Robin Piispanen, the global head of Logitech’s gaming business, tells The Verge that the company’s lack of content puts it at a disadvantage in the handheld space.
Successful handhelds are the envy of gaming manufacturers, as many have spent the last couple of years chasing the Steam Deck’s success. Logitech isn’t among them, though, as it has no plans to release a follow-up to 2022’s G Cloud streaming handheld.
“Right now, in this moment in time, there’s bigger things for us to focus on than doing a second G Cloud,” the global head of Logitech’s gaming business, Robin Piispanen, tells The Verge.
When asked whether Logitech planned to make a more typical PC-like handheld in the future, Piispanen said it’s not a priority, though he didn’t entirely close the door on it. “The handheld only works when you get to a really big scale, and most of the handheld companies also own the content,” he said. “So the question is then, should I get into content? Look at Nintendo, they own the content. Look at Steam.”
The G Cloud handheld received a lukewarm response at launch. PCMag’s Will Greenwald gave it a middling review with a 3/5 score, saying it was “overpriced for what it delivers.”
However, Piispanen is proud of the first-gen device, saying there was a “super dedicated” audience for the handheld. “The bigger portion, call it the 80%, bought it, tried it, and then it ended up in a drawer,” he added. “We tried something that we really believed in, and it didn’t really materialize into the use case people wanted.”
Many gaming handhelds are currently ballooning in price due to the RAM and storage crisis. One of Ayaneo’s new gaming handhelds, the Next 2. now comes in a model that costs over $5.000. A recent price hike also pushed the cost of select Steam Decks up by as much as $300.