HTC is planning to re-enter the mobile phone market. But can gaming phones really be affordable?

When it comes to HTC, perhaps the new generation of digital enthusiasts have no concept of this brand at all. After a series of setbacks such as losing the No. 657 patent lawsuit and improper pricing strategies, this brand that once led the trend of Android phones chose to "All in VR" on the eve of the 5G era, hoping to become a pioneer again in the more imaginative virtual reality field.

However, as the saying goes, the weather is unpredictable. Since 2016, the "Year of VR" has almost become synonymous with "The Boy Who Cried Wolf". Even with the emergence of the metaverse first and then Apple's Vision Pro, this field has not seen its spring yet.

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In order not to fall before the dawn, HTC is once again ready to "go back to its old ways". Recently, HTC unveiled several new models of the HTC Wildfire series at the GITEX 2025 Information Technology Exhibition held in Dubai, including a uniquely shaped e-sports style product.

According to sources, this e-sports phone from HTC will focus on "affordability" and be equipped with the Unisoc T765 main control chip. With energy efficiency as its core selling point, it will build its "e-sports" characteristics with sharp lines and eye - catching black and red color schemes. So the question arises: Can "affordable e - sports" really work? It can only be said that HTC, which has been on the fringes of the smartphone market for many years, can no longer accurately gauge the pulse of the market.

HTC's understanding of e - sports seems to be stuck before the pandemic. Otherwise, they would almost certainly not have launched an affordable e - sports phone. As a derivative field of video games, the e - sports industry germinated at the turn of the century and began to boom a decade ago with the popularity of "League of Legends" and "DOTA2". Now it has become one of the most watched virtual entertainment projects, but it has completely different forms in different eras.

More than twenty years ago, e - sports was almost firmly associated with "internet - addicted teenagers". Against the backdrop of an unfriendly market environment for video games at that time, having games to play was the primary demand of players, and they didn't care about the hardware for playing games. Take the mice used by the first - generation e - sports players as an example. At that time, they generally used Microsoft's IE3.0 and IO1.1 mice.

With the vigorous development of this industry, driven by game manufacturers, game categories such as FPS and MOBA that emphasize PVP (player - to - player confrontation) began to move towards e - sports. Players gradually began to seek external tools to gain an asymmetric advantage, and e - sports hardware thus entered the fast lane. At that time, since e - sports was still an emerging industry, the industry was still in the exploration stage of what exactly e - sports hardware was.

During this period, some astute hardware manufacturers noticed that the younger generation of players pursued novelty. In response to the fact that they were not interested in the plain - colored styles of early hardware, adjustments were made. "Big lights, bright lights, and flashing lights" became a major feature of early e - sports hardware. At that time, the concept instilled by manufacturers in players was that hardware combining a gaudy appearance with RGB lighting effects was called e - sports hardware.

This is why early e - sports hardware often carried the label of "IQ tax". Their hardware parameters were usually almost the same as those of regular products. Users just had to pay an extra premium because the appearance became cooler. Players paying for the appearance premium was the initial positioning of hardware manufacturers for e - sports products. As long as the hardware products had elements such as "futuristic sense", "neon colors", and "mechanical coldness", they had the confidence to be labeled as "e - sports".

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The affordable e - sports phone exhibited by HTC this time is similar to early e - sports hardware. Its e - sports attributes are only reflected in the appearance design. The Unisoc T765 main control chip installed in this model consists of 2 Cortex - A76 large cores with a main frequency of 2.3GHz and 6 Cortex - A55 small cores with a main frequency of 2.1GHz. The GPU is Mali - G57 MC2. Its overall performance is comparable to that of Qualcomm's Snapdragon 695, and its AnTuTu comprehensive score is only about 400,000.

Obviously, it's already good enough for the Unisoc T765 to run heavy - duty games such as "Honor of Kings", "Genshin Impact", and "Nirvana: The Origin". High - frame - rate and smooth game experience are out of the question. This is also the key reason why the outside world believes that HTC's affordable e - sports phone is a false proposition. After more than a decade of market education, simple "big lights, bright lights, and flashing lights" are no longer enough to win players' favor.

Nowadays, players not only require e - sports products to have a cool appearance but also need their internal components to serve a more extreme game experience. As for e - sports phones, they are by no means a false proposition. Examples like the Red Magic gaming phone and the ROG gaming phone are proof. They have conquered batch after batch of players who pursue extreme game experiences with the most powerful SoC, the fastest memory, the best heat dissipation module, the top - notch screen, large - capacity batteries, and functions specifically designed for games such as shoulder buttons.

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Ultimately, the emergence of gaming phones is an inevitable result of the heavy - duty development of mobile games, and it also meets the demand of mobile game players who hope to gain an experience advantage with better hardware. After all, performance is the foundation of e - sports phones. Talking about e - sports without considering performance is like playing the lute to a cow. With the progress of software and hardware technology, today's mobile games are no longer the simple - gameplay card games of the past. Almost all game categories from the desktop have appeared on the mobile end.

Ten years ago, users of mid - to - low - end models and flagship phones were all playing the popular games of that time, such as "Dota Legends" and "Defend the Radish". Now, flagship phones can unlock the high - frame - rate and high - refresh - rate mode of "Genshin Impact". Mid - range phones may still be able to play "Genshin Impact" smoothly at 60 frames per second, but entry - level models simply cannot run this game smoothly. Of course, just having flagship - level performance is not enough. Due to the high integration of SoC, mobile phone manufacturers don't have many choices. The flagship platforms of Qualcomm and MediaTek are used not only in e - sports phones.

To distinguish themselves from regular flagship products, e - sports phones also need to be specifically optimized for game experience. For example, to relieve players from the annoyance of "swiping the screen" when playing FPS mobile games, e - sports phones draw inspiration from handheld game consoles and introduce shoulder buttons into mobile phones. Moreover, to enable the same SoC to maintain peak performance output for a longer time, the Red Magic 11 Pro+ has even introduced water - cooling technology into mobile phones.

In short, for today's smartphones to be associated with e - sports, both performance and functions are indispensable. Just having an e - sports - style appearance is not enough to gain players' recognition. Moreover, due to the e - sports style, HTC can't directly use the common molds. The cost increase caused by opening a separate mold will inevitably be reflected in the selling price. I'm afraid that in the end, this affordable e - sports phone from HTC will neither win players' favor nor attract price - sensitive users.

This article is from the WeChat official account "3eLife" (ID: IT - 3eLife), author: 3eLife Editor. Republished by 36Kr with authorization.