Is it a necessity or a gimmick? If you love games, do you really need a gaming phone?

654 million players contribute 209.6 billion yuan in output value each year, with each player spending an average of 0.9 yuan per day. This is the power of Chinese mobile games.

Looking back at the history of the mobile game market, it is not difficult to think of a vertical mobile phone category focusing on mobile games that has suddenly emerged in recent years - gaming phones.

Lenovo and Asus, two veteran manufacturers in the PC industry, Black Shark invested by Xiaomi, and Nubia's Red Magic have all entered the gaming phone market for many years and launched a number of gaming phones. Now the latest news is that Xiaomi itself has also begun to enter this industry.

Although the market seems to be booming, what is interesting is that these gaming phones have always been playthings among the so-called "core mobile game player circle". No gaming phone has achieved "breaking the circle" and sales have been lukewarm.

Obviously, the properties of the mobile phone itself greatly limit the development space of gaming phones. The design process of gaming phones is very much like "dancing with shackles". Therefore, for most users, even mobile game players, it is not suitable to use gaming phones.

Gaming phones are extremely similar to other ordinary mobile phones in terms of hardware, and they don’t have any leading advantages in software. However, rather than saying that gaming phone manufacturers themselves are not working hard, I believe that the essence of the problem lies more in the fact that mobile phones and “game consoles” are essentially not the same thing.

For the general public, the inconvenience and exaggerated design of gaming phones are a complete dissuade from using them, and they are not suitable for most people. Mobile phone manufacturers probably don't like to hear this conclusion, but looking at the sales volume, consumers have actually voted with their feet.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.