Is game console a mobile computing device?

Nothing screams dystopia more than two massive corporations conscripting their massive audiences into a petty legal war. No viewer should care which studio controls which Marvel movie rights. No consumer should take a side in the ongoing war between Apple and Epic Games over Fortnite direct payments. And yet here we are, sighing while Epic adds Marvel characters to Fortnite to rub iOS players' noses in what they are missing due to Apple’s stubbornness. #FreeFortnite.

Despite its cynical strategy, Epic’s stance is closer to the honest future of gaming, at least philosophically. Apple is the champion of the closed platform. But as walls collapse and platforms blur together, the path forward becomes a path we all share. The gaming singularity has nearly arrived.

Tear Down This Wall

Consider how Fortnite, battle royales, and other live Games-as-a-Service maintain their massive multiplayer audiences. They merge them. Not that long ago, the idea of PlayStation players competing against Nintendo or Xbox players was unheard of, even if they were all playing the same game. Now, crossplay becomes more common every day, uniting communities and allowing them to thrive. 

When a single game becomes more important than the platform you play it on, fascinating things start to happen. Removing Fortnite from Android and iOS can’t and won’t kill Fortnite. The game already exists on too many other devices. Instead, it makes platform holders look like overbearing parents yanking their kids out of the party. Funnily enough, one of Fortnite’s key mechanics happens to be tearing down walls other players desperately build up. 

Consider the fact that Epic’s Unreal Engine is also the same technology that powers everything from Fortnite on mobile to the most visually impressive next-generation tech demo we’ve seen so far. Not only that, Epic gives away the engine for free via the Epic Games Store for other creators to use. Don’t worry about the platform, just make your game. 

All Shapes and Sizes

I’m as big a supporter of unique, weird video game hardware as any Nintendo fan. But I can’t deny the benefits of console makers humbling themselves just a little bit, admitting that their devices primarily exist to connect players with great games, respecting and playing nice with other devices with that same mission. No one watching a live stream cares what interchangeable box the person is using. 

The Nintendo Switch is a tablet with controllers that lets you play games on the go or on a TV. You can get a pretty similar experience attaching a Razer Junglecat, Razer Kishi, or PowerA Moga XP5-X Plus controller to your phone. You can play many of the best mobile games on either machine. Plenty of casual Apple Arcade games come to Switch, albeit not in a subscription. If you want to play mobile games on a TV, connect a DualShock or Xbox controller to an Apple TV, plug an HDMI cable into your phone, or use Chromecast for screen mirroring. You have choices for reaching the same basic gaming idea. 

PowerA Moga XP5-X

It’s okay to have a preferred way to play. The Nintendo Switch remains my go-to device because of its amazing library of exclusive Nintendo games. The power of those exclusives is also why I don’t exactly think we’re heading toward a so-called “one-console future,” even if buying Microsoft’s Halo and Sony’s Horizon Zero Dawn from the same PC gaming marketplace is pretty wild. 

However, once you get over your rigid gamer preconceptions of what constitutes a “real” game system, you’ll see how all of these perfectly valid options end up blurring together. An iPhone is as much an inheritor of the Game Boy’s popular legacy as Nintendo’s own handhelds. We may take different roads to get there, but we all end up at the same games, and that’s a good thing.

Always Improving, Never Ending

You can see the singularity forming in how these products keep looking more and more like each other as they borrow the same ideas. In the past, you could easily tell the difference between a customizable gaming PC, a bespoke gaming console, and a phone that barely played games at all. Now, they really are all just computers of varying shapes and sizes, running whatever games the specs can pull off.

They all upgrade themselves like computers, too. Console generations are still technically a thing, we’re about to go through another transition. However, more than ever, boxes like the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X feel like marginal improvements over what has come before rather than total reinventions. From their features to their games to their system architecture, they look like the latest high-end gaming PCs, complete with gaudy cases. 

This is after a generation that saw half-step improvements to consoles with the PlayStation 4 Pro and Xbox One X. Rumors also strongly indicate Microsoft and Nintendo will soon release alternate consoles with different power levels, a weaker Xbox Series S and a stronger Nintendo Switch Pro. That means scalability is more important than ever in game development, so one cross-gen purchase can run on a variety of hardware, with different visual results. Soon, we’ll be swapping in better components ourselves as these console games get closer to their PC counterparts. Witcher 3 and other Switch games allow you to move your save file over to PC and back again when you want to trade visuals for portability.

This piecemeal release strategy is new territory for game consoles, but smartphone enthusiasts have seen it for years with annual phone upgrades. A 2020 iPhone is certainly a generation ahead from a 2013 iPhone, but that transition happened in increments buyers could opt into whenever they wanted. Ironically, Apple once invited Epic Games onstage to demonstrate the power of a new iPhone with an Unreal Engine gaming demo. It might as well have been a first-party E3 presentation, and that was before Mario showed up. 

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Crossing the Streams

Even the expensive hardware bottleneck may become irrelevant if game streaming technology reaches its full potential. Right now, suffering through a laggy version of Just Dance over Google Stadia is not our recommended way to play. Gamers will most likely always want an offline way to play games they actually own, instead of just renting a game to stream over the internet. Thinking that everyone will immediately get onboard with streaming is a pretty privileged mindset. 

Still, don’t discount the allure of playing the most beautiful version of any game you can think of anywhere on any device that has an internet connection. Google isn’t the only industry titan chomping at the bit to make this happen. Microsoft’s real next-gen offering might be Project xCloud bundled with a Game Pass subscription. Sony would love for you to only use its hardware, but the company still lets you play PS4 games on your phone with Remote Play or over the internet with PlayStation Now. Steam’s Remote Play Together feature lets you play with friends who lack a game by streaming it to their PC.

The only major holdout is Nintendo, old-fashioned and somewhat rightfully afraid of the internet. Game streaming more than anything could destroy arbitrary barriers between you and your video games, so of course Apple isn’t allowing any of these services onto the App Store.  

Till All Are One

There are downsides to a wholly merged gaming singularity. It makes it easier for a company to keep players online and enforce strict copyright rules. It also turns individual games into devalued pieces of content inside huge libraries.

Netflix and Spotify are rich, but you can’t say the same for all of their filmmakers and musicians. And I can’t stress enough how tasteless it is for Epic to weaponize children and paint their fight for more money as some kind of crusade against Apple’s platform of tech fascism.

However, the sooner we overcome needless separations in gaming—whether they’re caused by hardware, software, or corporate pride—the sooner we get to what matters: everyone enjoying video games. 

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