Having spent the bulk of my handheld gaming time with the Steam Deck, it was a bit of a shock last year to discover that PC gaming isn’t just possible on Android phones and retro handhelds, it’s powering on in leaps and bounds.

I’ve seen so many different games running beautifully, from older AAA titles like Tomb Raider and Prey (2017), all the way to more demanding ones like RDR2 and even Cyberpunk 2077 (no surprise that the last one is still an imperfect experience, as things stand…but it is possible!).

GameNative lets you play all manner of PC games on Android from GOG, Epic, and Steam.

I reached out to my friend Utkarsh, who is the lead developer of GameNative to ask if he wanted to share his story and let me interview him.

His background in development and gaming through to how GameNative started and is built, all the way to what the future might bring for his program. This is an interview on what I think might be at least part of the future of handheld gaming, and I hope you find this interesting:

https://gardinerbryant.com/i-genuinely-feel-gamenative-could-replace-handheld-pcs/

  • mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    2·
    3 days ago

    Fair, but I don’t think that threshold will be passed by smartphones for at minimum a decade. If you want 4k resolution for games you need 10-12GB of VRAM minimum. By claiming that high-end PC’s will become pointless in 5 years suggests that the interviewee thinks that mobile chips will surpass those requirements.

    • ericwdhs@discuss.onlineEnglish
      11·
      3 days ago

      Except even among most current PC gamers, the threshold isn’t that high. 4K is still less than 5% of the market.

      Also, I’d argue “anachronism” isn’t the same as “pointless.” It’s just claiming that something that was once more common will become less common.

      • mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        1·
        2 days ago

        It’s just claiming that something that was once more common will become less common.

        Eh… “Anachronism” more suggests that they’ll be considered “out of place”. But that’s me nitpicking

        • ericwdhs@discuss.onlineEnglish
          11·
          2 days ago

          Well, anachronism most literally means “misplaced in time.” You can go two directions with that, something being more at home in the future or more at home in the past. The former obviously doesn’t apply here, and I would consider my wording identical to the latter. A reduction in belonging implies a reduction in commonness.