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Gaming phones are awesome, but Android needs to get it together

By Preslav Kateliev

Published: Dec 10, 2024, 8:57 AM

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Editorials

This article may contain personal views and opinion from the author.

Gaming phones are awesome, but Android needs to get it together

For years now, we’ve been reviewing the Asus ROG Phones — extremely powerful, over the top, over-designed, over-engineered. They run cool under any circumstance and always push their processor to the limit.

For example, the latest ROG Phone 9 Pro is incredibly fast, with the Snapdragon 8 Elite inside it hitting top scores on the popular benchmark tools, the enhanced cooling solutions, and even an external fan you can slap on it.

It has hardware-accelerated ray tracing, it has gaming triggers, it has big-sounding, meaty speakers, and a huge screen to game on.

You know what it doesn’t have? Games.

Yeah, I know — you can play Genshin Impact, Marvel Snap, Arena Breakout, CoD: Mobile, and other such pretty popular titles. I am not oblivious to their existence.

But these are, like it or not, mobile games. They are always developed with the thought that they need to be running on phone hardware that is rarely top tier. To cast the biggest net possible, developers will optimize for mid-tier phones and up.

Your hero fires automatically? Come on!

So, adding and supporting high-quality graphics and ray tracing is way back on the list of priorities. Having a fast, dynamic gameplay that makes use of the phone having extra triggers is also a rarity.

And here, I don’t blame the developers or the phone makers. No,

I blame Google and Android

Over the past few years, Apple — in a shocking twist — decided to get into gaming. Nobody ever sees Apple devices as gaming devices, and it seems that Cupertino is on a quest to remedy that, especially since the M-class chips have become more powerful and competent.

First, the company launched Apple Arcade. OK, nothing special — a selection of mobile games. Polished, pretty, and smooth games, sure, but “casual” and nothing for the serious gamer to clamor for.

But now, Apple is striking deals with actual big names in the industry. Ubisoft is bringing Assassin’s Creed games to iPhones and iPads. Capcom is launching Resident Evil titles for Apple’s mobile platforms. Kojima Productions launched Death Stranding for the iPhone and iPad.

This is on the iPhone

It’s a bit funny that Apple doesn’t have the specialized hardware that would make the iPhones feel better to play games on… and the phones that do have it don’t have the catalog of games to justify them.

In Android land, the partners and manufacturers pick up the slack

Gaming is not the only thing that Google is neglecting. There are creative apps, serious apps that have been iOS-exclusive for years. Video editors have been loving LumaFusion for the iPad for years, because it brings the experience of a multi-timeline video editor to mobile, but designed for touch in a pretty good way.

It took for Samsung to go and engage in a partnership with LumaFusion for LumaTouch to come to Android. See, Samsung has a vested interest in people seeing its Galaxy Tab S series as “serious” tablets. So, it needs pro-grade apps. Admittedly, it needs a lot more, but at the very least it made the step.

LumaFusion on Android - thanks, Samsung!

It was also Samsung that developed multiple interface elements for foldable phones, like saving split-screen app pairs as shortcut icons, or having a persistent dock for multitasking on the bottom. But I am going off on a tangent here.

So, whose job is it?

One might argue that if a manufacturer is making a gaming phone, maybe it’s their job to go and secure a partnership with the proper game developers. But, considering that said games are supposed to then be available on the Play Store, and guaranteed to work with future Android updates (or have their kinks ironed out ASAP after an update), I think this is very much something that Google needs to take care of.

And I know, I know… “Who cares about mobile gaming?”. Surprisingly, a ton of people do. Not just “Coin Master” and “Candy Crush” type gamers. There’s a whole generation out there growing up with a smartphone in their hands. Of course they will be looking for games to play in that magical device, and of course they will grow up with better-developed touchscreen gaming abilities.

In fact, they are already out there, and there are eSports being played on smartphones and tablets.

Apple sees this. And, in a market that demands that you always grow, Apple decided to grow in the direction of gaming — a field that they lost a couple decades ago but are now ready to retake.

It's almost a handheld... and it has the power for it!

Google may be missing a golden opportunity here. Handheld consoles are slowly becoming big. Some try to run Windows, other run on custom software, it would only make sense for some of them to be powered by Android.

If Android had the proper games to offer!

And the same goes for gaming phones. They have great hardware, they have the external buttons to make gaming comfortable. It would make sense to buy one if you are a gamer.

If it had games, though!

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Preslav, a member of the PhoneArena team since 2014, is a mobile technology enthusiast with a penchant for integrating tech into his hobbies and work. Whether it's writing articles on an iPad Pro, recording band rehearsals with multiple phones, or exploring the potential of mobile gaming through services like GeForce Now and Steam Link, Preslav's approach is hands-on and innovative. His balanced perspective allows him to appreciate both Android and iOS ecosystems, focusing on performance, camera quality, and user experience over brand loyalty.