Intel, Tencent and Haier jointly released the TGP BOX gaming console, but many flaws indicate that no one will be interested in it in the future

The game market has always been a coveted pie. Since the advent of game consoles in the 1960s and 1970s, the size of the game market has been rising steadily along with economic development; and since the end of the last century, disasters such as Japan's economic recession, the US financial crisis and even the global economic crisis have not stopped the development of the game market, but have instead introduced more people who are unable to engage in other entertainment activities into the world of games.

However, in the domestic game console market, although Lenovo, Huawei, ZTE, The9, Perfect, Bianfeng, Snail, iQiyi, Tomahawk and other major manufacturers have launched their own game consoles, they all failed. At this time, Tencent, together with Intel and Haier, launched a game console called Razr TGP BOX that supports both TGP and Windows platforms. I wonder if Tencent has taken the right path this time?

Is the PC TGP BOX targeting the game console market worth buying?

In terms of hardware, the Blade TGP BOX has two models, X3 and X5. The X5 is priced at 4799, and uses an Intel Core i5-6400 processor, built-in 8GB DDR4 high-speed memory, equipped with 128GB SSD and 1TB HDD storage space, and uses an Nvidia GTX750Ti graphics processor with 2GB DDR5 video memory. The X3 is priced at 3799, uses an i3-6100 processor, built-in 4GB DDR4 memory, built-in 128GB SSD hard drive, and has the same graphics card and interface design.

This dual-platform console is not the first of its kind. Alienware has launched the Alpha console, which runs a custom Win8.1 interface, supports Steam applications, and comes with an Xbox 360 controller. The Alpha uses a custom GeForce 860 GTX graphics card, which is better than the 750Ti in the TGP BOX in terms of performance. The i3 version of the Alpha is priced at only more than 3,300 yuan, which is even cheaper than the TGP BOX.

Although the TGP BOX has a small and exquisite design, the price is high. For example, if you assemble a computer with the configuration of X3 and X5 on JD.com, the market price is about 2900 and 3800 respectively, while their official prices are as high as 3799 and 4799. And its configuration may be enough to play Tencent games, but it is not enough for large games on the market.

This product positioning is obviously not suitable for PC users. If we take game consoles as an example, the pricing strategy has always been software subsidizing hardware. There has never been a successful example of a game console priced at $500. This price is even more outrageous for a game console.

So can Tencent break the console curse with its huge gaming empire?

The reason why Tencent Games can attract a large number of players is actually largely due to the huge user base of its communication software. As the most popular communication software in China, QQ has 700 million users and WeChat has 600 million users. Today, as the trend of social games is becoming more and more obvious, even if the game type and quality are the same, Tencent's games can always easily defeat the opponent. However, this advantage is difficult to convert to TGP BOX due to the difficulty of input and voice barriers.

Historically, consoles that hoped to use non-gaming features as selling points have all ended up badly, such as GameGear (Sega) that relied on TV functions, Pippin (Apple) that relied on computer systems, N-Gage (Nokia) that relied on Symbian, and Xbox One (Microsoft) that relied on set-top box functions. They all could not escape this fate, and TGP BOX, which tried to attract consumers with TGP and Windows dual modes, is probably no exception.

From the perspective of game consoles, players who buy consoles specifically for playing games care more about the professionalism of game consoles, high-quality exclusive masterpieces, and targeted optimization by game manufacturers. My games cannot be played on other platforms, or my platform has a better experience than others for the same game. This is the core competitiveness of a game console. This seemingly simple but difficult goal is also the reason why there is only one king in the game console market at the same time. Microsoft and Nintendo are still struggling in the shadow of PS4. Tencent's TGP BOX may be thinking too much to survive as a game console.

As for the final sales of TGP BOX, although the pre-sale was only opened on JD.com today, and JD.com does not support checking sales, we can still get a glimpse of the future. The picture below shows a TGP BOX-X3 that was listed on Taobao Xianyu nearly a month ago. It should be a crowdfunding user who received the goods before. The machine is brand new and unopened, and the price is 800 yuan lower than the official price, which is close to the market price of X3 hardware, but still no one is interested.

Each has its own little tricks. How can the new host not be cannon fodder?

However, it is believed that TGP BOX is just a "hobby" for Tencent, and the cost and risk are not high under the joint sharing of Intel and Haier. Tencent did not take this console very seriously, and even on Tencent's TGP BOX homepage, the X5 configuration is still incorrectly marked as X3. In fact, this is not the first time that Tencent has "hobbyized" the game market, although this time TGP BOX is much more reliable than the previous TV game hall and MiniStation in terms of positioning and attractiveness.

The day after Intel announced TGP BOX, it released the seventh-generation Core processor Kaby Lake, and the sixth-generation i3 used in TGP BOX will soon be phased out. Unlike AMD's use of custom chips in cooperation with Sony and Microsoft, Intel's cooperation with Tencent and Haier to launch TGP BOX uses the retail version of i3 6100, which is suspected of bundling sales to clear out the processors that are about to be replaced.

As we all know, AMD's CPU and GPU are cheaper and have better display performance than Intel's products, so game consoles such as PS4 and Xbox One have always tended to choose AMD products. This was not a problem before, but perhaps the failure in the mobile field, the continuous decline in PC sales and the continuous explosion of PS4 sales stimulated Intel, whose financial reports were getting worse and worse, and made it determined to enter the game industry, even if it had to pay high subsidies.

As for Haier's joining this "farce", in addition to wanting to cling to Intel and Tencent and escape the crisis of marginalization of its own PC brand, it also makes people wonder whether Chinese hardware manufacturers still do not have a clear understanding of the game console market?

In short, the positioning of the Blade TGP BOX is not clear enough in terms of software, hardware or price. It is obviously not attractive enough for players, and it does not pose any threat to PS4 and Xbox One. This console has few highlights, and it is hard to say that its several "biological parents" are pushing this project with the determination to produce a competitive game console. Under their own selfish motives, the future of TGP BOX is bleak. Furthermore, such endless probing behavior when the Chinese game console industry has not yet taken shape will only make consumers more and more disappointed in this industry, adding more thorns to the future of the Chinese game console industry. No one wants the tragedy of the "Atari shock" that wiped out the American game industry 30 years ago to be staged in China.

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.