More than four years after its release, the Nintendo Switch remains a unicorn among video game consoles. But that hasn’t stopped many companies from dreaming of trying to capture some of that Switch magic, and now it looks like Qualcomm may be trying to clone Nintendo’s hybrid device.
According to a new report from Android Police, Qualcomm, a company best known for manufacturing modems and mobile processors, is considering making its first retail device in years. This is a gadget that, for all intents and purposes, would be Qualcomm’s bet for a Nintendo Switch.
Based on non-final images of the devices, Qualcomm’s handheld console is said to include removable controllers similar to Nintendo’s Joy-Cons, along with a center module that houses a screen, processor and other components, including a 6,000 mAh battery, Bluetooth , wifi and more. And since it’s Qualcomm we’re talking about, this rumored phone is also expected to include 5G connectivity.
Like the Switch, Qualcomm’s rumored console is also expected to support video output features when connected to an external TV or monitor, with additional storage available via an SD card slot. Qualcomm’s home screen / launcher is said to be based on Android 12, and apparently Qualcomm will try to support several third-party game stores from publishers such as Epic, Google and others. It is unknown whether Qualcomm plans to support cloud gaming services such as Google Stadia or Nvidia’s GeForce Now, although it is only hardware-based, which would probably not be difficult to accommodate.
According to reports, Qualcomm is contemplating a launch date in early 2022 with a target price of about $ 300, with Qualcomm hoping to sell directly to consumers, but will also open the device to collaborations with operators and other retailers. to help increase device availability and presence.
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Now, if you take a step back and think about it freely, the idea seems to have little merit. Qualcomm is already one of the largest producers of mobile phone processors in the world and compared to the Nvidia Tegra X1 chip currently used in the Switch (which was already a bit dated in 2017 when Nintendo chose to use it to power the console), modern Qualcomm chips like the Snapdragon 888 or he Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2 it would almost certainly have an advantage in both overall performance and energy efficiency. And given Qualcomm’s experience and extensive wireless IP properties, the company could probably make a device with better wireless connectivity than Nintendo. After all, a switch is nothing more than a sleek smartphone with screwed drivers on the sides.
Still, I think Qualcomm’s plans to make its own Switch clone will be an exercise in frustration.
Qualcomm’s first major hurdle is that it typically operates only as a B2B vendor, and aside from a handful of prototypes and reference devices, Qualcomm doesn’t actually manufacture commercial devices for ordinary people. Qualcomm manufactures chips, modems and sensors that power many of the consumer appliances we use every day, but the company doesn’t manufacture them on its own.
This goes to Qualcomm’s second biggest challenge: the lack of brand recognition. Now there is no doubt that Qualcomm is a company of great influence. It produces most of the mobile chips used in current Android phones and tablets. The problem is that people are not used to seeing Qualcomm as a real brand. When people buy a Samsung phone, they don’t buy it just because it has a Qualcomm processor. This is just one of the many components that the whole package buys. The logo that really matters is the one on the back of the device, whether it’s a fruit, a name, or something else, which is almost never from Qualcomm. (And that doesn’t even take into account that most people don’t have the ability to choose which tokens are selected for use on the devices they buy).
The third main argument against the Qualcomm Switch clone is that Qualcomm does not create content. I’ve said it and I’ll say it again, the Switch is far from hardware perfection. The Joy-Cons suffer from a drift, the Switch does not yet support Bluetooth audio, its screen is not particularly colorful or sharp and its performance is not so impressive.
But what Nintendo has is a huge library of content, recognizable pets, and that general “Nintendo magic” that makes everything fun and whimsical. When the Switch was released, it debuted alongside what is possibly the best Zelda game in history. What can Qualcomm have in store that can compete with this? No company does more with less performance than Nintendo, as Nintendo manages to sell more of the competing Xbox and PlayStation consoles from Microsoft and Sony.
Of course, the Android Police report mentioned that Qualcomm wants to support third-party game stores, which could make games like this Fortnite, Genshin impactand other popular titles available from Qualcomm. But it’s important to remember that anyone who plays these games already has a device to play them, which means Qualcomm has to offer something unique that no other device has, which seems like a real challenge if you consider the difficulty that Qualcomm is throwing from Nintendo’s book. Ask yourself: what special feature could Qualcomm implement in its switch clone that would make it choose over a current switch or a traditional console?
But then things get even more complicated if you think there are recent reports Nintendo could launch a revamped Switch with better performance and a potentially more premium display before the end of the year. If Nintendo can deliver, that will make any handheld that Qualcomm can deliver in early 2022 even less appealing.
But perhaps the biggest argument against Qualcomm’s rumored Switch clone is all the other Switch clones that haven’t achieved significant traction. Last year, at CES, Dell unveiled a conceptual device based on a Switch-type computer called the UFO Project, but after more than 14 months, we have yet to receive updates on Project UFOs reaching the market. And this year, Lenovo partnered with NEC to create the LaVie Mini, which is another switch clone with removable controllers built from PC parts.
And there are also companies less known as GPDs that make small devices like Win 3, not to mention the millions of phones that can be converted into a handheld console using driver accessories or touch controls. It’s been four years since the Switch came out and to think that Qualcomm, a company that doesn’t make consumer appliances, will be able to recreate the Switch’s success when countless others have tried it and failed seems like a Herculean task.
I won’t say Qualcomm’s handheld console plans are 100% doomed, but from where I’m assured, the odds of victory seem slim at best.
And yet, I’m still curious to see them try. Heck, maybe Qualcomm may stumble upon a winning formula, or somehow 5G growth it will radically change the way we use handheld consoles. (It’s unlikely in the short term, but hey, who knows). Let me ask you: is a portable video game console created by Qualcomm something you’d like to see?