Handheld gaming consoles have probably never been more popular than they are today. Nintendo (re)opened the floodgates with the launch of the Switch console a few years ago, and now, even PC manufacturers want a piece of the portable gaming console market. Interestingly enough, even Samsung entertained the idea.
A patent application filed at WIPO in 2022 and registered internationally in November 2024 reveals that Samsung has at least thought about designing a portable console. And unlike all other portable gaming devices, Samsung's design has a foldable screen.
The WIPO application (via 91mobiles) concerns an “Electronic games console.” The applicant is Samsung Display.
From what we can see in the attached patent sketches, the Samsung portable gaming console sports two analog sticks that are offset, similar to the Nintendo JoyCons.
This Samsung console design also has d-pads on the inside and outside. The two inner d-pads are sunken and allow the console to fold without the analog sticks getting in the way.
The other two d-pads are on the outside. They suggest that the device could have dual cover screens.
Other details we see are upward and downward-firing speakers and what looks like a series of shoulder buttons. There also seems to be a SIM or SD card slot on one side.
A foldable portable gaming console for the cloud era?
As the most popular foldable phone maker and largest foldable display supplier, Samsung is in a unique position to create a portable gaming console that could truly stand out from the rest.
A foldable display could allow Samsung to achieve that, but in the end, the question on every gamer's mind is, what kind of games could a Samsung foldable portable gaming console run?
It's hard to be sure, but we're guessing this could be an Android mobile gaming device. After all, Samsung is the world's largest Android manufacturer. And last week, Samsung launched the first cloud-based mobile gaming service in North America.
The cloud-based service in Gaming Hub lets users play even the most demanding mobile games by streaming them from the cloud without downloading GBs of data first.
Earlier this year, the company also released a virtual gamepad app that lets Galaxy phone users play Gaming Hub games on their TVs without a physical controller. We're guessing this foldable gaming console could work even better as a controller for the Gaming Hub TV app.
Given Samsung's recent efforts in the gaming market, it makes sense that the company might want to release a dedicated console — especially a foldable portable one. But at the end of the day, and as is the case with all patent applications, this might be one that will never become a commercial product.
There's never a way to be sure which patent application will materialize, so we advise keeping your expectations low. That way, you won't be disappointed if Samsung never releases a foldable portable gaming console.
If we find out more, we'll keep you posted.
