Intel is about to destroy the dominance of AMD in the chips market for pocket game consoles

Robert Hallock, Vice-President and General Manager for Client and Technical Marketing, said that the company has big plans to expand its presence in the portable gaming console market, which is currently dominated by AMD. Throwing the AMD call, Intel will provide independent developers with sets for the development of Panther Lake chips and provide them with powerful expert technical support.

Image source: MSI

Portable gaming consoles have not been a niche product for a long time. Each large manufacturer of gaming equipment, except that Alienware and HP, entered this market at least with one attempt to create a similar device. Currently, in the world of game consoles, AMD dominates, supplying chips for devices such as ASUS ROG Ally X, Lenovo Legion Go, Steam Deck and many others.

Portable consoles based on Intel processors like a gopher in the field – no one sees them, although they are. In 2024, MSI introduced the portable consoles CLAW 8 AI+ and CLAW 7 AI+ based on Lunar Lake, Onexplayer and Aokzoe processors presented their devices based on Intel Meteor Lake chips. But all these developments are inaccessible and are not in high demand.

It seems that Intel decided to turn the situation and pay special attention to the market of compact game consoles. With the support of the expert team, from engineers to games developers, Intel is preparing to make a big breakthrough in this market. Halllock said that “Intel is strengthening their staff to support independent suppliers of game software, who want to engage in pocket [game] consoles.”

Intel is currently actively expanding its support network for game console manufacturers. “We launch a number of internal programs to provide them with more assistance in achieving this performance profile, because – compared to what they are used to – [console based on Intel chips] are still relatively rare in terms of accessibility,” Halllock explained .

Simultaneously with the expansion of support for Intel developers, the start of the supply of sets for the development based on Panther Lake processors. “Many games developers, as a rule, are only guided by what they have on tables or in quality control laboratories,” Halllock believes, “and therefore [we] we arm them with a large number of pocket devices as prototypes.”