

guys handle games almost exclusively?

Their parents.

of course.

What do you guys play?

It's usually a steam deck since IT launched. I know a point uses the asis rog. I quite a bit. I'm my steam deck person throwing through love IT.

Yeah, i'm not interchange able, in my opinion. I I use the log because i'm playing IT on a couch and I can have a played in. And the resolution is slightly Better and the framework is slightly, but the steam deck ate name my favorite console of all time.

but I also use a meu mini, which is like a tiny little retrod hand hill gaming device. So I kind of depends on the situation. And I think you're gona fine that a lot of people are looking for a lot of different things from handheld gaming these days.

I like IT alright, we are gna take a break. And then through the magic of time and editing, i'm going to go talk some people. I'm going to make matters. We're going so we can figure out. Thank you about that.

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Right, walk back. It's been a few weeks were back in the studio. Chris rust, still here. How are your lives?

How are thinks my son is sick? I was stuck at home and i'm just surviving. So things are great.

I'm doing great. I ve never found more alive.

right? So you you sent me off to find out what is the deal tand told giving. I have figured out the deal.

Tanto gaming, yeah, this went totally differently than I expected. I have come back absolutely a hundred percent convinced that that handle is the future of gaming in every meaningful mainstream way. I think this is the answer. I don't know if it's the twenty five year answer, but I think the next ten years of gaming looks like hand health, like I really, truly, honest, sly, believe that in a way that I did not when I started this process.

I already have so many questions. I am excited.

I have what I have developed into David, five grand theories of hand, hal gamming supremacy and Victory. That's the official technical to 是 是 the first thing I realized in talking and folks about this and going back in doing a burn research， I spent a lot of time watching like year old game console introductions, uh, like e three two thousand four, all kinds are good, still going on to e three two thousand four.

And I think I think I didn't realize is that this is kind of what the gaming industry has always wanted, like there is stuff from the PSP and the early days of the D. S. That it's like nintendo and SONY. And a lot of these game companies have been talking about this idea that you should have something that is powerful and feels like a console, but is not tied to your television in your couch. Like theyve been talking about this third ever, in a way that I really did not realize.

You know, it's funny about that. I swear that when I went to the very first location, vida precedence, they showed us a build of the playstation vida with an HDMI out on IT. The original premise was like you would be able to actually plug in in share TV.

And that just got a raised from time. I don't even if I can find this thing, but I am positive that I remember this. And now that you say this, that that, yes, this has been a dream for a long time. This kind of blurring the lines makes a lot of sense.

Yeah, this stuff is so much less new than I expected. And I will say to something that that kind of gives me pause because like if you rewind back to two thousand and four, all these people were launching these devices, saying this is the moment for handheld gaming. And that, nope.

IT wasn't I T IT was in the sense that like the D S sold like gobs and gobs, the units, right, but told not on the console site.

So this is actually, I going to ask you guys, is there was this moment, right? We had the d the PSP. There is this real energy around consoles you could hold in your hand, and then they just died. And you guys been paying attention to this a lot longer than I have. Like what happened to that generation .

of antil gaming? Yeah, I think IT ran through the three D. S. You have the D S of three D S which both did quite well, incredibly well. Yeah but on like high and handheld gaming side, the both the vida and the um P S P I think just struggled to like rich a wider office for whatever ies and maybe because they were going for like more mature games or something like that, there are just wasn't I don't know that maybe the hardware wasn't ready to the point where people wanted to make discreetness software for those platforms where the nintendo was like whatever our games are run on anything we can make that happen.

I agree with fresh. I think IT definitely is partly that nintendo do is always fine, selling effectively like graffam calculators and making cash off of that, I thought, was the original model of the game. Boy, you know what you're saying of this has been a long time coming that maybe smart t phones through a range IT temporarily, I think that's right.

And that we did have this period of, well, maybe the mobile gaming is just farm fill, right? Maybe it's it's these idle games. I mean, I remember fresh.

I think we are at this together at a game developers conference or I think that was the oral water from in tando when on stage and was like, can people please stop making ninety nine cent? Games like this actually is not good for the industry. And at the time, everybody was like, you know, like, here's an inti du, the old industry coming into the room telling us not to do this anymore. But in high insight, that kind of proved right in some ways. Yeah, I think free .

to play ended up taking over that model. But yeah, one hundred percent IT does diminish, I think the higher and products and results and games that are designed for that cheap Price point to get even more money out of people. Yeah.

I think I think I think there's a really interesting version of this story where you could argue that mobile was kind of the great diversion for the gaming industry for a really long time and IT LED a lot of people down really profitable, really unpleasant roads that ultimately LED to nothing. And like, we got a farm fill and whatever that was.

And I mean, even the SONY story, right? They got obsessed with the experience phones and trying to build gaming phones and then just try to build regular phones and kind of got away from what I was doing really well before that. So I I think he was right that some combination of the hardware wasn't quite ready and mobile was just sort of eight.

That thing which brings me to theory number one, which is that the hardware is ready now. Oh yeah, which is a huge, huge change. Like I went back and look at the speaker like the PS four when I came out, you just remember everybody was talking about that.

This feels like a supercomputer was like, this is the most powerful thing, is basically expect like a like mid level laptop, like we can do powerful gaming systems. Now without trying all that hard, the chips are super accessible. You have more and more of these really powerful chips that are being built with mobile in mind.

They care more about battery life. They're much more efficient. They are much cheaper to get like it's there now in a way that IT wasn't. And you can build really good games for these platforms in a way that you couldn't before, which I think is a huge, huge change and is just like it's just sitting there now like you can now make this if you want to.

And I think the fact that people are making games that run on not only the handheld system, but also the console system, and it's the same game, they haven't changed. One eta, the fact that I can play elderly on the steam deck and also on my P S, and also on my P S. Five makes a huge, huge difference from just like a ban with standpoint, there's only so many games that everyone can produce, let alone games they are discretely made for each individual platform. So yeah, it's a big change.

I think that's actually exact. That's one of the things I only realized in talking to folks about this that I had never really realized before. There was obsession for so long with, like, there were console games and then there were handled games and they were different.

And that the way to make these systems work was to build like specific games for these devices, and they had to be their own genre. So when anybody stopped doing IT because they didn't sell really fast, to me, the earlier whatever they just died, right? Is this like death spiral of nobody cares that leads to these platforms dying? Now it's not the case. And this is actually you stall David .

and theory from me and sorry.

it's ine just were jump ing around here. Theory number parity is that you can just build a game now. And IT works everywhere. I found myself talking a bunch people who have been building games like this for a long time.

You like you company like E A, right? E A makes console games and IT makes mobile games with the same names, but that are fundamentally told a different games. And that barrier is sort of collapsing, right? We're like fortnight. Robo ks are functionally the same thing no matter what screen you play on. And IT seems to me that, that is much more the future than taiLoring everything to the specific device and controls and council you are.

Not only is that Better for the players, that also from a business way more cost productive. So there's really no reason that you would ever, if you needed to. I just think people are gonna gravitate towards just making a game that will work on just about everything because you need .

to face like you might hate this idea.

No, I like this a lot. I think there's like one other piece to all of this in this separation between mobile and council, which is gender misconceptions in the history of video games. I think that not only were there these two different types of games, I think people saw people who play mobile games is women, are people who are on facebook.

As you know, mom gamers and hard court course gamers were men. And what I think marketers are realizing, slowly and hopefully specially, is that not only is that not true, it's never been true. And once you blow that thought up, then that is when the game is that one mobile delight kind of White quote, casual games actually just show up on x box, you know, because why not why shouldn't be there? There's an audience for them there.

And that's when call of duty shows up on your iphone that these are not discrete places. I remember an event back in the d days where nintendo deu had brain age or something, and they threw like high tea for IT. Nice, nice. But like they they were very transparent, like who they thought was yeah the audience for this game and who they thought wasn't when in reality, everybody liked brain age.

yeah. Do that for call of duty next time. That's the give me high t for call of duty and will be somewhere no. I think that's right.

And I think the overall collapse of gaming just being across everything is kind of the thing that underscores all of this for me, right, is that we're now to a place where gaming was once a specific thing you did on a specific device in a specific place. And IT has just balloon out to being worlds that you dip in and out of no matter where you are. And he feels with that comes.

Working on lots of different platforms, lots of different kinds of hardware, like it's the same thing that happening with computers, right? It's the instead of being a thing in a room that you sit down out to do a thing, it's just like woven into your life in these new ways. And that's what the game developers want increasingly IT seems that's where the money is.

That's how you get people to be involved. That's we're like the online communities and moving. So IT makes sense to me that all of this stuff is just sort of ten ticing out into everything with a screen .

and a chip at yeah I don't think this is is solely just a realization that yeah the market, the audiences are more or less the same across everywhere. It's also just a harmers consideration that like you could not have a handheld that could run a console. Me ten, fifteen years ago, we were just like physically, the hardware was not onna handle IT.

So the fact that we've caught up and also the fact that we've diminished the importance of console generations is a huge impact on this as well. The fact that there are so few P S five exclusive games or xbox series x exclusive games means that you're making games that run on all these different generations, which include handle games at this point. So everything is sort of working together to kind of get us there.

Yeah I was listening back to old interviews with uh regio zama from nintendo do and he was talking about one of the chAllenges for the gaming industry is thinking about like the ten year horizon of every console generation. IT is like anything we do. We have to be a little to live with for a decade because that's how this works, and we are just not in that world anymore. Everything over lapse, things are moving, especially with you know, cloud and sort of this move to digital IT just feels like all of the ideas about what you can run and where and how long you have to support things that rapidly going out the window. IT seems like .

what's really exciting as your library stays with you, like steam, obviously has had a consistent library. God willing, nintendo is finally going like that. Theyve promise that they're gonna continue the library for the first time ever on whatever the switch for up is. So I think that is a big pressure as well.

Yeah, I think that's the funny party mentioned reggy, because we still don't know if in tindle is on board with this. We've heard a lot of promises, but until the switch do is out, I would never bet against in hindu doing something deeply strange if they call .

IT the switch too and don't let you keep your library that is the most like outrageous, user hostile thing imaginable.

Also, they need to call the super switch. Oh, that's good in the same way that they should call the wee the super way instead of the way. Just like back to that class into no convention.

I was so with you until you said super we yeah. No, I think you right. And I think that idea is part of what makes me think that handheld is the because I think if you were to boil IT all the way down to something and it's like, what is the single most visual version of the hardware here?

It's a handheld object which I think is like why we start from there are going for d which brings me a thing number to I don't know, two i've lost there are some theories that does not matter, which is just it's somewhere between like manufacturing and momentum. I couldn't decide which M I wanted to do, but there has been like an explosion of this hardware over the last couple of years in a way that I didn't even realize. Like I own a switch.

I have played some steam deck and I was kind of like, there's those two and then nothing else of real great consequence. And the good lord, was I wrong? There are so much stuff out there and you have like the PC manufacturer are getting super into this because you can it's essentially just a like a relatively high powered PC.

In a slightly different case, you have all of these new companies like analog coming out of the world work to do some of this stuff. You have gaming companies like razor and larger attack doing others. It's this feels like a hardware category that a lot of folks can get into in really interesting ways, which makes me think it's gonna get much bigger than just the like game maker companies really, really fast. And he feels that moment is already happening.

Yeah, I completely agree. I mean that we haven't even dove into the like random fly by night hand held developers, the companies that you might see on like amazon or whatever. But yeah, the fact that issues and lanovitch, as you mentioned, razor and large attack, the fact that they are going hard on this and so quickly after seeing the success of the steam deck is really just, I think, a huge indicator of where things are going.

I also think it's they have the luxury of being able to sell older chips in these devices that aren't like cutting bleeding edge chips because they need to keep the power usage down so they can use stuff that's like maybe one or two years old, which is really the model that the switch set out. Like the switch was not a blazingly ly powerful system when IT launched and IT allowed, intended to sell at a profit. And I think you're going to see a lot of companies these days, uh, sell these things that a good profit, not steam deck. My understanding is they lose some money there, but they also own the library. So comes back around actually .

tell me about all of the ones that you find on amazon. And because I have been looking into all of these and IT kind reminds me of like the smart phone market of seed seventy years ago, when is IT was very clear that now there's like the parts for this exist in factories in china, right? If you want to go buy some of those parts, you can make a phone without trying super herd.

And so there was just this rush of companies. You've never heard of making phones that all had the exact same spects because those are the ones you can buy from the factory in china. IT feels like that the phase of handheld gaming we're in right now where, like, there are six hundred slightly hard to pronounce versions of what look like about the exact same thing all over amazon. Are they any good?

Are you a power Kitty man or a amer nick boy? You know.

I feel like I can't legally answer that.

Those are a few of the bigger ones, if you can believe that every neck is one of the biggest of these companies that is making these devices. And I think what's so interesting about these is unlike, I think, a lot of those phones you are talking about, these are mostly supported by software that the community is developing and working on. A lot of them were linux based or android based. But in terms the actual interfaces and the firm where a lot of communities are kind of rallying around specific devices, I know that me, you many in particular is a very popular iteration and folks just sort of make open source software to run on these devices. So IT, is this like really exciting community event that's happening?

It's also created a cottage industry around IT because not everybody like setting up devices in installing custom firm where so i'm sure if you happen to look on ec, you might find versions of these exacting things that have been just slightly tinkered with and maybe they include all of the emulators are all of the software that rush is talking about along with maybe some other stuff that's not so legal or perhaps .

a more legit approach because we do legal things on this podcast, I would recommend uh, there are some great youtube channels that like specifically dedicate themselves to this group of handholds. Rachel game core is an excEllent one that I highly recommend um but there are a number that do a really good job of covering this space and giving people instructions on how do I do some of this heavy lifting in the firm work.

Christian C S C, by the way, this is an at phenomenon ah. They're not sending you like needed covers for them. They're actually like .

but you get linux S C is so much bigger and weirder than anybody imagine IT IT reminds me of pin trest to or people like I think I know what that is. And then you like, realized half pentreath is people with guns and you're like.

I will say, I looked at these things on at c for replacement triggers for the meu media handheld that I use and someone had three d printed a new design for the triggers. That's how esc IT gets on there. It's pretty amazing.

That's awesome. okay. Yeah, who knew esc? Not just for buying coffee tables that barely work in my house. Okay, my next theory, uh, and this is one I am torn about more than any of the others, which is that the handheld gaming revolution is also the cloud gaming revolution, and I remain torn on whether I believe cloud gaming is like the future or not. And i'm very curious to know what you guys think about this.

I think you could be right if handhold gaming continues to look how IT does right now. What is to say you get a steam deck and you can play ninety, ninety five percent of what you want on that device, but the brand new stuff, the real cutting edge heavy ray tracing stuff like Allan weight too, that's not onna work on IT that you're still gonna need a really nice PC or P S five to make that work in those games if you must play them now and you don't wanna buy that, if you can play that uncloud, I think that's IT, but I think cloud for the foreseeable future. I'm curious with fresh things here, but I think cloud is a nice to have. IT is a supplement to most severe stuff being powered by the actual hardware itself with that's .

really interesting to fresh as you you just the opposite of the army I hear from most people, which is that, like most people, when I talk to them about cloud gaming, they are like, well, the people who play the most intense games and worry the most about things like controller lag, like the people who go on our battle stations for fun.

Like those people, those people are never going to want cloud gaming because they want something that is local, that is there is that is offline like that with the minimal lag and their wired mouse and all this. But for the more like casual user, cloud gaming is the answer, but you just kind of set the opposite. No.

I think plant agrees with you because I think the more casual user isn't gonna have the hardware. That can run on wake to with way tracing and everything. But they want to play the game because it's a great narrative experience, whatever. So this is the solution. The hard core they have, the forty ninety card, they have the hardware run those games so they don't need to worry about IT IT is the people that like don't want to bother, uh, getting that system together.

David, I think what is changing is what the idea of the casual user is. Somebody who plays PC games just in general, that can be the casual user now, right? So like, I think somebody having the team that who was like, yeah playing some pretty hard course. What would be hard core in our childhood now is just somebody who's used to watching these people streamed. S since the day there .

are .

five yeah to go back to like whether I think it's there yet, I think it's actually surprisingly close. But there is an element of like the course you get, the further IT feels away because there is still leg, there are still dropouts. And if anyone like cares about playing a platforming game or a shooter, anything that revolves around timing, IT just doesn't feel as good as playing a locally installed game.

All these intendo games that are made within an inch of their lives to feel awesome every second of the way can never necessarily get there, at least with where the systems are out right now with cloud because there will always be a slightly to tile delay there that will make you feel little worse. But I do think knowing technology that I can get there to the point where the delay will be so small as to be in distinguish from playing game locally, in the same way that, like I play with wireless controllers all the time and e sports person can't stand playing with virus controls because they feel that time the second delay. But like I think for most people, is totally fine. I think we get to that point of the card gaming.

I agree, and I agree that IT feels like we were very close, but I might still be a long time till we get there in the same way that I felt like we would never across the uncanny valley in video games until we just did one day. And there is a good decade where, like, we're never gna at this, right? Like human eyes are just going to look awful, faces are always going to look weird.

It's going to be uncomfortable looking at characters in video games and then suddenly us aren't talking about that anymore. You know I mean, less is of a third of a game but otherwise you were like, yeah, I just looks nice and good, I sure. Why not? I think that will happen with club gaming. And that's again why say it'll start out supplemental and then at some point, it'll just be second nature.

Yeah I mean, right now, IT is supplement. You can play whatever can or at any turn base strategy game and it's perfectly fine like I played games like that. It's great. But yeah, anything with timing is kind of miserable.

Do you think that tied to hand held as a thing? Think the case for those two things growing together is essentially that over time, you wouldn't need something that looks and feels like the steam deck, which is I mean that there is a big thing. You could essentially just have anything with a screen. And two controllers becomes this like ultra powerful gaming machine.

I me, large, a tech made a dedicated cloud hand health. That is their entire focus with that device is cloud gaming.

I say I don't a of. And again.

the cloud gaming infrastructure is not, so people don't necessarily want that yet. I do think you're right. In a few years when the leg becomes minimal, you can run IT on a fifty hour hand like the fact that you could run out way to on a fifty hour hand held gaming system is possible thanks to cloud gaming.

We're just not there yet. I do wonder if, ironically, power is getting so cheap. A lot of the games that people play don't even use that much power that we are getting to a point where maybe a few years from now, steam or well releases a hundred and fifty dollar steam deck that has internal power and can still play the vast majority of what you want. And like by the time we actually get to, you know cloud gaming working, we actually won't need cloud gaming.

You I mean, like our phones do very tracing now like it's we're getting there really fast.

Yeah, I much rather play present before we make just directly on my phone. Then i've tried playing recent evil for, oh my gosh. A I played all of recent evil village on stadia.

I was the A, M, A. And let me tell you, IT was, IT was a journey. I'm very happy to never do that again. They were like, why is anyone still .

using our services? And is just Chris plant throwing his controller?

And they saw that final achievement unlock and they're like what somebody on the IP must be doing IT.

no. okay. I think you're right. And I think that also details into my theory, which is about APP stores. One person I talk to you made the case to me that apple and google could have essentially won the next generation of gaming. They won like part of that generation of gaming, but because of the way that they govern their APP stores, making companies that wanted to have game libraries, like, you know, allow, list each game and list each game separately and pay this huge tax on a difficult margin business, did not only did those companies prevent themselves from being hugely powerful players in the gaming industry, they actually inspired this whole new run of hardware.

Because instead, instead of saying we're gona build great games for the very powerful mobile device you are they have, they're saying we have to build a new kind of device to play this kind of game because we can literally afford to play by the upstart rules. And I find that fascinating. And I kind of think it's true that I think a lot of these companies are showing up saying rather than just try to compete with all of the amazing games that are already on your phone, we're out here saying we can give you games that you can't otherwise get. And that becomes very compelling in a way that IT wouldn't have been if all that stuff was just in the place store .

or the APP store. Yeah, it's tRicky because there are a lot of the reason why a lot of those games didn't show up on those platforms. You're right.

There's like a huge cut that they are taking, but I also think there were hardware limitations. You couldn't run recon evil to remake on a phone when that game came out three or four years ago. Yeah, that's fair.

So I think that, that is part of IT. But you're right. I think there is also an element of like IT being a pretty big lift, whether it's a rev share or just a development lift to get devices to get software onto those devices that is diminishing over time.

Uh, I know apple, I think is course correcting a lot ways by making IT much easier to port games, both to iphone and max, using their back and software in a very small way to the way steam allowed proton to run all of these PC games on linux. I think they realized that people aren't going to take the time to make the us. Platform specific pieces of software. Apple isn't not quite there yet. There's still kind of one foot in, one foot out, but I think that is the future.

I hear your theory and I think parts of IT, all right. I wouldn't say that any of apple's moves inspired anything though, because that would require believing that apple at any point would even make a mild, competent effort to get into this space. I don't think ninka du was like shaking in its boots that apple was going to get into the making good games business.

I think that they were very concerned about the like free games trouble wear. I think that was a legitimate concern. But I mean, he really is astonishing how how they have refused to just put a controller around around the iphone.

And you is a third party to do that. And that that has been for a decade. The problem while they say that, you know, we care about video games, I I agree with fresh and that yeah resent evil four one of run, but like almost any games would have, there is a way to solve this problem. I have to believe that that they were making so much money, so much money off of the type of what we came out. So they had they just felt like, hey, we only need to think about that like that's not our problem and then eventually, you know, life comes at you fast.

I think it's also that is you're right, like a lot of any games would have run on iphone. I think those indeed did not want to be in the same store front as games that were being sold for a dollar and or or free that like that's a really tough thing to fight against.

Now apple solve has been apple or rico e, which allows you to describe and obviously, you could bundle that all together with the clouds of script print a and their services revenue has really increased dramatically over the last few years. That seems like more of a play, but that's a business play that's not like a game development plan. I know even though there have been real highlights on the upper arcade list, they're also been like very follow time. So it's a kind of isn't open down uh, in terms of games you want to play on there OK.

We're going to take one war break and then I will get into my last big grand unified theory of at the future of handel gaming and why it's totally gna win. T M. 我 略带。

Hey, italian from decoder with the lip top. We spent a lot of time talking about some of the most important people in taking business about what they're putting resources to and why do they think it's so critical for the future. That's why we're doing the special series diving into summer, the most unique ways companies are spending money today.

For instance, what does that mean to start buying and using A I at work? How much is that costing companies? What products are they buying? And most importantly, what are they doing with IT, of course, podcasts? Yes, the thing you listening to right now, well, it's increasingly being produced directly by companies like venture capital firms, investment funds and a new crop of creators who one day want to be investors themselves.

And what is actually going on with these acquisitions this year, especially in the A I space, why are so many big players in tech deciding not to acquire and instead license that can hire away cofounder? The answer, IT turns out, is a lot more complicated than that seems. You'll hear all that and more this month. I'm decoder with the lie presented by strike. You can listen to decoder whatever you get your podcast.

But I were back my last theory. All I wrote down for this one is just nintendo o because a thing that I have learned as the longer I cover the gaming world and talk to people about IT, is that everybody kind of wants to be in intendo all the time. And nintendo proved this thing can work like the switch is very good.

And I think lot of accomplished a thing that no one else has accomplished before. Where I made they think that is genuinely excEllent as both A T, V. Console and a portable console.

And I think IT has been theoretically ally possible to do some of that in some ways in the past. But the switch, just like did IT, and I kind of think because in intendo, did IT and did IT, well, that's just out of the bag now, right? Like I think that is now the bar that everybody is, is going to have to figure out some way to clear if you want to make a mainstream council.

I I will go a step further. I'll go many steps further. I think there are four pictures for hand help.

okay? Really, nantongo is a video game council that is also portable. Valve or N L. Its competence are PC that are portable. Then there is the emulator machines, which are like double ty toys.

And then there's the last one, which I think x boxes trying to corner in this market. I think people see game passes, its main influence. I don't think that's true.

Experts, what IT really wants to be as kindle IT wants to be the were not going to win any of these. We don't see ourselves as the winner. We see us as the thing that everywhere you go, we want to be on every screen that you have.

I think all of those are like valuable and interesting approaches to IT. I think the mistake that people will make, what you said is like, yeah, everybody sees in tindall and says I wanted do in tindall is that you don't realize, no, I need to do something different and didn't no nail that. And they're owning that right now.

Vov so far seems to have like really nailed the P. C. gaming. I think x box is making a pretty confident play, whatever its thing is. I think that's honestly what a lot of the whole SONY versus x box versus world governments was actually about is the fear of that. So I agree, but I think ninna deu is this one pillar of this can held first future that you describe.

So I I think I agree, except I think the gaming PC that's also portable and video game console that's also portable are more closely going to resemble one another over time.

I think they already do. Really, the biggest difference between a steam deck and a switch is just power. Yeah, there are so many games that run on both steam deck and switch. Now, obviously, I know what planes going to say.

Chris just stopped mid drink of water to disagree.

Yeah, IT was almost the speech. He was almost great. You can fully mod the games on a steam deck.

You can add a whatever your own software you can add. You can change the whole experience if you want. Plant has on total of face with guesses on what he was going to say.

Here's a Better way of putting on you, right? I made a mistake. If cindered is the PC console, nintendo is is nintendo the reason you buy the switch? The reason will always be is because mario metre, sala pigman, smash other's mario car, all of those games nintendo o has throughout its the vast majority of its history, long before was making video games, saw itself as a toy company.

And I believe IT still does. And I think that is secret power, is that IT makes interesting, fun things. IT doesn't get too bogged down by the rest of IT.

And I I would add to that nintendo, interesting ly enough, is losing the one differentiator they had outside of their exclusive software because when the nintendo switch launched, IT was the only game in town from a hand held high end gaming perspective, and that is no longer the case. So when we go to the switch too, they kind have to rely on.

We have these exclusive titles once again, which was really their strategy for like the game cube, which kind of struggle, the we you, which kind of struggle ah. So IT is not like smooth sAiling necessarily, although they do have this huge install base and now a huge library. So like there are a much Better position. But IT is a much more interesting competitive generation that .

we're stepping into. I totally agree with that.

Accept is called the super switch. Very good. What if they got the super wear? We go he is like we go outside to play that who never go OK.

We're almost done here. We're almost we should be long done. Yeah, but we're almost done. I two more questions for you and then then we're going to get out here.

Two more things i've been thinking about, okay, one is, if handholds are the thing, if the next version of the like mainstream council that most people buy for Christmas every year is a handheld thing, and I increasingly believe it's going to be where are SONY and experts in this? Why do you have and leave any sense of what they held? These two companies are.

do David, do you know that SONY has a new handheld? I do.

It's called the portal.

OK. okay. OK that I was like testing your research. I was actually more testing. Is SONY this bad getting up promoted? I literally I don't .

count the portal because IT is an accessory to the p five, correct? I doesn't count. It's it's a fancy controller to the P S. five. And I actually think there's a really interesting world down the road. And like a cloud gaming world where the controller becomes the console in a way that I think is very exciting and possibly very cool, that's not happening anytime soon. What I don't understand sincerely at this point is why neither SONY nor the xbox team of microsoft seems more invested in this space.

I think I have an answer OK, and it's different for both. I think for microsoft, it's because historically, they have seen themselves as a software company with a surface team.

I don't buy that.

No, i'm saying historically.

okay, sure. Historically fine.

But sure, I think that comes like a lot of baggage, and I won't say for SONY. The irony is they make so much hardware. I've like every like, right, you going to get your headphones and your hair dryer.

I remember there was SONY released a 3d TV that you can play video games on。 It's like a so many playstation 3d TV。 And if you put on your 3d glasses， you could actually have two people use full screen at the same time, because three d was protecting the joy.

M is right, very neat. I had that meeting the next day. I went to another meeting with tony and saw a 3d TV four video games。 Then you could place games on with two classes. IT was two separate teams making the same product. And I think that is a real chAllenge for a SONY.

When they think about going out and making, this is they have so many teams of different goals that I imagine that could be quite difficult to get the via too through, which is a shame because they came so close. The viva is, I think, fresh. And I both like IT, was maybe our favorite for you can consult until the steam deck.

until the switch the switch over. But yeah, and then the steam deck took took that over. Here's my prediction. And this is not based on anything I, but I think would be cool.

Police station has a tendency, actually, all consoles have a tendency to when the generation, the console generation, comes to an end, they released like a little mini version of that council. Is the hardware super, super cheap by then? And they put that out there, and that becomes like, you know, oh, you buy that as a gift.

And on Christmas, for hundred fifty box, whatever, at the end of the what's a play station? Five generation, when that hardware super cheap, throw that hardware into a little handheld. He promised that every P.

S. Five game and everything before IT will run on this handheld. That seems like a strategy that I would totally get on.

Give me x box series as mobile right now.

It's not that far often terms size like it's fifty percent .

more in again, that runs into exactly we are talking about with like there will still be some games that won't run, which is true for experts series acts, which is still just the worst naming convention.

I have really come to a point where like the more i've gotten ed IT is, the more I come to see IT is basically like there's like four versions of how to play games now, right? There's like the mega intense custom PC build. Like gaming pcs is one area.

There's like the xbox play station consoles. There's the people who play games on their smart phones and then there's gaming handholds. And if those are like, it's sort of crude, but that is like the four categories i've come to think of.

And my does that make sense if I missing any in the landscape there sounds pretty comprehend. Ve nice. okay. My theory is what happens in the next ten years is that those four things basically coalescences IT.

Two, I think they are like the councils go up towards the pcs where it's like we're going to head. There's always going to be a market for people who want these super, super high settings on Allen wake to stuff. Those people are going to be increasingly well served by increasingly amazing hardware.

And then I think the sort of casual user of consoles, the handheld consoles and the mobile games all get sort of mushed together in this thing you can hold in your hand or doc terr television world. And I think that's where most people are going to live in the next ten years. That's my big theory. That's what i've landed at the end of all of this.

I totally agree with that. Um I think you're one hundred percent accurate. I don't think there's going to be a ton of games that will be made exclusively for the high end market registry. I think we will continue to see all these games eventually, whether it's that launched red six months after a year after trickle down to that more casual group. But I totally see that becoming the majority.

Only one trick to IT that. I I I don't know how this plays out. I think the laptop is the destroyer of the of words like mediums. S, I think the laptop is like, what got music practice really going? Teenagers having a laptop in the room, they could like digg into IT without being on the family computer, right?

I think the laptop used to have a DVD player and got people really to watching movies on their laptop and then not made a natural transition into streaming, which has LED to all of these issues, right? And I think the kind of like weird in game feels like these always play out in a similar way is the laptop is is truly the one device that that does all even more so than your phone. And I just wonder what that is for games.

Like will games follow that trend? exactly. Me cloud gaming, right? IT is always like a little weird that you can play games Better on your phone than on your macbook error or macbook pro.

But I am just curious. I truly don't have an answer, but I do think it's valuable to look at like historical precedent and wonder what is the thing i'm missing. IT feels like there is something there that we've yet to see yet, and I think that's what google stadia was trying to get out. They really liked the idea that we would be watching a streamer and then you would just open a browser tab and and start playing with them. Know 送 过去 的。

Yeah what end? And if again, if the world we're headed to like fruiting earlier is this one where you have a screen in the control mechanism and games or games, and you can you can kind of get at them with any screen and any control mechanism you have in front of you, the experience might change slightly, the settings might change lightly.

But like the game is the game, then ultimately, I IT doesn't doesn't even necessarily half break down once you sit down at your laptop. That is not the world that we have in now. My like hottest take ever, as I think stadia was like, right about the way the world should be and wrong about the way the world is. And I, like, wish stadia had worked with every fiber of my being, but IT was also never going to. But that's me there there cover.

That's the other day. Turns out there is a difference between a philosopher police system and an actual business. But yes.

this is why they don't let me run google.

Uh.

all right, we need to get out here. Thank you both for doing this. This was very fun. We have two more these episodes do.

We're going to come back next week and we're going to talk about emulating and preserving gaming, which has sent me down raby holes. I still don't understand. So we're going na sort through all that together.

But for now, thank you about this good fun. right? That's IT for the verge cast today. Thanks again to Chris and russ, and thank you as always for listening.

As always, if you've thoughts, questions, feelings, favorite mobile games, old consoles you want to sell me or anything else, you can always us at verge, at the verge dot com or call the hotline, eight, six, six, verge, one, one. I wants to know what you think about handheld gaming in the future of everything. And as always, we're going to try try to answer at least one hot line question on the show every week.

So keep in coming. This show is produced by Andrew ino and James the verge. Cast is a verge production and part of the vox media podcast. Now where will be back on wednesday to do a big courtroom catch up? We're gonna. K about the S, P, F trial where you talk about epic first google, we might even talk about U S, for schools because boy, there's a lot of goodwill stuff gone on. We'll see you then rock and.

Support for this episode comes from A W S. A W S, generate A, A, I gives you the tools to power your business forward with the security and speed of the world's most experienced cloud.