Old gamers often misunderstand the quality of mobile games.
I realized this a couple of weeks ago when I asked my 12-year-old daughter whether she wanted to bring her Nintendo Switch or her Android tablet on our two-week vacation. She chose the tablet.
Why? Because her Android has Genshin Impact, Fortnite, Roblox, Candy Crush, Wuthering Waves, and Sky: Children of Light. She simply prefers those over her Switch library — which is decent but doesn’t compare to what she’s got on the tablet.
Adults tend to dismiss mobile gaming by saying things like, “There’s no 1:1 equivalent to Super Mario Odyssey, Tears of the Kingdom, or Cyberpunk 2077 on mobile.”
Fine. My daughter has access to all those games. Our family owns over 8,000 games across PC and consoles. She can play Super Mario Odyssey any time she wants, but she doesn’t. She’d rather play Genshin Impact.
And she’s not alone. Most of her friends are on their tablets or phones. It makes sense — gaming is as much about socializing as playing, and iOS and Android dominate for a reason.
Sure, we can scoff and say, “Kids these days don’t recognize a good game when it hits them in the face.”
But I remember feeling that way about Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh. They’re still thriving today, with now-grown adults still playing.
I also think back to my own childhood. My mom hated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Yet, I snuck a TMNT Game Boy game into the house and played it behind her back. TMNT never disappeared — it’s still around.
With the original Switch’s price rising (at least here in Canada), it just makes sense to consider Android tablets — especially for kids. Sure, you can’t play Black Myth: Wukong on Android, but that’s why I have PCs ready for that. Kids? They just want to have fun and connect with friends.
Mobile gaming, on Android, is an interesting space right now. I used to buy flagship phones exclusively, as high spec as I could just…because I could. I played a few emulated Nintendo Switch games on them, as well as the odd Game Pass title (with a telescoping GameSir Xbox mounted controller thing) and then I realized I really had no use for them. I rarely played, and my most recent phone purchases have been mid-range.
That said, so much is now possible on Android. You can emulate everything from Switch to PS3, use pretty front-ends to use as a launcher station (a quick note of appreciation for the totally FOSS option - Lemuroid), and as unbelievable as it still is to me, you can even play full PC games like GTA V using winlator
The scene for Android emulation is incredibly dramatic with frequent in-fighting, but also pretty impressive from a technical standpoint. It’s not going to be everyone’s cup of tea - and that’s fine, but the mobile scene which isn’t just gatcha games hooking kids on the Play Store is so varied. Then you’ve got actually impressive games like DREDGE getting a Android release, replete with custom builds and changes for the Android system (no lazy ports!). Heck, even No Man’s Sky is coming to Android soon!