Currently, Chinese consoles with emulators have become very popular in recent years, however, their specifications do not allow them to go beyond a first generation PlayStation in terms of power and even grace. In any case, many say that mobile phones have replaced handheld consoles or handheld computers. Is it really true? For one product to replace another, it must be able to absorb demand and this is achieved by doing the same. Why do Chinese laptops exist? Well, due to the fact that they cannot offer the same experience.
Why have we stopped seeing Game Boy-style consoles?
In desktop consoles, traditional consoles connected to the television, levers and buttons are still used. Instead, we have luminaries repeating the mantra that users now prefer to play on mobile rather than handheld consoles. The origin of this absurd argument? A certain company is withdrawing from the handheld console market, leaving the monopoly to a Nintendo that has abandoned handheld consoles.
Everything indicates that we will not see something like the original Game Boy or rather a console that we can take anywhere and with dozens of hours of autonomy. A concept that has been killed by the industry trend towards gaming as a service and its typical business model of what in English we would call a Drug Dealer. The difference between a console of this type and a mobile is not only the buttons, but also the absence of a continuous internet connection. That is to say, it is the removal of the WiFi and Bluetooth chip that increases the battery.
In other words, mobile phones by their nature allow abusive forms of gambling for the consumer and even more so if they are minors. Instead of asking politicians to destroy things with their legislation, the best thing would be to ask for the return of a type of product that should not have disappeared.
And what would a handheld console look like today?
It would not be different in its internal hardware from a low-end mobile, yes, the vertical format of the Game Boy Classic should give way to a composition closer to that of some Chinese retro consoles and allow changes such as panoramic screens , but no more than 60Hz. In terms of storage, your operating system should be simple, nothing more than a menu to load games into memory or onto the cartridge, no background tasks, no complex operating system.
The experience should be one of picking up a game, plugging it in, and that’s it. No day 1 updates, later patches and even having the system always connected to the network to avoid drastic business models with the user. A powerful yet simple device. Unfortunately, these types of devices and given how the video game industry is, can no longer exist and not because they are impossible, but because the systems are no longer made for the end user, but for the major publishers.
Technology advances, accept it
Today we all have a mobile from which we can listen to music like an MP3 player of yesteryear, our cameras allow us to do the same as film cameras without problems. Isn’t that the same as the theme for mobiles with games? Well no, because it is a hardware element like the interface of buttons and levers of classic consoles. In short, there is not the same way of using the product and, therefore, they are not the same.
In another order of things, the technology that chips have advanced in all this time and it would be possible to make a Game Boy-style handheld console and that was a technical leap that allows you to see things like the realistic 3D games. Of course, this is not compatible with the vices of the current video game industry and whoever did it would find the absolute rejection of a market where experiences have disappeared to be based on economic models. In other words, the problem is not technical incapacity, but the fact that the market has evolved into a form of consumption that has made these products obsolete, and not precisely because of technological obsolescence. Which is a shame.
