More than four years after its launch, 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 the Switch’s magic for themselves, and now it looks like Qualcomm might try to clone Nintendo’s hybrid device.
According to a new Android Police, Qualcomm – a company best known for making mobile modems and processors – is considering making its first retail device in years. It is said that it is a gadget that, for all intents and purposes, would be Qualcomm’s version for a Nintendo Switch.
Based on non-final images of the devices, Qualcomm’s portable console features removable controllers similar to Nintendo’s Joy-Cons, along with a central module that houses a display, processor and other components, including a 6,000 mAh battery, Bluetooth, wi -fi and more. And as we are talking about Qualcomm, this device is expected to come with 5G connectivity.
Like the Switch, Qualcomm’s supposed console must also support video output capabilities when attached to a TV or external monitor, with additional on-board storage available through an SD card slot. Qualcomm’s home / launcher screen is based on Android 12, and Qualcomm will apparently try to support a variety of third-party game stores from publishers like Epic, Google and others. It is not known whether Qualcomm has plans to support cloud gaming services like Google Stadia or Nvidia’s GeForce Now, although only based on hardware, this probably would not be difficult to accommodate.
Qualcomm is planning a launch date in early 2022 with a target price of around $ 300, with Qualcomm hoping to sell directly to consumers, but also potentially opening the device to partnerships with operators and other retailers to help increase availability and presence of the device.
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Now, if you step back and think about it vaguely, the idea seems to have little merit. Qualcomm is already one of the largest producers of mobile processors in the world, and compared to the Nvidia Tegra X1 chip currently used in the Switch (which was already somewhat dated in 2017, when Nintendo chose to use it to power the console) , modern Qualcomm chips, such as the Snapdragon 888 or the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2 it would almost certainly have an advantage in both overall performance and energy efficiency. And, given Qualcomm’s experience and the extensive collection of wireless IP, the company could probably make a device with better wireless connectivity than Nintendo. After all, a Switch is not much more than a sophisticated smartphone with controllers screwed to 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 normally operates only as a B2B supplier and, in addition to a handful of prototypes and reference devices, Qualcomm does not actually manufacture retail devices for ordinary people. Qualcomm makes the chips, modems and sensors that power many of the consumer gadgets we use every day, but the company does not manufacture them alone.
This becomes Qualcomm’s second biggest challenge: the lack of brand recognition. Now there is no doubt that Qualcomm is an extremely influential company. It produces most of the mobile chips used in today’s 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 are not buying it just because it has a Qualcomm processor. This is just one of many components, and they are buying the complete package. The logo that really matters is the one on the back of the device, be it a fruit or a name or whatever, which is almost never from Qualcomm. (And that doesn’t even take into account the reality that most people have no choice about which chips are selected for use in the devices they buy.)
The third major argument against the Qualcomm Switch clone is that Qualcomm does not make content. I said before and I will repeat, the Switch is far from the perfection of the hardware. Joy-Cons suffers from the deviation, the Switch still doesn’t really support Bluetooth audio, its screen is not particularly colorful or sharp, and its performance is not that impressive either.
But what Nintendo has is a huge library of content, recognizable pets and that general “Nintendo magic” that makes everything look fun and eccentric. When the Switch was released, it debuted alongside what is arguably the best Zelda game of all time. What could Qualcomm have in store to compete with that? No company does more with less performance than Nintendo, with Nintendo managing to sell more than the much more powerful competing consoles on Xbox and PlayStation from Microsoft and Sony.
Granted, the Android Police report mentioned that Qualcomm is looking to support third-party game stores, which can make games like Fifteen days, Impact Genshinand other popular titles available on the Qualcomm handheld device. But it’s important to remember that anyone who plays these games already has a device to play it on, which means that Qualcomm has to deliver something unique that no other device offers, which seems like a real challenge, considering how difficult Qualcomm is is extracting from the Nintendo manual. Ask yourself: what special feature could Qualcomm implement in its Switch clone that would make you choose it over a real Switch or a traditional console?
But then things get even more complicated if you believe recent reports that Nintendo could launch a revamped switch with better performance and a potentially more premium screen before the end of the year. If Nintendo can deliver, that would make any portable console Qualcomm can deliver in early 2022 even less attractive.
But perhaps the biggest argument against the alleged Qualcomm Switch clone is all the other Switch clones that have failed to gain significant momentum. Last year at CES, Dell showed a concept device similar to a PC-based switch called UFO Project, but after more than 14 months, we still haven’t received any updates about the UFO Project hitting the market. And this year, Lenovo partnered with NEC to create the LaVie Mini, which is another clone of the Switch with removable controllers built from PC parts.
And there are lesser-known companies like GPD that make cool little devices like Win 3, not to mention the millions of phones that can be converted to a portable console via control accessories or touch controls. It has been four years since the Switch was launched, and thinking that Qualcomm – a company that does not manufacture consumer devices – will be able to recreate the success of the Switch when countless others have tried and failed seems like a herculean task.
I’m not going to say that Qualcomm’s portable console plans are 100% doomed, but from where I’m sitting, the chances of victory seem minimal, at best.
And yet, I am still extremely curious to see them try. Hell, maybe Qualcomm might stumble on a winning formula, or somehow the 5G growth will radically change the way we use handheld consoles. (It is unlikely in the short term, but look, who knows). So, let me ask, is a portable video game console made by Qualcomm something you would like to see?