Has Mobile Gaming Finally Caught up with Console?

Ever since the first mobile phone game Snake was released all those years ago, dreamers and builders have been trying to create a mobile experience to match that offered by consoles.

There have been some admirable attempts in the past decade, such as the ill-fated Nokia N-Gage, one of the earliest and most explicit attempts at bringing a console-level gaming experience to a handheld device.

However, the N-Gage, like many other similar projects, could not deliver what it promised. The fact of the matter is that the technology simply wasn’t developed enough to bring the graphics, features, and gameplay of an Xbox game into a smartphone.

In 2019, developments suggest we may finally have reached that technological turning point. Let’s explore whether mobile gaming has finally caught up with console gaming.

Major Tech Breakthroughs

Sure, there’s no denying that the graphics of a major console title like Red Dead Redemption 2 far surpass anything that you can get on the Google Play Store, but smartphone hardware has progressed to the point where the aesthetic and gameplay gap between phones and consoles is wafer-thin.

The GPUs in the latest generation of iPhones, for instance, have been widely described as similar to consoles. In other words, they have the horsepower to do what a PS4 can. Meanwhile, Samsung has developed graphics cards for their Note 9 series that allow users to seamlessly play PC titles such as Fornite and Team Fortress 2 without any of the lag you might expect.

Memory and processing power in smartphones has also progressed immensely in just the past two or three years, thanks largely to the latest generation of Snapdragon CPUs for smartphone devices.

Cross-Platform Gaming

In order to truly understand the progress of mobile gaming capabilities, we need to look at the development of so-called “cross-platform gaming”. Companies such as Nintendo and Microsoft have pioneered this form of gaming – see the Nintendo Switch and titles such as Minecraft that are now freely playable across a number of devices – without the user having to compromise on quality.

Another pioneer of cross-platform gaming is the online casino industry, which has been producing high-quality games that are just as playable on an iPhone 6 as they are on a gaming PC . Platforms such as Mr Green provide casino games across PC, mobile, and tablet, all with high-quality graphics and gameplay. They aren’t just such bog-standard slots, though: whichever device you can choose to play from, there is access to sophisticated variations on online igaming, such as live casino roulette and multiplayer card games. This kind of fluidity represents the future of gaming.

The Future is Mobile

One of the major milestones in mobile gaming capabilities was recently announced by the world’s biggest tech company. Apple’s new Arcade platform, due to launch in the autumn, promises full console-level gaming on mobile and PC.

Their first major venture into the video game market will consist of the release of dozens of unique Apple video games, including vast open-world adventure games such as Beyond a Steel Sky.

If the mobile previews are anything to go by, 2019 will officially be the year where mobile games cross the threshold and become truly indistinguishable from anything you can play on an Xbox One. Although, in its current state, mobile gaming generally has a little bit of catching up to do, the rapid pace of change currently underway suggests that we may soon have no need for game consoles at all.

Mohsen Daemi
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