Tencent Has Patented Its Own Handheld Console, And It Looks A Lot Like A Nintendo Switch

It has a D-Pad, that's better than what the Switch has.

Just another Windows 10 portable gaming device that'll have an msrp over $800. Not much different from the Aya Neo or the GPD Win 3. Whatever happened to Alienware's UFO prototype? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gWqmZ05kq8

And sadly the company won’t be sued, since China has no copyright laws, or lax ones.

China is widely known for stealing ideas/concepts from other companies. China creates nothing on their own.

Wait, is this legal?

@ObeseChihuahua2 Copyright laws are archaic and garbage to begin with. They were never updated for a world with interenet.

Would love to know how much spyware Tencent pre-install on behalf of the CCP.

Having a vague similarity ain't enough to get sued, they could honestly sell this in the USA without too much worry.

@KillerBOB that's what happens when you're a manufacturing hub, the United States did the same way back when. Its part of the price of the cheap cheap labor that makes debasing yourself as nation worth it.

If it's Tencent, I don't give a s***.

Oh, brother... 🙄
I felt ashamed with my half nationality.

@Crono1973 Also the first thing I noticed But we don't know if it is a good D-Pad.

You lost me at Tencent

@KillerBOB except Covid.

I'm so tired of these switch knockoffs and clones.
NINTENDO USED SUE

@GrandScribe

Both your statements couldn't be further from the truth 😂

Companies in the US lose trademark lawsuits all the time based on things as simple as a name or a word.

And stealing medical, military and other technologies is not part of "cheap labor".

It will be banned in the US, just watch. Tencent are about as deep into data mining as any tech company.

@VoidofLight It’s different enough that the lawsuit would be thrown out. Look at car companies, each vehicle shares a similar exterior, all borrowing ideas from each other but the way they drive or feel is unique to each one.

You should ask yourself if there is room on the market for all the consoles that are inspired by the Switch. (The answer is yes.)

There’s no way for the games market (or any market) to innovate and improve without some kind of competition. Stuff like this is good for the market and good for consumers, because competition can lead to better products.

NINJA APPROVED

@KillerBOB if you wanna disagree with me that fine but show some basic respect for yourself and me in how you conduct yourself.

Eventually Soulja Boy will pick this up and made tons of bucks out of it.

china taking over

Awesome hope to see more portable pc gaming consoles in the future

@GrandScribe I've seen killer bob say all kinds of crazy stuff and that was down to earth and relatively tame. He is right too, they steal military technology a ton and are caught constantly with business or tech spies working here.

@HIGHscores85 Ouch

@KillerBOB reason why to not support anything that run by china

The device could be great, but the question is does it have games we want?

@Magician I dont know but I would have loved to see that

If this is infringing on the switch then also infringes on the psp and vita. It is fine. Good luck to them. Games sell consoles though.

@Anti-Matter Are you half Chinese? Don’t be ashamed, China is full of wonderful people.

@doctorhino

Hahahhaa thank you for the support

Windows handhelds are usually not too successful.

@KillerBOB woah, that's taking it a little far. It is ridiculous how lax the copyright laws are over there though, so i'm inclined to agree

Let the games do the selling

I mean... I'd buy one if it's cheaper than the Aya Neo.

This doesn't even look that similar to Switch. There are all kinds of flat handheld gaming systems, that is not a unique feature of Switch.

I am not sure the switch invented this form factor. I had a controller that sat either side of my phone years before the switch came out. It was ***** like most of these things. Nintendo made it GOOD. Then they put good games on it. Any manufacturer of these things has to make all their money off the hardware. Not really a problem for Nintendo.

Imagine supporting a company that has ties with the ccp.
No thanks.

This doesn't even look that similar to Switch.

@KoopaTheGamer Well, well, and I thought I was going to get through the comment section without using the Ignore button.

Here we go again NintenDoomed moles can't stand the fact this is Copyright Infringement from the start. Anyone trying to defend this is just CCP moles. If you are talking about the people how come you aren't making news of supporting them but only coming out of the woodwork now? Suspicious don't you think.

@KoopaTheGamer This doesn't even look that similar to Switch. There are all kinds of flat handheld gaming systems, that is not a unique feature of Switch.

Really that's how one think? Then one has missed the boat here. This is about IP protection and scams or Fakes will take away from legit sales for the Legit Switch product and it's software Developers? So are you willing to pay them for the lose of their reputation and software sales?

People can talk ***** and cry all they want but guess what? Their whole life relies on the existence of Chinese products.

@Pokester99

Chauvinism [ shoh-vuh-niz-uhm ]
noun

biased devotion to any group, attitude, or cause

What? A Chinese company ripped off an idea? Never! That's never happened before. If only someone had warned of this possibility!

Wait...

Remember, kids, just having seen this image has lowered your social credit score 3 points!

Can't wait for it to require the Epic Games Store.

it looks pretty

@COVIDberry Uhm, okay, thank you for telling me? Not really a big deal to me.

@SwitchForce I don't think this qualifies as a copyright infringement. The design is quite different visually, and this product doesn't even have the split pads like Joy-Con, or a dock (as far as I know, although it does have USB-C which probably supports video/audio out).

But no, I would not buy a product from Tencent.

"It looks just like a switch"..........no it doesn't. The Switch looks like dozens of android based gaming tablets with controls that have been churned out of China for the last decade.

So basically anything handheld that has a 5 inch or bigger screen will be called a switch lookalike

@KoopaTheGamer You mean like this other Switch Copy Dell Alienware. One can dismiss as much as they can but it's the same design.

https://www.svg.com/182431/this-nintendo-switch-clone-is-causing-an-uproar/

@Mips
I'm Indonesian with half Chinese nationality (My grandma was from Guan Dong, my grandpa was Indonesian people)

Is it Game Pass compatible?

No physical media? in china too...good luck selling that.

@SwitchForce That Alienware handheld has detachable controllers like Switch, so it's a very different machine from this one and much more like Switch in terms of functionality. Now, I don't enjoy defending Tencent, but I do not think this device would break any copyright laws even if they released it elsewhere as well.

A lot of Chinese consoles are bound to look like Switch nowadays - and a lot of Chinese microcomputers mislabeled by publishers themselves as "consoles", too (select kernels/libraries aside, a console is usually supposed to run a custom first-party OS, so Windows rules out everything beyond XBox).

Chinese rip off western motorcycle companies constantly especially honda.

@Brummieendo90 Honda is Japanese, that's where they are headquartered. That means they're Eastern.

Guess what? This is what we will be getting for the future, here on out...cheap knock offs and stolen ideas.

Clickbait journalism. It looks nothing like the Switch; also, lots of handhelds, dating back to the original Game n' Watch, Game Gear, Nomad, Atari Lynx, GBA, PSP, Vita, etc, have had this basic landscape form factor; Switch didn't invent this form factor. Even the Joy-Con idea was first seen in the Aikun Morphus x300, and evolved from the Razer Edge and Wikipad.

@VoidofLight " China has no copyright laws, or lax ones."

Heck, you might get in legal trouble for NOT violating copyright in China.

@doctorhino China does unscrupulous things true, but it doesn't make them unique. The United States went so low as to spy on German Chancellor Angela Merkel for about a decade. People in the West only care because they want to blame China for the consequences of their capitalists backstabbing them and agreeing to China's offer to produce their goods for far less than their domestic workforces. From the start everyone knew that China made their offer not just because they wanted money they also wanted access to superior tech which today is commonly framed as theft.

What has the United States done to earn enough trust from China for them to not to steal military tech? The United States' military budget is thrice as large, their history in the region is horrible i.e. the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the bombing of Cambodia and they have a history of toppling governments for their benefit i.e. Hawaii's, Argentina's and Iran's.

@Jokerwolf Makes sense. Also, I'm not trying to be racist or xenophobic or anything, but I don't think that China has the strongest copyright laws, so things like this happen quite a bit.

@Tourtus I meant 1st world / developed world but yeah you're right.

Atari should sue. Looks like a Lynx.

Hmmm, game gears, neo Geo pockets, that one Nokia n Gage phone, and PS Vitas must have been forgotten over the course of history. The back alone looks nothing like the switch since it's got a better ergonomic design.... but tencent, stay away please.

It's basically a Switch Lite like this.

I got a switch for nintendo games and the portability
Got an xbo, that's where my friends are
Got a ps4, for their exclusives
What would be the driving force, for this if it came to fruition? A new way to play your third party games!
Kind of like stadia or ouya or luna, not necessary in a crowded field. Loved to be proven wrong with a great product/exclusive.

If you think this looks like a Switch, you gotta get your eyes checked! Clearly there are no poor quality joycons attached & the curved grips are made for the comfort of human hands!

lol, they should really stop calling windows tablets "gaming consoles". Thats just a low-spec laptop at a very high price.

Ngl it looks really comfy and slick

@Menardi I agree that the Chinese government has done many horrible, condemnable things, and the Chinese people deserve much better. That said there ain't no night and day difference between what western powers like The United States and Britain have done and what China has done. For the multitude of critiques and condemnations that can rightfully be made against the Chinese government, every single one of them was enabled by nations like the United States for the sake of their capitalists in maximizing their profits. If westerners had genuine concern they wouldn't be in business with China. China has done way worse things than Cuba and they've neither been invaded nor embargoed.

@KillerBOB "China creates nothing on their own."
The Europeans learned how to make gun powder and firearms from the Chinese. History would have turned out very differently, if the Chinese really never do anything on their own... Maybe all of the Americas would still be uncolonized lands.
And did you know that clothes with silk have been veeeery long China-exclusive and were only available at other places by importing them? That's why the roads and railways that connect even Europe with China are called Silk Roads.
The compass is also a Chinese invention, which means, the Europeans, that wouldn't have guns, or ships with cannons, probably wouldn't even have found America back then.
The Chinese also invented paper (even toilet paper), wheelbarrow, printing, paper money, horse collar/harness, well drilling, steel and lots and lots of other things. If you need something more modern, they're the electronic cigarette, a better and less invasive testing methode for women with down syndrome, and synthetic insulin.

...So many ignorant and racist people here. Oh well...

@Altina You're talking about a country inventing things in the past, that in present day, has a solid reputation for bootlegs and rip-offs. So because they invented fireworks and gun powder, should we just dismiss the fact that they knock-off almost everything, present day?

Past history is nice to look at for understanding, but looking at current day events is just as, if not more, important.

And just lightly scanning the comments, I can see that you don't actually know what a racist is.

NINJA APPROVED

@hakjie11 "but the question is does it have games we want?"

Well, it's a PC, so it will technically have a lot more games than a Switch; it will have PC exclusives, PC multiplats, Xbox Game Pass and all Xbox exclusives, and now even PlayStation exclusives, as Sony are starting to bring their games to PC.

If it's using a Ryzen 4500U or better SoC, it will be capable of high end emulation, meaning it will technically even be able to play some Switch games, via emulation.

This is the Aya Neo in action, which uses a Ryzen 4500U:

@GrandScribe You have to earn trust to not be stolen from? Uh, what?

"What has the United States done to earn enough trust from China for them to not to steal military tech?"

So we have to lower our budget to make people not steal tech? Can you perhaps go into further explanation, I think I'm missing something.

@yuwarite Yep. The Switch is very popular, so any inspiration made thereafter is a ripoff. This device looks closer to a PSP than anything else. It's almost like some of the users on this site think that the Switch is the only console in existence...

@ReikoMortis " It's China, they installed ALL the spyware."
People are using Windows10, Android phones, Chrome browser, Google engine, social media (heck they even upload photos and other data voluntarily), and other things... voluntarily.
Then the US has the NSA and they even spy on their allies...
But since Trump said "Chyynuuuh" the whole west is hating China, even though nobody(TM) liked Trump. Heck, nobody cares that Trump basically killed Huawei. Trump said they would spy. But it still hasn't been proven. On the other hand there are a lot of Youtuber that have proven that Xiaomi spies and sends a lot of data to server in China. But nobody is hating Xiaomi. People even keep buying it because for the bang4buck. Typical human I guess... Windows10 even was "free". An American, capitalist, company that's giving away the most privately used operating system for free... I'm sorry, but how fishy must something sound that--- Oh. Right, I forgot. It's American. And the Americans are good guys. The morale superheroes the world needs. They keep bringing democracy to the world (A country that's around 300 years old but was only for 20 of them in peace? Huh... So trustworthy...), even thought they aren't even one themself. Because if they would they would have had Clinton instead of Trump, because she had more votes. Makes sense, yes? Good.

I F***ing hate you tencent . and you know whats so funny china will steal any thing and everything your dog I bet they have a clone of that at home, your mom? ya we got one of her two, how about your photo book? Yep, yep and yep.

@Eel we might need you to break out the nuke again!

@Altina Nobody here is expressing hate for China or Japan. People are expressing dislike for the Chinese government, and dislike for Chinese companies knocking off everything. Different topic, entirely. Stop basing things on assumptions.

@GrandScribe So just a big rant about the US? No comment on terrible human rights situation and Hong Kong? I guess you can be an apologist for that too.

@BloodNinja "Stop basing things on assumptions."
Kay, if I'm not going to ignore you before that I will tag you the next time I read something like "weird Japanese crap" or anyone crying about female anatomy or whatever.
And yeah, on other sites I basically get attacked nearly on a daily base for being a "weeb" (People don't even know what that word means. They just wrongly use it on everyone who like Japanese stuff. Even on native Japanese people, which actually can't be weeb by definition...).
But for the approving Ninja everything's fine and I'm just assuming. ...k.

@doctorhino where did I ever apologize for the appalling conduct of any nation? Maybe you got the wrong idea because of how I said the condemnations of China by the west rings hollow and self serving since the horrible behavior is enable by them continuing to use of Chinese manufacturing?

@Menardi the United States slaughtered hundreds natives peoples, stole their lands, forced them into concentration camps where they were purposefully starved of resources and threatened them with death if they left. They sterilized their women, outlawed their religions and cultures, abducted their children to teach them to not be "savages" AKA they brainwashed them. They broke every treaty every agreed upon and denied them citizenship and the right to vote till 1924, and that right only exited in theory for decades. No amends have ever been made for any of this.

That conduct by the United States government fulfills the UN's definition of genocide many times over. Sadly there are a lot more examples. If we want to purge the world of reprehensible behavior of nations then all nations must suffer equal treatment, and the opposition must be rooted solely in a commitment to justice.

@BloodNinja the size of the United States military budget being larger than the next 12 nations combined, its propensity for war and regime changes makes the United States threatening to China. Morality aside its logical for the Chinese to steal military technology in order to safeguard themselves.

If you were playing a game like Civilization and another nation was putting a comparable amount of money into their military wouldn't that alone make you wary of them? If they had a history in the game of using their military offensively like the United States has wouldn't that make you wary of them?

This just fuels Anti-Chinese sentiments doesn’t it? Even if China goes through major reforms, becomes a democracy and is very strict with copyright I doubt the sentiments against China will ever change. The negative sentiments in the West have existed long before China became Communist, just look at the Boxer Rebellion and the wars in the 1800s for instance. The backlash against China for COVID is another example. Other serious viruses came to the West from places like Africa yet those regions were never blamed for the outbreak. It’s pretty obvious the West will never get along with China no matter what.

@GrandScribe Makes sense!

@Altina Don’t know why you’re talking about other sites. I’m talking about this site, and I browsed the comments and I’m just not finding what you’re talking about.

Honestly, this sort of reminds me of Atari's current approach to the game's industry. Make a hybrid of a console and PC.

From what I can see it's just a handheld console. That does not make it a Switch or "Switch-like". There are plenty of handheld consoles that we could say were/are like the Switch if we really wanted to clutch at straws.

@Menardi aww god bless your lil ole' heart for baselessly calling me a supporter of genocide after I clearly state multiple times I don't condone any of the Chinese government's reprehensible conduct! Now you have yourself nice rest of your day!

Nintendo rested another competitor

@VoidofLight sued for what? They aren't infringing on any of Nintendo's intellectual property. This is a generic portable console design, and many other manufacturers (even non-chinese) have used similar designs to this, and that of the Switch. Not only that, this is apparently a Windows based machine, so it operates in a completely different realm than the Switch, or even Nintendo for that matter.

Besides, they have a partnership with Nintendo to distribute the Switch in China; so how would infringing upon a lucrative partner's IP, make any sort of sense?

Looks like people on here hitting the Koolaid and believe everything. Maybe you should go and live in China and tout your rights and see how far that gets you. Producing a Partner IP doesn't give you the right to infringe on their IP design or Patent. People need to go back to Business 101 to learn about IP and Patents why they exists for. And those are World wide not just NA - people tend to forget this when they go on rants about their so called Business 101 No Pass Grade learning. Another thing Tenet sells Switch not produce Switch so that from the get go is already violation of IP theft. And since they most likely reverse engineered the Switch that already gave Nintendo the right to stop their violation how else would you think they could come up with that setup without seeing how internal it was made. But we got plenty of CCP drinkers on here that already exposed themselves for all to see already.

@Brummieendo90 China already has a load of PC gamers that could play their Steam library on this though...

China is not the only country that loves stealing and piracy and does not have any copyright laws.
The Philippines also pirates and bootlegs everything where even the largest mega-corps steal everything, and said bootlegs are still so terribly made that they are terrible even for YouTube standards, even the very few original content they have is terrible even for the early days of YouTube, with audio quality that is worse than a heavily-compressed N64 game, and unfinished animation worse than what is capable with the Sega Genesis.

It's to the point that the Philippines is often called a bootleg knockoff of China, but without the whole communist dictatorship thing.

@ObeseChihuahua2 In China? what do you think LOL

"it looks just like a Switch"

Idk when you last saw a switch, but that thing reminds me more of an Archos. Resembles the aya neo in some aspects and looks comfy with the button and stick placement, unlike the switch.

@yuwarite Thanks, definitely more interested now.

"Tencent Has Patented Its Own Handheld Console, And It Looks A Lot Like A Nintendo Switch"

To be fair, there aren't many different layouts that modern portable gaming devices are logically going to take, obviously they'll all be held in a horizontal landscape orientation with controls to the left and right of the screen, and people tend to prefer the layout of Xbox, Gamecube, and Switch controllers of the left side having the left joystick above the d-pad and the right side having the right joystick below the 4 face buttons. At their core, most modern handhelds are just gonna kinda naturally aesthetically resemble a Switch at this point (even if it lacks removable joy-con or the ability to dock and play on TV).

China can copy how much they want if their laws allows it but what I find strange is how these products they copy is sold to the rest of the world?

I have seen ads with pokemon on it, ive seen obvious false ads in facebook and youtube, yet they ban users for much less.

Facebook is corrupt. Bans false profiles, allow fake ads.

Its just weird.

If there's no JoyCon-Drift it might be an alternative to Switch Light.

Seriously guys, what do you actually expect a handheld console to look like? No one's suing Nintendo for their pro controller looking like an Xbox controller. No one is suing Dell because their laptop looks like an HP laptop. No one's suing Honda because the Honda fit looks like a Chevy spark. Relax, guys. Besides their hardware is probably going to suck anyway. 😎

@NotoriousWhiz My goodness, seriously... Might as well say it looks exactly like a GBA, or PSP.

@1ofUs Why is anything vaguely shaped like a screen with controllers on the side a "switch clone"? Was the PSP a switch clone too?

I don't like Tencent or the fact that they are ripping off the switch, but I will say, it looks SO COOL (not that I'm buying it. All I'm saying is that I wish my switch looked like that.).

@Jokerwolf You’ll change your tune if you ever work hard for years to design an original hit product. Of course most of us will not experience that, so it’s easy to judge those who try to protect their IPs.

Edit: I’m not even saying this is the worst case of stealing someone’s IP, but I WILL say it seems a little dirty given how they were in business with Nintendo. Legal or not, it feels like a slap in the face. But... I don’t actually care that much. It’s China, so of course... 😒

@GrandScribe
Well, if they sell it in the US, it’ll most likely be sued for sure. Microsoft got sued for just copying the idea of Apple’s macOS interface and “feel” in the 80s. So it wouldn’t be surprising that this company does actually get sued within the US.

@BlubberWhale If you make any piece of software you have to accept that a percentage of it will be taken without compensation and this has been true since the early days of computers and software backups.

@ObeseChihuahua2 in china? They don't care.

I mean, it looks nice... that said, they definitely shouldn’t have copied the Switch’s style. Extremely shameful.

@Altina
The west doesn’t like China because its government is committing genocide against Uighur Muslims, not because of Trump.

However, racists don’t like Chinese people because or the “China virus” rhetoric.

@KillerBOB they do create Chinese babies though

Everything be switch like. No one mentioning the edge pro, psp, vita or all the android handhelds before the switch.

Imitation is one thing but when Tencent is the distributor of the Switch you have to ask how did they come up with this design. Now if they had it when the Switch was coming out that be different but 4 years later and suddenly a Switch copy comes out you have to suspect something.

It looks like it has the xbox buttons.

@VoidofLight I mean, I don’t disagree with you, but it’s not like the idea of a handheld gaming console was invented when the Switch came out... you could just as easily say the Switch copied the game gear or the Nomad (which had more general functionality than the Switch does now even - ie tv out for example).

Looks like a Diet Game Gear

@Jokerwolf We are having two different conversations, but it’s OK, I know what you’re saying.