At the Game Developers Conference 2025, Qualcomm announced a complete refresh of its handheld gaming lineup, along with some early partner devices from familiar companies including Ayaneo and Retroid Pocket. These faster gaming platforms weren’t Qualcomm’s only major announcements at the show, since the company also announced a partnership with Epic Games to bring Fortnite to Windows on Snapdragon. Enabling Fortnite for Windows on Snapdragon has also meant fixing some of Qualcomm’s incompatibilities with Epic’s Easy Anti-Cheat software, which runs on many games using Unreal Engine.
(Note: Qualcomm is an advisory client of my firm, Moor Insights & Strategy.)
The Qualcomm Snapdragon G-Series
Qualcomm refreshed the entire Snapdragon G-Series of gaming platforms from the low-end G1 up to the high-end G3. Qualcomm says that the latest G3 Gen 3 offers a 30% improvement in CPU performance and 28% faster GPU performance than its predecessor. Perhaps surprisingly, Qualcomm hasn’t yet released a G-series platform with its new Oryon CPU inside, but my understanding is that the Oryon is a more premium offering that handheld OEMs aren’t quite looking for yet, especially on Android. There’s still a lot of cost-sensitivity in the market, although I do think a lot of people would love to see an Oryon-powered solution, perhaps when Windows on Snapdragon finds its way into a handheld. Qualcomm says that Ayaneo’s Pocket S2 and Gaming Pad and OneXSugar’s Sugar 1 will both sport the G3 Gen 3, which should deliver QHD+ gaming at 144 hertz. The G3 Gen 3 also, smartly, features Wi-Fi 7 thanks to the company’s FastConnect 7800 chipset. (I wrote about the newest addition to the FastConnect lineup last month.)
The G2 Gen 2 is Qualcomm’s mid-tier gaming offering with a focus on both local and cloud gaming, claiming more than 2x CPU and more than 3x GPU performance over the G2 Gen 1. While it also supports QHD gaming up to 144 hertz, this model features a less-performant Adreno A22 GPU, compared to the A32 GPU in the G3 Gen 3. The G2 Gen 2 will be featured in Retroid Pocket’s next-gen handheld, which includes support for Wi-Fi 7 with the same FastConnect 7800 chip.
Last and also the least of the lineup is the G1 Gen 2, which is squarely aimed at achieving the best battery life to enable cloud gaming solutions. This is the most cost-optimized platform, so it’s understandable that performance is lower. However, I do think there’s a bit of a miss in the design because the Wi-Fi solution for the G1 Gen 2 is a downgrade not to Wi-Fi 6, but the much less efficient Wi-Fi 5. Considering how commonplace Wi-Fi 6 has become and how cheap it is to integrate, this seems like an oversight if cloud gaming is the focus. That said, the CPU still delivers an 80% increase in performance and the GPU a 25% increase compared to the G1 Gen 1. The display is also limited to FHD+ resolution at 120 hertz, but realistically there’s no need to support more than that since most streaming services cap out at 1080P anyway. Qualcomm says that the Retroid Pocket PR Classic will leverage this chipset in a very snazzy-looking handheld design.
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All three platforms also come with optional 5G connectivity via the Qualcomm X61 5G modem. While there aren’t any devices with 5G quite yet, I do suspect that we might finally be getting to a point where 5G connectivity, especially with 5G Standalone, can be enabled at a fairly low cost via a network slice for gaming. We’re already starting to see some early trials of that from global operators such as Singtel, Reliance Jio, Deutsche Telekom and BT Group.
Qualcomm’s Epic Games Partnership
As touched on earlier, in addition to the new chips, Qualcomm also announced that Windows on Snapdragon support is coming to Epic Online Services Anti-Cheat and Fortnite. This announcement represents yet another challenge that Qualcomm has overcome for the Snapdragon series, which has been dinged badly in the past for its gaming (in)compatibility. Even though Qualcomm didn’t pitch the Snapdragon X series as a gaming platform, it’s still a Windows PC, so people are going to try using it that way.
This new partnership means that Fortnite — one of the most popular games on all platforms — will work properly on Arm-based PCs. Additionally, these benefits will extend to titles from Epic Games that use Easy Anti-Cheat, which was one of the key problems with Snapdragon’s early game support.
My Analyst Take On The New Qualcomm Gaming Lineup
It seems clear that Qualcomm is working feverishly to improve game performance both in software and hardware with the new G-Series and its partnership with Epic Games. I don’t expect that the company’s efforts are going to stop there; in fact, it seems that Qualcomm is accelerating its roadmaps for both hardware and software.
Gaming, especially mobile gaming, continues to be a bright spot for Qualcomm, and I think the company would be wise to continue to invest, especially considering that gaming is a primary use case that can justify a consumer’s commitment to buying the latest hardware with all the latest features. Qualcomm’s pedigree in mobile gaming — and in maximizing efficiency — should continue to pay handsome dividends in handheld gaming, whether the specific device ends up running Windows or another platform like SteamOS.
Moor Insights & Strategy provides or has provided paid services to technology companies, like all tech industry research and analyst firms. These services include research, analysis, advising, consulting, benchmarking, acquisition matchmaking and video and speaking sponsorships. Of the companies mentioned in this article, Moor Insights & Strategy currently has (or has had) a paid business relationship with Arm, Microsoft, Qualcomm and T-Mobile (Deutsche Telekom).
