Vratislav Holub Smartphones have improved significantly over the past few years. Today we have models with high-quality OLED screens with a higher refresh rate, which then perfectly complements the timeless performance thanks to today's chips, stereo speakers and other benefits. We can now also see an unprecedented shift forward in cameras. But for now we will stick to the mentioned displays and performance. Apparently, one would expect that with the capabilities of today's phones, we will also see proper games, but this does not happen at all in the finale.
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Pavel Jelic Gaming on phones has always been with us. It is enough to look back, for example, at the old Nokia phones, on which we could easily drown ourselves in playing the legendary snake for long hours. In addition, we gradually got better and better titles. After all, as we wrote recently, years ago we had games like Splinter Cell available. Although not exactly ideal quality, but at least the possibility was there. That is why it is appropriate to ask where gaming will actually move and what changes it could bring. If we focus directly on Apple, it has considerable resources at its disposal, thanks to which it could turn iPhones into gaming machines. Unfortunately, on the other hand, it's not just him.
Gaming on phones is stagnating
The biggest problem right now is that we don't have enough quality games available. Although today's phones are certainly not lacking in terms of performance, developers paradoxically ignore them. Of course, this does not mean that there is nothing to play on iPhones, of course not. For example, we have Call of Duty: Mobile, PUBG, The Elder Scrolls: Blades, Roblox and many others that are worth it. On the other hand, why want to play on a (small) mobile when we have consoles or computers at our disposal?
Call of Duty: Mobile
Personally, I really like that iPhones support gamepads and can be used for gaming. Unfortunately, we have no way to use them in games. As part of the Apple Arcade service, which the Cupertino giant stands for in conjunction with developers and thus offers a number of exclusive titles, gamepad support is completely normal, in the case of some games a controller is even required. But we don't have to meet success with regular titles. In this regard, I would like to point to the aforementioned The Elder Scrolls: Blades. In my opinion, this game could have quite a lot of potential - if it could be played on a gamepad.
One shortcoming after another
At the same time, gaming on mobile phones unfortunately faces a number of unpleasant problems that have a destructive effect on gaming itself. At its very core, there is a problem with the sale of paid games. In short, mobile phone users are used to having games available for free, while in the gaming world this is not the case at all, on the contrary – AAA titles can easily cost over a thousand crowns. But we ourselves have to admit that if we saw a game for a similar amount in the App Store, we would probably think more than twice about purchasing it. But we will stay with the application store. It's no secret that top selling and downloaded apps and games are favored here. That is why games like Clash Royale and Homescapes appear on the front row.
But when we finally come across a proper game, we have the biggest shortcoming ahead of us - touch controls. This is not the most pleasant from a gaming point of view, and it is therefore not surprising that many games can crash on it. Of course, the aforementioned gamepads can solve this ailment. These can be bought for a few crowns, connected and played. Well, at least in the ideal case. Of course, it doesn't have to look like that in practice. For this reason, it is better for players to look for another solution. So if they want to play on mobile devices, a handheld like Nintendo Switch (OLED) or Steam Deck is more worthwhile.
Will Apple bring change? Rather not
In pure theory, Apple has all the means to change the way we look at the current state of gaming on phones. But he (probably) won't. Even so, there is no certainty that the games would catch on at all, or whether the giant would profit enough from this change. When you think about it, apple players have quite an advantage in this area and can really enjoy slow to full-fledged gaming. All you have to do is connect the gamepad to the iPhone and use AirPlay to mirror the content, for example, to a TV or Mac. Voìla, we play on the phone, we have a large image and we don't have to rely on touch controls at all.
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In an ideal world, it would work like this. But we are not in such a situation, and we come back to the original problem - players do not have proper games available, and if they do appear, they are doomed to extinction, with a little exaggeration. In theory, a full-fledged gamer would be more interested in a paid game, but you can count on the fact that he has, for example, a console at his disposal. Why would he spend money on a mobile game when he can enjoy the same game on another platform, possibly with better graphics and gameplay? On the other hand, here we have normal users who probably won't want to spend several hundreds for a game.
The world of mobile gaming offers a lot of opportunities that no one has really delved into yet. Currently, we can only hope that in the future we will see interesting changes that could move the entire segment several steps forward. For now, however, it does not look like a breakthrough. In any case, there is still one option – to use a cloud streaming platform. In this case, the full-fledged game runs on the servers of the given service, while only the image is sent to the device and, of course, control instructions are sent back. Of course, now it is necessary to use the game controller. Using Nvidia's GeForce NOW service, we can easily play Payday 2, Hitman games on iPhones, or dive into the "new" Forza Horizon 5 with Xbox Cloud Gaming. To be honest, not many people use this method.
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