Business models are being explored, but Android game consoles are not up to the task

The Spring Festival holiday has always been a time for family reunion, and the most common form of leisure, games, has suddenly taken on a new luster. In previous years, most people played games on their phones, but with the gradual lifting of the ban on game consoles in the domestic market and the rapid development of smart TVs and boxes, playing TV games in the living room as a family has become a new trend.

In China's game console market, policies are often the first factor that determines corporate risk. But when the government opens the door, products and content become the determining factors for the success of participants.

Earlier this year, the State Council issued a notice allowing domestic and foreign companies to engage in equipment production and sales of gaming equipment throughout the country, releasing more previously uncultivated market space, which is expected to promote the maturity of the game console market. The previous year, the State Council had just ended a 13-year ban on game consoles, allowing game consoles such as Microsoft Xbox and Sony PlayStation to enter the Chinese market.

Wang Hao, COO of ZTE The9, told Tencent Technology that Chinese families' desire for television screens has been released due to policies, which will launch a new market worth tens of billions or even hundreds of billions.

Some domestic manufacturers have adopted a strategy of overtaking on the curve and have launched Android-based TV game consoles or box products. They hope to use existing Android applications to enrich content and quickly fill the market gap.

Subor teamed up with Alibaba TVOS to create a somatosensory home game console, Huawei launched the Tron Android game console, and TCL announced its entry into the TV game industry.

However, a senior executive in the gaming industry told Tencent Technology that "the positioning of Android game boxes is rather awkward."

Unclear positioning

Due to the policy control on video content, it is difficult for smart TVs and boxes to make new breakthroughs in video content. Therefore, the development paths facing domestic manufacturers mainly include the education market and the game market. Sports is too niche and difficult to break through in the short term.

The education market has a certain entry barrier due to its overly vertical industry chain and highly professional content. In contrast, the game market, although it has been in a gray area due to policy reasons, has accumulated a certain number of users and has developed relatively quickly as the market has opened up.

However, players in the domestic game console market have very high requirements for game quality, and Android game boxes are difficult to meet their needs. Therefore, Android boxes mainly target mid- and low-end users.

However, many industry insiders are not optimistic about the prospects of this format. One industry analyst said that nowadays, mobile games are basically transferred to TV sets, which will never form real market value.

The industrial chain is difficult to be sound

From the hardware point of view, the performance of Android game boxes is higher than that of ordinary TV set-top boxes. However, according to the current chip improvement speed, some industry insiders believe that its performance will not catch up with PS3 until 2016. Sony's product was released 10 years ago, and its latest generation product PS4 has been on the market for a year.

In addition, the adaptation problems inherent in Android smartphones also exist in Android game boxes. A game developer told Tencent Technology that due to the different standards of various game boxes equipped with Android and the different chips used, the adaptation costs for game developers are very high and the experience is not good.

Not only that, Android version issues are also affecting the progress of game development.

Some industry analysts said that unlike the rapid popularization of smartphones, the game console market is still in the early stages of development, so the market size is still very limited, which means that the cost of adaptation will increase relatively.

As for the game content itself, due to the lack of support from large companies, small companies find it difficult to independently support the market.

"Users don't need shoddy games or games that don't match the entertainment experience to fill their needs, and Android game boxes currently cannot provide good services," said the above analyst.

Business model is being explored

However, in the view of some industry insiders, the biggest problem in the development of Android TV games is that the industry has not yet found the best business model.

From the current perspective, there are four models in the game console market: the operating company is in the middle, connecting games and terminals from top to bottom; terminal products are dominant, and an industrial circle is established around hardware; game developers take care of everything from start to finish; and publishers control the final link.

Industry insiders said that there is no sustainable business model in the Android TV gaming sector. "More manufacturers will launch Android game consoles to try to gain an advantage and profit, but no company can truly meet the needs of living room entertainment, so it is difficult to sustain."

Industry insiders believe that the only possible breakthrough is cloud gaming, which means quickly "moving" console games to Android TV game boxes after obtaining copyrights, but at the same time, network and back-end server issues need to be resolved.

At the same time, the relaxation of policies has given practitioners a sense of new opportunities. Wang Hao believes that "the strict control of past policies is good news for the current industry" because it can avoid vicious competition.

In his opinion, overseas game consoles also have many disadvantages in entering the Chinese market in terms of price, number of games and charging model, and adjustments made by operators will put them in competition with Android TV game consoles and box products in the same field, and the latter will have an advantage over the two.

Although the road ahead is not clear, quickly occupying market gaps and launching products quickly may be the only thing that all market parties are concerned about at the moment.

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.