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There’s no shortage of handheld gaming devices these days, ranging from smartphones to consoles to full-fledged gaming PCs. But thanks to the rise of cloud gaming, you might not need a high-power handheld to play PC and console-quality games, as long as you’ve got a good internet connection.
So Logitech and Tencent have announced plans for a different kind of gaming handheld: one that’s designed for cloud gaming. The companies first announced they were working together in early August, and now we have an idea of what the handheld will look like thanks to pictures leaked by Evan Blass.
Update: Those pictures have been removed by Twitter “in response to a report from the copyright holder,” which is a pretty good indication that they were probably legitimate.
Details are light at the moment, but the handheld looks more like a game console than a phone, with a large screen surrounded by controllers including dual analog sticks, a D-pad, action buttons and shoulder triggers. But this is clearly an Android device, as indicated by the inclusion of the Google Play Store. So in addition to cloud gaming, it’s possible that you may be able to run some Android games natively, which would keep the console from being totally useless when you don’t have an internet connection.
The upcoming comes from a partnership between the gaming divisions of the two companies, Logitech G and Tencent games. According to a statement, they’ve been working with the teams behind Microsoft’s XBox Cloud Gaming and NVIDIA’s GeForce NOW game streaming services to ensure that the upcoming handheld will support AAA gaming.
Since the games are actually running on remote servers, the handheld doesn’t need a high-end or power-hungry processor or GPU. But it will need fast, low-latency, and reliable internet. And the quality of the device’s display and controls could make or break the product. Pricing will be another important factor, obviously.
More details should be revealed closer to launch, but Logitech notes that users can now sign up to receive updates by email.
via @LogitechG and @evleaks
This article was first published August 2, 2022 and most recently updated August 29, 2022.
Tbh if I’m using a handheld it’s because I’m out and about. Whether that means I’m traveling or at work between jobs then I’m not gonna have a decent WiFi connection so I need locally held games. This ses to be something I’d use at home, where I already have a console connected to a big screen, or a high powered laptop. I think I’ll stick to retro gaming on a handheld with emulation for now
Pass.
Would rather have a handheld mostly for local gaming where cloud gaming is a secondary feature.
Does this have 4G/5G or is it mostly an at home “portable”?
This concept makes more sense to me than something like the Steamdeck. Awesome bit of hardware, but 3 hourse of battery life, plus a hot, noisy (fan) sweaty slab in your hands? Not how I like my gaming.
As others have said though, this absolutely needs AV1 decoding, and a good 8-9+ hours battery. So it needs a top-end Dimensity chip.
Shame it does not have those Steamdeck touchpads though. Most of the games I play do not work very well (or at all) with controllers.
Cloud gaming is best for Android TV boxes. Sadly lot of Android games do not support game controllers.
“Since the games are actually running on remote servers, the handheld doesn’t need a high-end or power-hungry processor or GPU.”
But what would be EXTREMELY HELPFUL would be hardware-accelerated streaming decoding. This has been an emphasis ever since the pandemic pushed everyone to Zoom and its competitors. Also, Google has been trying to make it a requirement for streaming devices that carry YouTube (even though hilariously their own Chromecast devices don’t meet that requirement).
With that in mind, the actual best SOC for this device would be an Exynos 2100, Exynos 2200 or a recent MediaTek Dimensity. All of those have hardware AV1 decoders for streaming. (Qualcomm for their part won’t have one until 2023).
Unless this is really inexpensive, the idea is DOA. A 4G antenna won’t do for cloud gaming so it would have to have 5G built in, making it a lot more expensive. It will basically be useless away from Wi-Fi. Good luck.
This device is for the Asian market for Genshin Impact and other gacha games, as well as for other foreign markets. And despite your claim otherwise, cloud gaming works perfectly fine over both LTE and Wi-Fi. My guess is that this is going to be a Wi-Fi only device anyway. I think that a lot of people believe the entire world to be like the United States, where the iPhone and iPad dominate mobile sales and gaming, especially tablets. But worldwide, Android phones have 85% market share, Android tablets have 65% market share and Android gaming is huge. There have been small Chinese companies making Android-powered handhelds for years. We call them Switch knockoffs but they may preceded and may have even inspired the Switch. In fact the original plan was for the Switch itself to run a closed version of Android but circumstances forced them to reuse their 3DS software instead.
I see cloud gaming more of a side/additional thing for an existing device: desktop, phone, PC handheld, etc.
Not sure about a dedicated device that might not do other things unless it’s super cheap. Competing against phone controller attachments kind of cheap.
There is absolutely no point for such a device when you can just use the phone you aren’t allowed to not have anyway.
Also tencent is half of China’s social credit system, anyone working with them is selling out to evil.
How’s cloud gaming nowadays?
I tried xCloud when it was still called that on my phone. It was okay on home Wi-Fi but there aren’t much decent Wi-Fi outside the house. The experience on LTE varied with coverage of course which was very apparent during a commute (my main use case) where you’re moving from cell tower to cell tower.
After which I decided to just get a PC gaming handheld and use cloud gaming when I needed to but I have yet to need to for the games I’ve played so far.
Steam deck still seems the best compromise, esp if it’s Xbox game streaming.
Enough power for local running and chrome/brave/browser of choose for streaming launched from the steam ui.
Logi are going to need to sell it very cheap if it’s a streaming only device.
Logitech controller = need a new one every year. Logitech handheld? Sounds like a great idea… for Logitech. Customers get the privileged to buy a new console every year when the most used button stops working.
The few times I’ve tried cloud gaming it worked like crap and wasn’t close to a decent experience. And that was on a stationary device with a network cable. I see very little point with a device like this. An updated Nintendo Switch with a modern Tegra chip like Xavier or Atlan would be able to run modern AAA games in a portable format locally without problems and both gameplay and fidelity would be much better than on a cloud device.
Generally this cloud gaming thing seems like it missed its mark. Had it come to smartphones 10 years ago someone might have cared, but today the portable hardware is so powerful there is no need, especially since you won’t notice small graphical downgrades on a small screen anyway.
Sorry, that was not a reply. I just wrote in the wrong field.
A cheap android handheld could be used for emulation.
Although if they are really focusing on cloud gaming, it will probably be a cheap low powered chip which would limit the emulation potential.
Nope, they wouldn’t have. Cloud gaming was a thing back when tablets first started. It was one of the many things that HTC tried to do but was too ahead of its time. They tried to bet on OnLive cloud gaming with devices like the HTC flyer and some of their phones. The service did not succeed (and was eventually bought out by Sony).