Yahoo Finance

It's time now for tech support, our weekly segment dedicated to all things technology, and this week marks the 20 year anniversary since the release of the Nintendo DS, one of the best selling consoles of all time, and this comes as smaller consoles are more popular than ever. I'm going to bring in Yahoo Finance's resident gamer and expert Dan Howley. Dan, how did portable gaming make such a comeback here?

Uh, first of all, 20 years makes me feel really old because I remember that coming out and playing like Nintendogs on it. All those dogs are probably dead now because I haven't played that game forever, but they're not real, RIP. Uh, RIP. But portable gaming is really kind of taking off in a big way thanks to the Nintendo Switch. They launched in 2017 and it's become incredibly popular. It's one of their best-selling consoles ever now. Um, what one of the best-selling consoles, period. Uh, and so that really kind of set people up to say, well, why can't we just do this on the go? Apple going big with mobile gaming, proving that you can run these high-end games on small devices has been huge. Now, the switch is still going. Nintendo is going to launch a sequel to it. We don't know what it's called, we're just going to call it Switch 2 for now, next year. Uh, that console, the original switch is running an old Nvidia chip that, I mean, like, it's nothing right now. It's nowhere near as powerful as what's around today.

Will there be a new chip?

There's going to be a new chip. I mean, they have to. You know, if you look at games on it now, but it's not just Nintendo. Everybody's seeing the progress that the portable gaming has made there. So a lot of companies, Valve, which owns the Steam marketplace, big gaming website where you can purchase games, Lenovo, Dell, they've all launched these different kind of portable PC gaming systems where you can play via Windows or you can play via what Valve calls its Steam system, the Steam deck. I have one of those. They're really great. You can play PC games on the go. Uh, the battery life, not super great, but I could still plug it in and get going. And then Sony has its PlayStation portal which connects directly to your PlayStation over the internet and your PS5 and the system is 199, you think, do I really want that? They just started going with cloud beta. So basically you'll be able to play this all on the cloud. That's kind of where a lot of this is leading to, where you'll be able to play these games anywhere in the world and that for these companies is a big deal because it means that they'll be able to get gamers who normally wouldn't be able to afford a $1,500 PC or a $700 console or $600 console, they'll be able to get them and then meet them there at a good price point. The 199 for that portal, you sign up for a PlayStation subscription, you're able to play cloud games wherever you want now. Uh, Microsoft leaning in more towards Game Pass, their cloud system. They want to make sure that that pays off with their Activision Blizzard acquisition. Part of that is getting cloud gaming to everyone's hands. So they're working with these developers, these small PCs to get those to run Game Pass. So it's just going to continue to explode from here.

But it seems like it's the same names that are really circling the industry right now. Is it not? Who are some of the big players who are reportedly rumored to be working on smaller consoles right now?

Yeah, so Microsoft has long been rumored to be working on one. They have their Xbox line of consoles, obviously. It's not doing so hot this console generation when it comes to, you know, matching up with Sony. And Nintendo always kind of does its own thing, but it just turns out that that own thing really blew up and is now insanely good for the rest of the gaming community. So, Microsoft has been thinking about this. As I said, it fits in well with their whole Game Pass strategy and that's going to be where they see gaming going. It's going to be that as well as getting Game Pass on your iPhone eventually.

Say, why not just the device you already carry around?

Well, so that's the ideal, right? Play wherever you want. Apple doesn't really see it that way. They want you to play Apple Arcade games. So they make it so that you can't download the Microsoft Game Pass app. However, they pushed really hard in court to support the idea that, look, it's a closed system, it shouldn't be this way, open it up. We never did anything like that. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. But they're trying to get Game Pass onto the iPhone, onto Android phones. And so that'll really open it up for a lot more users around the world. And then, as I said, that Activision Blizzard acquisition, that those billions of dollars are going to start to pay off once they can do that. They get gamers all around the world who don't have PCs or consoles.

Dan, excellent breakdown here. We got to leave it there. Yahoo Finance's own Dan Howley with the tech support.