Topic: Is Android a viable gaming format nowadays?

It feels like android has stealthily become quite a good gaming format. You have some great emulators nowadays but of course a huge amount of native android software too some of which is quite ambitious really. It feels like we have moved into a similar territory as Switch 2 with Xbox One/PS4 level gaming for the most ambitious games. Even quite humble android tablets can emulate Switch 1 at full speed thanks to running ARM code natively. Joypad support has gradually improved and many android products are using very good fabrication so have good battery life especially tablets. It feels like its become a really good format for gaming. Looking at a PC vs mobile visual comparison, yes mobile is inferior but its really not that bad at all. It still feels like the full game experience.

I sometimes try to play 'real' games on android, but the default mobile controls are usually terrible and although setting it up with a real controller is possible, it is a nuisance and sometimes buggy so I have gradually stopped doing it; easier to just use Switch/Switch 2.

Also wasting battery life of your phone to games feel kind of eh

I sometimes play on Android like during my lunch break at work for example whether it's on my Phone or Tablet and I'm always surprised at just how good some games on it really are.

i can't get into mobile gaming personally. so many of the games are timewasters or are filled with ads and microtransactions. The few premium games that aren't suffer from touch controllers, and brining a controller with me just to play games on my phone seems silly to me. I usually just bring my 3DS or DSi with me places because they're so portable, and help me clear out my backlog.

No, it's not. Because if you want to play these games good, you need to buy a phone of 1000+ euros.
If I want to spend THAT much, I will prefer spending on a PS5 and a Switch 2 (Together)

For me, no. I mainly use my phone for things like keeping in touch with friends and family, and as others noted, I'd rather not bring a whole controller with me just to play games. The only mobile game I really like is Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, and I could just play that with touch controls.

It's viable for a few minutes of Mario Kart Tour when I'm connected to a wifi source while traveling with the family without any consoles 😀.

I've got a Retroid Pocket 4 Pro, which is an Android device with built in gaming controls - including Hall-effect sticks and analogue triggers - so pretty much the best of both worlds. It cost about $200 a couple of years back, so isn't even close to state of the art, but it can still run most of the good games and emulators.

If you've got a Netflix subscription, it's worth checking out their games selection because a lot of the best premium games on Android end up there. They've got the likes of Civilization VI, World of Goo, GTA Trilogy, Dead Cells, Football Manager, etc.

Oh, and always use headphones. You'll get a far better experience and the people around you will be a lot less annoyed.

@Matt_Barber The Netflix games are surprisingly good but although World of Goo , various simple puzzle games, visual novels, amd even Civilization work well with touch controls, I absolutely hate the touch controls for action or platforming games like Dead Cells and Sonic. And I would generally prefer a Switch Lite to the similarly priced Android device you are describing.

Interesting point though - y'know how everyone argues about whether Netflix should be on Switch? If we also got the free-with-subscription Netflix games on Switch that would be great.

I generally don't like playing games on my phone - Balatro is the first game I put any serious time into on mobile.

I've had an android tablet for years, and while it does work well as a gaming platform alongside a Bluetooth controller, I still find myself preferring actual handhelds with built in controllers every time. The tablet acts mostly as a YouTube machine at this point.

Not sure why, but gaming on phones or computers just doesn't feel "real" to me. Always feels like a nice party trick but ultimately a secondary function of the machine. I'll always prefer playing on dedicated gaming consoles.

Yes I must admit I'm not getting the same level of visual fidelity as shown in the first video. I have a basic android tablet that cost me less than £40 based on a Mediatek Helio G99 chipset with 8GB of memory. It's about twice as powerful as Switch 2 in CPU performance (passmark CPU 2000 vs 4000) but graphically much weaker. However looking at this video it is CPU performance that is bottle necked not the GPU. However emulation performance seems better as the emulation relies more on CPU performance than GPU I find generally. I'm not sure where the sweet spot is for android tablet/phone performance and how much that would cost. Of course there is zero chance a android tablet would match PS5 for performance but in many ways they can exceed Switch 2. It really depends on the title. It won't match a steam deck though but still a good option for emulating all systems Switch and below and running android games well mostly. It can also run older PC titles quite well using winulater. Maybe around Fallout 3 level with low detail settings. I guess its like that saying 'jack of all trades, master of none'. I love all the emulators you can put on a android tablet. I probably have about roughly a dozen games I love on all retro systems so its great to just have all my past favourite games on one device.

@FishyS Netflix on Switch, with the accompanying games library, would be an interesting proposition.

However, I suspect that it only works precisely because Android isn't taken that seriously for it. It's a win for the publishers to get their games played on a platform where a lot of people won't even know that they exist, while Netflix gets another reason for you not to unsubscribe when they cancel your favorite series.

On Switch, where people are used to buying games and have a far better idea of what the device in their hands is capable of doing, the standard of what they could bundle would probably be a lot lower.

If/when Steam comes to Android now they're extending their compatibility layer to Arm with their new VR stuff. Then I'll be interested. Untill then I'm not particularly fussed, and especially not on my phone where the input sucks and maintaining battery life is kinda important

@BonzoBanana you lost me... You say that this...tablet of less tha 100 pounds is better than a switch 2...but not as powerfull as a steam deck??
How is that possible? Steam deck is half the power of a switch 2.

There are mainly two elements to performance in a gaming system, CPU performance and GPU performance.

The Switch 2 has a CPU passmark of around 2000 (ARM A78 x 8 at 1GHz), the tablet has a passmark score of 4000 (ARM A76x2 x 2.2Ghz, ARM A55 x6 at 2Ghz). The Steam deck has a passmark CPU score of 9000. The tablet has a Gflops rating of around 300-400 (adjusted) so around Switch 1 level docked performance or about a quarter of Switch 2 portable GPU performance which is about 1.2 to 1.3 Teraflops according to the Geekerwan analysis. Steam Deck is 1.6 Teraflops but its architecture is inferior to Switch 2 so cannot do AI upscaling to the same standard as Switch 2 currently. So for emulation the tablet could outperform the Switch 2 because CPU performance is often more important for most emulators as older systems are graphically weaker systems. The Gamecube for example is only 8 Gflops of GPU performance but it's powerpc CPU architecture is harder to emulate on a ARM or x86 based system. The Dreamcast is 1.4 Gflops of GPU performance, The PS2 was 6.2 Gflops and the original Xbox around 20 Gflops. In CPU performance terms the Switch 2 sits between the original PS4 and the PS4 Pro and it was confirmed by one developer 'Virtuos' that the Switch 2 is around PS4 CPU performance but then the ARM A78 CPU is well documented so its fairly easy to calculate.

I wouldn't worry too much about the Switch CPU. It scores poorly in benchmarks mainly because the clock speed is fixed, where other devices can boost it considerably; some even have special performance modes just for benchmarking.

This is a major boon to developers, because they can always be confident in how their code will perform, where on other devices - and especially those without active cooling - it may have to throttle without warning.

If Nintendo ever need it to run faster, they could add more performance modes, like they did with the Switch 1 a few times. They probably can't push it too much harder - maybe 70% or so at most - and it would result in lower battery life and/or having to downclock the GPU to compensate, but the option is there.

There could be multiple reasons why Nintendo clocked the CPU so low, firstly the Switch 2 is fabricated on a very dated mainly 10Nm fabrication process so produces a lot of heat when the CPU is ramped up in frequency. This also means the ARM A78 CPUs may have reduced cache due to the fabrication process which will also slow them down. Nintendo has a history of producing consoles with low CPU resources like the Switch, wii u and going back a bit the Super Nintendo plus most of their portable systems. Maybe having the A78 CPUs at 1Ghz helps with their compatibility with the A57s of the original Switch which were also 1Ghz. The Nvidia GPU of the Switch 2 allows it to render as low as 640x360p and be AI upscaled to 720p or beyond. This takes a huge load off, memory bandwidth and CPU resources.

I suspect when the Switch 2 is finally hacked we will find that the GPU is well below 1 Teraflop in portable mode maybe 900 Gflops as this would make sense with how long the battery is lasting. It has a dated 10Nm fabrication and only a 19Wh battery I think so the only way it can get long battery runtime is reducing performance however the AI upscaling still delivers a great image and of course you have fixed platform optimisations. Nintendo have a special cheat version of DLSS which doesn't post process the most active parts of the image to save processing. This appears to be something they can use for higher resolution output like 1440p or beyond where as at 1080p or below it can use normal DLSS that is within its frame generation time restraints. There was an interesting video at Digital Foundry about the cheap version of DLSS that the Switch 2 uses. However this is something that could be brought to other formats like the Steam Deck. It just means a reduced workload when upscaling and already there is a version of FSR4 that works on SteamDeck that was leaked so a combination of both could deliver improved results on SteamDeck except of course the actively moving part of the image will look a little messy. I don't think people notice it much on Switch 2 games. I think Fast Fusion had issues with DLSS so they offered a classic upscaling mode. DLSS seems to have trouble with very fast moving graphics and creates more input lag which you don't want with fast moving games.