Gaming is now on Qualcomm’s bucket list, launching its new chipset

Qualcomm announced the launch of its Snapdragon G3x Gen 1 chipset, after years of expanding its chip development to cover laptops and PCs.

In principle, the chipset is designed as a dedicated mobile gaming processor, having Qualcomm combine its connectivity specialties and its mobile processing expertise, but strictly for people to play mobile video games with.

This process led the company to create a purpose-built chip designed to power portable gaming handhelds similar to the Nintendo Switch or Valve Steam Deck. Also, the focus was on creating a chip intended for use in Android devices.

In parallel, Qualcomm’s G3x looks to be more focused on the mobile market by supporting existing Android games and game streaming services like Stadia, GeForce Now, and Xbox Game Cloud rather than trying to compete directly against traditional handheld consoles like the Switch.

It is worth mentioning that mobile gaming is much more than just ad-ridden mini-games, having the $90-$120 billion mobile games market coming with catalogues of mobile-specific RPGs, MOBAs, first-person shooters, and many other genres, corresponding with massive followings and high-stakes competitive scenes to boot.

Qualcomm’s technology is going to be powering everything from fridges to cars to drones, having XR2 combined with its 5G chipset that is going to be doing the heavy lifting for AR/VR applications. The 8cx processors will be staying in tablets and PCs, whilst noticing the Snapdragon Ride platform turn up in cars.

The interest of the company regarding the gaming industry is really interesting, pursuing niche products such as Nintendo Switch and giving hardware manufacturers a toolkit to build their own, powerful handheld gaming console platforms.

However, Qualcomm didn’t stop at making the chip, and partnered with Razer to create the first Snapdragon G3x Handheld Gaming Developer Kit.