With Razer’s acquisition of Nextbit and the OUYA platform in recent years, we’ve long suspected the wildly growing gaming hardware maker wanted to take a shot at the mobile space. Bloomberg says that the company is inching toward that goal, and they even have a solid vision in mind for its place in the market: they want it to be the phone that calls out to the gamer in you.
While we’re not sure what, exactly, the Razer phone will be like, if it’s going to appeal to gamers then we’re expecting a heavy focus on said gaming experience. And we’re expecting more than just an ordinary phone with a cool little hub to launch all the games you can already get your hands on at Google Play.
In fact, I’m picturing something akin to the Sony Xperia Play from years past, or even the NVIDIA SHIELD handheld for a more modern example.
Perhaps it doesn’t have to take on the same form factor — we could see them going with a Switch-like peripheral system or just as well ship the thing with a mobile gaming controller — but the controller would really sell the gimmick they’re after. Something with an integrated control pad would certainly speak to the inner soul of any
Something with an integrated control pad would certainly speak to the inner soul of any gamer, though as the meager success of the Xperia Play and even ancient concepts like the Nokia NGage taught us, it’ll need to offer more in its core experience if it wants to be truly successful.
The only tough part for Razer will be figuring out how to push the content needed to make the phone a really tempting sale. Sony’s draw back in 2011 was the deep roster of exclusive PlayStation titles they could offer, even though we eventually saw many of those titles launch for other smartphones.
The good news is that mobile gaming is more diverse than ever, with quality developers able to create their games with more ambition as even affordable smartphones boast tremendous graphics capabilities, so there is no shortage of targets for Razer to see if they can’t court some exclusives or get some existing games to support the unique elements of their platform.
So, should they happen to come up with something unique, would you buy it? We know it’d be hard to turn away from the tried and true Samsungs and HTCs of the world, but if Razer managed to make the perfect gaming phone, would you give them a shot?
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