Where is the future of game consoles? Building an ecosystem is the key

With the lifting of the console ban, the domestic console game market has been reopened, with gaming giants such as Sony and Microsoft flocking in. Even the Xbox One, which has experienced many twists and turns, has achieved good sales. Although there are still many regrets due to market and policy issues, the Chinese gaming industry has finally begun to catch up with the international market.

In contrast, many domestic manufacturers have also begun to focus on this emerging industry as soon as the ban was lifted, and have continuously launched game consoles based on the Android system. Among them, the more representative ones are NVIDIA's Shield, Snail's OBOX, Axe Technology, etc. However, faced with the turbulent domestic market and the plundering of international brands, how can domestic game consoles open up their own piece of the sky?

At this stage, most domestic consoles are developed based on ARM architecture hardware and are basically Android systems. For example, Snail's OBOX uses NVIDIA Tegra chips and has multi-core, 4G memory and other configurations. This also makes most Android consoles far superior to mobile devices in performance. However, these cannot compete with the Xbox One's DX11.1 tailor-made GPU with 8-core X86 architecture AMD processor, or the PS4's 8-core X86 architecture 64AMD Jaguar processor. Of course, the Android software system that serves a large number of mobile devices cannot compare with the Windows system of Microsoft, the software giant.

So, with Xbox and PS4, do we no longer need other consoles? No! Even the Xbox One and PS4, which took ten years to develop, have exposed many problems soon after they were launched in China. For example, the removal of the traditional Chinese version of Xbox a while ago caused a lot of domestic players to sigh and even demand that it get out of China; and the quality problems of the PS4 controller exposed recently have once again put Sony, which is known for its exquisite craftsmanship, at the forefront, exposing the many drawbacks of the monopoly of big brands in the game console market and the need for a diversified competitive environment.

The next-generation consoles seem to be an unattainable peak, but in fact there are ways to narrow the gap. Both Sony and Microsoft have strong software, game development and hardware customization capabilities. The integrated hardware and software game ecosystem was formed earlier and has matured. In addition to the many game masterpieces that first-party studios can provide, many third parties can also actively provide optimized content based on platform characteristics, which is also a major factor in their long-term dominance of the international console market. On the other hand, there are very few companies in China that have both high-quality game development and hardware innovation capabilities. Some manufacturers have unclear positioning of game consoles, directly porting mobile games or using "boxes" as game consoles. At the same time, due to various problems such as adaptation and graphics generated during the porting process, players cannot get a good experience. The biggest problem is the lack of masterpieces and uneven content, so that players gradually lack confidence in domestic consoles. This situation makes it even more difficult for domestic Android consoles to build an integrated ecosystem.

Therefore, building a complete console game ecosystem has become a key to the development of domestic Android consoles, but the construction of the ecosystem must complete the comprehensive development of multiple capabilities such as technology research and development, content manufacturing, product distribution, platform operation, and terminal manufacturing. However, building a console ecosystem is not as simple as imagined, and game content has become a big gap. In the latest "China Electronic Game Industry Ecological Atlas", the problem of the current Chinese console market, while hardware is emerging, the content cannot keep up, which also hinders the development of domestic consoles, is pointed out.

The console gaming ecosystem is different from that of mobile phones. Mistakes in any link will cause the entire ecosystem to collapse. The lack of game content and the incomplete experience brought about by porting are precisely the most fatal. Only by developing high-quality game content suitable for the Android system itself can we win the trust of players, trigger a chain reaction, and arouse the development enthusiasm of millions of Android engineers, gradually merging to form a virtuous circle of the domestic game console market.

But this is also the most difficult point. Those who are familiar with game consoles know that the hardware performance of the consoles is not as good as the top-end PCs of the same period, but because the game is well optimized, the overall performance is not inferior. The optimization of games in Android consoles is very difficult. It not only depends on the game optimization team's full understanding of the underlying system and hardware, but also requires a lot of time and manpower. At this stage, most manufacturers only hastily transplant some games with fewer changes in order to reduce this part of the energy, which also causes the current situation that Android consoles are not popular with the public.

The disruption in the content link has seriously affected a series of work such as the release of subsequent products, which is also the reason why the current domestic Android console ecosystem has not yet been formed.

Faced with such a difficult situation, it is gratifying that some independent manufacturers have begun to take action. Software and hardware giants such as Tencent and Huawei have also begun to pay attention to the sub-segment of game consoles. Through the continuous replacement of hardware and independent research and development of game content, we can see that more and more manufacturers have begun to take a big step towards the ecosystem. While manufacturers such as Tencent, Snail, and Axe are making unremitting efforts for the development of domestic Android consoles, they are also constantly innovating in console design, and a full-platform strategic layout of software and hardware integration is taking shape.

It can be seen that with the continuous efforts of game manufacturers, the performance of game consoles is constantly innovating and improving, and the addition of rich content has further improved the console ecosystem, making domestic Android consoles gradually have a future worth looking forward to. By changing the cognition of the Chinese people and gradually improving the construction of the game ecosystem, I believe we can witness the rise of domestic consoles over time.

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.