Well, this is a sweet bonus: if you own an Android foldable like a Samsung Z Series foldable, OnePlus Open or Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold, you may soon have access to a customizable, virtual gamepad baked into Android 17, which is set to start rolling out to Android hardware today. If you've ever used an emulator to play console games on your smartphone the look and feel of what Android will have to offer should be very familiar to you: the illusion of buttons, triggers and thumb sticks. I've never enjoyed the feeling of using an emulated gamepad on the relatively cramped display of an iPhone 15 or other similar glass slabs. But gaming with one might feel a whole lot more comfortable on a foldable.
From the sound of things, foldable owners can expect the emulated controller to take up 50% of their screen real estate, which is fine, as most mobile games are designed for 16:9 or 16:10 dimensions, anyway. Being able to remap buttons as an Android feature means fewer APKs installed on handsets. That's a security win. What's more, Google says that the virtual gamepad mapping options will be extended to work on physical gamepads, as well. So, your mobile game controller may be getting an upgrade in the near future. As always, new features come to Google's Pixel hardware first. We should see the controller added to Android in the coming months. But hopefully everyone with a folding handset will have access to this fun new feature soon.
I don't play a lot of mobile games, but I do partake in a few console ports when I travel. Red Dead Redemption with what I hope are better controls? Yes please.
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