Item: MSI Is Already Planning On CLAW Gaming Handheld’s Successor
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Author: Low Boon Shen

MSI Is Already Planning On CLAW Gaming Handheld’s Successor

Last week, MSI surprised everyone with the reveal of its gaming handheld, the MSI CLAW A1M. One crucial difference of this gaming handheld compared to the ones currently on the market is the processing hardware – while everyone else has opted for AMD Ryzen chips, the Taiwanese company decided to stick with Intel’s latest Meteor Lake-powered Core Ultra processors instead.

Naturally, people took notice as this is technically a first of its kind. While we don’t know if other PC manufacturers may join the fray of gaming handhelds, it looks like MSI is making preparations ahead of time to anticipate them. In an interview with IGN, MSI’s System Product Managing Director, Clifford Chun, confirmed that the CLAW will be getting new hardware down the line, just like laptops.

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“So, just like our laptops, our aim for users who use this will be roughly two to three years because game titles demand a lot more every two or three years. So, at least minimum, that kind of stuff. Obviously, if you play retro games, you can play MSI Claw for 10 years,” he said. “We are anticipating to come out version 2, version 3, version 4 down the road and it’s already in the pipeline.”

Of course, this makes for an entirely different approach than, say, Valve’s Steam Deck. The video game company treats its handheld more like a console instead of a PC, as it believes that it is better to maintain a consistent experience across all variants of the handheld, like Nintendo Switch. MSI, on the other hand, is looking to push the boundaries of gaming handheld performance – and it remains to be seen if its rivals, such as Lenovo and ASUS, may be taking a similar strategy, especially as AMD may be preparing its next-gen Zen 5 “Strix Point” APU.

MSI also did not specify the release date for CLAW yet, although it is claimed that it will be available in Q1 2024, or as far as 2H 2024.