Gaming smartphones are ushering in a new era

Gaming smartphones seemed to be a marketing gimmick when it was first launched in 2015. However, more companies are jumping on-board, and smartphone chipset makers too appear interested in this space. Qualcomm, for instance, sells a chip called the Snapdragon 730G, where the ‘G’ stands for Gaming. It’s part of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Elite Gaming series chipsets for phones.

While Qualcomm and MediaTek are examples of mobile chipset manufacturers turning their heads towards smartphone gaming, a notable entrant recently is Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), known for its Radeon graphics cards on full-scale gaming PCs. AMD recently licensed its new RDNA architecture to Samsung for use in its mobile chipsets.

Over the past two years, most gaming smartphones launched have usually been more expensive than even flagship devices in the market. However, in 2019, companies seem to have made prices more comparable. According to Black Shark, in 2018, the global gaming market stood at $125.4 billion and mobile gaming accounted for 35% of this market. A study published by Newzoo this June pegs the revenue from the global mobile gaming market at $152.1 billion by the end of the year, so it’s not surprising that smartphone makers are trying to cater to this market. However, the features and hardware in these devices can be put to use for many other things, like augmented reality and virtual reality.