"Nuclear" war continues, game consoles will give rise to a hardware watershed for Android devices

The introduction of game consoles into China has not only sparked the gaming enthusiasm of the "console party", but has also driven a large number of hardware manufacturers to enter the game console circle!

Although the Android system has given unlimited imagination space to smart devices from watches to TVs, most people who have heard of Android game consoles are reserved or even have a "haha" attitude. After all, an Android system is destined to be on the same starting line as smartphones, and there is not much point in playing mobile games again on TV.

But does the same starting line mean the same finish line?

Host platform = more efforts to "compete in hardware"

When Android game consoles first came out, there were indeed some products that lacked sincerity, low-performance processor chips, and a mix of "game consoles" that were derivatives of TV boxes.

Now, Android game console manufacturers have higher goals, realizing that sufficiently good hardware is the basis of every experience. Judging from the current market situation, all decent Android game consoles are aiming at the same target in terms of chip selection - NVIDIA Tegra.

What the NVIDIA Tegra chip means is needless to say to electronic product players. Huang Renxun, the "two bombs hero", has been committed to bringing the graphics processing technology of the PC platform to mobile-level processing chips. For terminal devices that focus on gaming, excellent graphics processing capabilities are particularly important.

But there are pros and cons to everything. With top performance comes higher power consumption. The former Tegra 4 chip was only a flash in the pan in a few mobile phone products, and the more powerful Tegra K1 was only used in larger tablets. Even in the SHEILD product, which serves as its own display platform, NVIDIA has added cooling fans to the design.

The most direct impact of high power consumption is the limitation on processor performance. In order to ensure stable operation of the product, everyone is familiar with the term frequency reduction. NVIDIA Tegra, which became well-known from mobile devices, has gradually encountered bottlenecks on mobile devices.

But the game console obviously does not need to consider so many things. The power supply comes from 220V AC, the machine body does not need to consider portability too much, and there is enough internal space to arrange all the necessary cooling devices. The job of the processor chip is to run forward.

Hardware development will accelerate the differentiation of Android consoles

Console manufacturers favor Tegra chips, and NVIDIA itself has no intention of "stuffing" this processor back into mobile phones.

At the just concluded CES2015 International Consumer Show, NVIDIA made another push and released the even more "nuclear-level" Tegra X1. The Maxwell architecture's 256 stream processor design makes its performance twice that of Tegra K1, approaching that of desktop graphics cards. Of course, NVIDIA also did not regard the new product as a regular mobile chip. This time, the official ideal platform is the car.

Such powerful graphics processing performance will naturally attract the attention of game console manufacturers. In theory, it is only a matter of time before Tegra X1 enters Android game consoles.

Now, here comes the interesting part. You can no longer say that Android game consoles are just enlarged copies of smartphones or tablets. After all, there is a big gap between the two types of hardware and the consoles have obvious performance advantages.

This is just like today's PCs. Although they all use Windows systems, Microsoft Surface and Ultrabooks must want lower processor power consumption and longer battery life, while game enthusiasts must be users who are unhappy without flagship graphics cards such as GTX 970/980.

With the development of hardware, Android devices will also usher in such a trend. It is now obvious who the "flagship graphics card" is on the Android platform, and game application developers will not ignore these powerful devices and only focus on mobile phones and tablets. It is no longer a new thing that large-scale 3D games like "Trinity" or ported games are exclusive to NVIDIA Tegra chip devices. The hardware foundation makes it possible to differentiate content, especially game content.

Therefore, the emergence of game consoles will bring about a watershed in Android device hardware. In 2014, we saw such a slenderness, and by 2015, perhaps good things will happen.

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.