Qualcomm jumps into hot gaming market with new chip for portable game consoles

Qualcomm introduced the new Snapdragon G3x microchip on Wednesday for handheld consoles in a sign of the growing importance of gaming for the semiconductor company..

The announcement suggests Qualcomm wants its share of the hot gaming market, where AMD and Nvidia, which power game consoles from Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo, are seeing huge growth.

The chip will debut in a portable developer kit made by Razer, a computer and gaming peripherals company. The console resembles the Nintendo Switch but runs Android games. It has a 6.65-inch screen and a built-in controller

Qualcomm is the largest supplier of chips at the heart of Android phones made by companies like Samsung and Xiaomi. Qualcomm reported $7.7 billion in chip sales in fiscal 2021, of which 60% was for handsets.

Gaming apps are increasingly becoming a selling point for high-end mobile chips as advanced games can take advantage of increased power to deliver more realistic and smoother gameplay.

Producing chips for game console makers has become a lucrative business for other semiconductor companies.

AMD, for example, has centralized processors on consoles like the Sony Playstation 5 and Microsoft Series X, and the company said strong demand for its gaming console contributed to higher-than-expected revenue in the last quarter. AMD is also providing processors for the Steam Deck, a handheld gaming console that is expected to debut next year.

Nvidia is the processor at the heart of the Nintendo Switch, which has sold more than 92 million units since its debut in 2016.

The Razer product is a developer kit aimed at game makers and programmers, but will likely resemble upcoming commercial products from Qualcomm customers. It provides a preview of the technologies Qualcomm will support on its next-generation portable gaming consoles, such as 5G connections, webcams for streaming, and other features that the Nintendo Switch doesn’t currently offer.