Produced by | Explorer Technology (aka Explorer Tanker)
Author | Yin Taibai
Edit | Egg total
1. The new melee of game phones
Players familiar with the mobile phone or gaming industry know that according to the convention, the game phone will usher in a dense wave of new product releases in February every year, and this year is no exception.
On February 16, Redmi released the Redmi K50 esports version; on February 17, the Nubian Red Devils Game Mobile phone released two models, the Red Devils 7 and the Red Devils 7 Pro; on February 28, lenovo Rescuer Games mobile phones released the Savers Y90, followed by the Black Shark Game Phone will also release the Black Shark 5 and Black Shark 5 Pro models in March.
(Photo / Rescuer Y90 (Lenovo official))
It is not only the main game mobile phone on the market, but also the one plus 10 Pro, realme GT2 series and vivo sub-brand iQOO 9 series that list "game" as a keyword for promotion and creation. In addition, according to the statistics of "Tanke Deep Technology", at present, except for Huawei, almost all mobile phone manufacturers have launched mobile phone products that focus on the game experience.
The game phone is a new form between the mobile phone and the game handheld, which inherits the characteristics of the mobile phone can call, and carries the game gene of the game handheld, but its essence is still the mobile phone.
However, compared with mainstream mobile phones, as a subdivision of game phones are rarely concerned by the public, a fact that has to be admitted is that the positioning of game phones has always been slightly embarrassing, and in terms of hardware configuration and performance has not been able to open a large gap with mainstream mobile phones.
However, there are two historical nodes that have brought gaming phones into the public eye.
On the one hand, after Redmi officially entered the game mobile phone track, it used its huge fan base to bring a turnaround to the decadent game mobile phone market; on the other hand, EDG won the League of Legends S11 annual finals championship and e-sports was officially included in the Asian Games competition project, driving the e-sports industry to continue to heat up, providing a breakthrough opportunity for game phones.
Gaming phones are getting louder, but it hasn't been able to make a long-standing debate disappear: is gaming phones a pseudo-demand?
Public opinion is divided into two distinct factions: the support faction believes that the user's demand for the game phone is real, as the user pursues the ultimate game experience, the game phone that is moving closer to the professional game device is expected to usher in an explosive period; while the other faction believes that the game experience is not the exclusive function of the game phone, compared to the mainstream flagship phone, the game phone does not have technical barriers, and the differentiation lies mainly in the publicity level rather than the hardware configuration.
Not only is it public opinion-oriented, until then, game mobile phones have been ignored by most mobile phone manufacturers, but as the mobile phone market becomes mature and involuted, the views of the supporters have unexpectedly been recognized by the head mobile phone manufacturers.
"Mobile phone manufacturers originally felt that game mobile phones are only a market segment, but in fact, the mobile game user base is huge and the purchasing power is amazing, and the price of game phones is not cheap, which is also in line with the trend of mobile phone manufacturers impacting the high-end market, so they have turned to the game mobile phone track, or strengthen the game attributes of their mobile phone products, or open up a product line to cut into the field of game mobile phones." Li Yang, a mobile phone industry insider, told "Tanke Deep Technology".
In the field of game mobile phones, Redmi is the "first crab-eating" head mobile phone manufacturer in China.
In April 2021, on the day of the first sale of Redmi's first game phone, the Redmi K40 Game Enhanced Edition, its sales exceeded 100,000 units in one minute. According to Lu Weibing, a partner of Xiaomi Group and general manager of the Redmi brand, the Redmi K50 e-sports version was first sold in just 1 minute, and the sales amount exceeded 280 million yuan.
Photo / Redmi K50 (Official Redmi)
Veteran digital enthusiast Jiang Yiming is not surprised by this, its analysis to the "Explorer Deep Technology", Redmi K50 e-sports version of the screen parameters are basically in the first echelon, and equipped with the latest generation of Snapdragon 8 mobile platform, dual VC heat dissipation board cooling system, 120W fast charging, etc., "almost every point is just in line with the appetite of mobile game users."
One of the changes behind the Redmi K50 esports edition being embraced by mobile game users is that the design ideas of game phones are gradually moving closer to the public aesthetic. Previously, the game phone completely got rid of the shackles of mobile phone design, blindly emphasized the ultimate performance, and tried its best to please mobile game users.
But after Redmi's entry, the design idea of the game phone was greatly rewritten. In addition to emphasizing performance and gaming experience, Redmi has also made up for the shortcomings of the imaging system, reduced the weight of the fuselage and esports style, and tried to reach more users with a balanced and comprehensive experience.
However, this also brings the game phone into another dilemma: the game phone is becoming more and more similar to the mainstream flagship phone, and the positioning is becoming more and more blurred, so what is the "moat" of the game phone?
2. Is the business of game phones easy to do?
From the current point of view, the game mobile phone market is still a niche market.
"In the Chinese mobile phone market, the shipment of game phones is only about 1.6 million units a year." Li Yang revealed to "Tanke Deep Technology" that IDC's report shows that China's mobile phone shipments in 2021 will reach 329 million units, "In contrast, although the living space of game phones is narrow, the target user group is large enough." ”
This is true. According to the survey report of the Game Working Committee of the China Music and Digital Association and Gamma Data, the scale of mobile game users in 2020 was 654 million people, an increase of 4.84% year-on-year; in the first half of 2021, the scale of mobile game users was 656 million, an increase of 1.34% year-on-year.
A black shark also told "Tanke Deep Technology" that "although the game mobile phone is still a subdivision category, the game mobile phone market has a very young user group, while the mobile game industry is still constantly developing upwards, the continuous improvement of the quality of game content, the continuous enrichment of gameplay will attract more people to come in, which makes the game mobile phone market have a stronger vitality." ”
It is worth noting that the price of gaming phones is not cheap. The starting prices of iQOO9 and OnePlus 10 Pro with "game" as the keyword are 3999 yuan and 4699 yuan, respectively. The game phone Redmi K50 e-sports version, Red Devil 7 and Savior Y90 start at 3299 yuan, 3999 yuan and 4299 yuan respectively.
Photo / Red Devils 7 (Nubian official)
Price seems to have become a major factor restricting game phones to the mass market, and it has always been difficult to find game phones in offline sales channels such as mobile phone stores and cyber cities.
A cyber city stall owner in Jinan, Shandong Province, told "Tanke Deep Technology" that there are too few people who buy game phones, the price is not cheap, and it is easy to lead to the hoarding of goods, so it is almost impossible to do the channel of game phones, "I really can't do it."
"The price range where the game phone is located is very competitive, and it is the price range of the mainstream flagship mobile phones of major mobile phone manufacturers." A heavy mobile game user said bluntly, "There are many models to choose from in this price range, and it is not necessary to choose a game phone with obvious shortcomings in weight, image and so on." ”
Another heavy mobile game user told "Tanke Deep Technology" that the price of 3000-4000 yuan can already start with the iPad mini6. The 8.3-inch full-screen design, weighs only 293 grams, and is equipped with an A15 bionic processor, making the iPad mini6 a success in the gaming scene, "The main competitor of the iPad mini6 is by no means a small size tablet, but a large-screen gaming phone." ”
For ordinary mobile game users, both the price and the game experience are slightly chicken. A number of ordinary mobile game users have told "Tanke Deep Technology" that playing games with mobile phones is indeed a real demand, but it is not just needed, mobile phones should be based on life, work, learning and entertainment in one of the integrated equipment rather than just to play games, "the main game experience can not become the core selling point of game phones."
But gaming phone enthusiast Zou Rui has never been able to agree with the above point of view, "People who have not used a game phone will never know how shocking the gaming experience it brings!" When playing games, the horizontal screen scene is the most important, and the various optimizations and special designs made by the game phone in terms of speakers, heat dissipation, shoulder buttons, picture quality, screen pressure feeling, etc., are absolutely unmatched by mainstream flagship machines. ”
In fact, there are not a few die-hard fans of game phones. The above-mentioned Black Shark person revealed to "Tanke Deep Technology" that the Current Black Shark game mobile phone has 200W+ stock users.
"The game mobile phone market has gone through the stage of 'not being recognized and optimistic' to 'gradually being accepted by users', and there are many users who have a strong demand for game phones, and what game mobile phone manufacturers have to do is how to impress them." The Black Shark person believes that the game mobile phone track is by no means a "dead end".
Jiang Hansheng, marketing director of ASUS Chinese mainland market mobile phone ROG, told "Tanke Deep Technology" that professionalism is the cornerstone of game mobile phones, and as the mobile phone market becomes more and more segmented, then the corresponding professionalism will be infinitely expanded. Game phones should make great efforts to control and focus on continuously optimizing the game experience, "At present, the prospects of game phones are still very optimistic. ”
3. The difficulty of the "moat" of game phones
"The expansion of game users, the increase in game duration, and the recognition of professional e-sports players are all good for the development of game phones, in fact, the development of game phones also has its historical inevitability." Li Yang told Tanke Deep Technology, "The demographic dividend is gradually ending, and the innovation space of mobile phones has become narrow, so it is necessary to tap the potential of market segments instead." ”
In 2017, global mobile phone shipments fell for the first time, and the Chinese mobile phone market was the first. According to data from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, in 2017, China's mobile phone market shipped 491 million units, down 12.3% year-on-year.
"Whether it is the global mobile phone market or the Chinese mobile phone market, the decline in shipments means that the user's demand for mobile phone upgrading has gradually weakened." Li Yang recalled that before this, game phones have always been popular and difficult to really open the mass market.
The downward trend of the mobile phone market came overnight, and some mobile phone manufacturers re-locked their eyes on the field of game mobile phones.
According to the "2017 China Game Industry Report" released by Gamma Data, the actual sales revenue of China's game market in 2017 was 203.61 billion yuan, an increase of 23% year-on-year. Among them, mobile games contributed 116.12 billion yuan, accounting for 57%. More critically, statistics from data analytics firm Flurry show that 32% of mobile phone usage is spent by users to play games.
The boom in gaming phones finally arrived in the early spring of 2018.
At that time, the Black Shark game mobile phone invested by Xiaomi turned out to be born, followed by the Nubian Red Devil Game Mobile Phone, asus ROG Game Mobile Phone, Lenovo Savior Game Mobile Phone and Redmi successively joined the battle.
Photo / ASUS ROG Game Phone (ASUS Official)
Hardware-level features are most easily perceived by users, and are also most conducive to visual differentiation. For example, alternative designs, colorful light strips, oversized batteries, fan cooling systems, and pop-up shoulder keys have all been integrated into gaming phones by mobile phone manufacturers.
But the opposite is that blindly stacking hardware has still caused many questions about gaming phones, and a common view is that the gap between game phones and mainstream flagship phones is small, and the former is just a gimmick for mobile phone manufacturers to boost shipments.
"The game experience is a comprehensive experience that requires not only hardware configurations such as processor, memory, screen, cooling, and vibration motors, but also game content that is adapted to it." Jiang Yiming explained, "Stacking material purely for the sake of differentiation is an act of putting the cart before the horse, which can only lead to the fact that the game phone can never change the lack of moats." ”
So, what is the real reason why gaming phones can't form a "moat"?
A game industry insider told "Tanke Deep Technology" that although the hardware configuration of game phones has almost touched the industry ceiling, it cannot really open up the gap with mainstream flagship mobile phones in terms of game experience.
"An important reason is that when game manufacturers optimize and adapt to games, such as adding extreme frame rate, ultra-clear picture quality, etc., they will give priority to the models used by most game users, and optimize and adapt to mainstream models to ensure a smooth game experience for most users." The person said.
In other words, the gaming experience is largely related to the shipments of mobile phone manufacturers, rather than whether it is a gaming phone or not.
In addition, it should be pointed out that the flagship models of Huamirong OV also attach great importance to the user's game experience, and have specially developed professional game modes for mainstream games, which also leads to limited improvement in the game experience of game phones.
In terms of game content, game phones also lack some blockbusters, such as users buying Nintendo Switch, perhaps because of "Zelda Legend: Breath of the Wild", "Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Edition"; the purchase of Sony PS4, perhaps because of "God of War" and "Red Dead Redemption 2", but there are not many game content that can really make users perceive the advantages of game phones.
"Game content and game hardware are a benign closed loop, but game phones mainly rely on game content to achieve advantages, rather than creating advantages by manufacturing game content." Jiang Yiming further explained, "The strong sales of the Nintendo Switch and Sony PS4 will be supported by game manufacturers, so as to obtain more game content and improve their game ecology, while high-quality game content will in turn drive the sales and development of game hardware." ”
But gaming phones apparently lack similar gaming content, which is another reason for their inability to widen the moat.
4. How to build a "moat"?
At present, in the case that the game experience cannot open the gap with the mainstream flagship mobile phone and lacks the support of game content, what is the moat that the game mobile phone can create?
Game phone peripherals were quickly pushed into the spotlight, such as the Black Shark Ice Cooling Back Clip, the Armor Thermal Protection Shell, the Red Devil Dual Core Heat Sink Back Clip, the Esports Magic Box and the 5G Armor. Mobile phone manufacturers try to transfer the core functions such as extreme heat dissipation and low latency in game scenes to peripherals to create a game console-like operation experience to strengthen the moat.
Photo / Black Shark 4s (Black Shark Official)
Although peripherals have greatly improved and enhanced the gaming experience, it is inevitable that the gaming phone will lose portability due to the presence of peripherals.
"When there is no peripheral, the game experience is not much different from the flagship mobile phone, but the peripheral is not convenient to carry." Jiang Yiming believes that the advantage of game phones lies in the wide range of application scenarios brought about by portability, but peripherals limit the use scenarios of game phones.
The aforementioned Black Shark people believe that the moat of the game phone has many dimensions, first in the hardware dimension, to pursue the best performance performance, and secondly, at the software level, to have convenient and easy to use game auxiliary functions, while maintaining close cooperation with major game manufacturers to promote optimization and adaptation.
In Jiang Hansheng's view, the moat of the game phone is a mobile game user and fan, for the game user, it has high requirements in the five aspects of performance, control, display, audio and battery life, the game phone can continue to evolve based on this, and "the hardware should meet the needs of users for at least 1-2 years." ”
"On the one hand, mobile phone manufacturers need to do a good job in the game experience, need to deeply adjust the game phone, optimize the control, adjust the fluency and stability; on the other hand, the mobile phone manufacturer should increase cooperation with the game manufacturer from a deeper level such as game content and daily use scenarios, and provide more obvious special optimizations, so as to impress ordinary users, grasp core users, and stimulate their desire to consume and change machines." Li Yang analyzed.
For game phones, how to provide users with a completely different game experience from mainstream flagship phones is the core of whether game phones can develop, and how to provide a game experience similar to game consoles is the key to whether game phones can usher in an outbreak.
However, the game phone breakthrough is not hopeless.
Jiang Hansheng told "Explorer Deep Technology" that mobile games are becoming a kind of spiritual adjustment in people's fast-paced and high-pressure work life, and the social functions of mobile games are also enhanced, which will make game phones gradually become popular. The above-mentioned Black Shark people also believe that with the continuous prosperity of the mobile game market, young mobile game users will make the game mobile phone market more dynamic.
"It's almost certain that gaming phones won't disappear, but will move in the direction of balancing gaming scenarios with everyday use." Li Yang said, "Gaming phones still have a long way to go, and this road will not be a good road. ”
*Li Yang, Jiang Yiming, and Zou Rui are pseudonyms in the text. The title of the text comes from: Photo Network, based on VRF protocol.