Levono has announced that it is consolidating its gaming portfolio and will close the Legion Gaming phone business.
Android Gaming phones have always been a niche business. While these phones have extraordinarily fancy features, designs, and powerful specifications, only a small portion of people actually buy them.
This could be a part of the reason why Lenovo has quit making “Legion” branded gaming-focused phones, as first reported by Android Authority. Lenovo states that this decision is “part of a wider business transformation and gaming portfolio consolidation.” Besides phones, Lenovo also offers gaming laptops under the Legion lineup. We have previously reported on other products from the business, like a cancelled Legion handheld gaming console earlier this year.
A spokesperson from Lenovo stated the following: “Lenovo is discontinuing its Android-based Legion mobile gaming phones as part of a wider business transformation and gaming portfolio consolidation. As a leader in gaming devices and solutions, Lenovo is committed to advancing the gaming category across form factors, as well as focusing on where it can bring the most value to the global gaming community,”
This announcement is no surprise
Lenovo’s announcement hasn’t come out of the blue. The company had been struggling to shift gaming phones, even though its last release was in August of that year. The Legion Y70 was more of a regular Lenovo phone with Legion branding slapped over it. It lacked the signature Legion looks, powerful internals, and gaming-centric features. The last flagship phone under the Legion line-up was released over a year ago.
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Now that Lenovo has moved out of the way, only a handful of players are left in the elusive Android gaming arena. With Asus’s ROG phone lineup leading the pack, we have ZTE’s Nubia series and Xiaomi’s Black Shark gaming phones. Apart from Asus, none of these brands have a global presence and are mostly limited to China and Europe.
If reports are to be believed, even Xiaomi is struggling with its smartphone business, and the tremors could also be felt in the Black Shark lineup. Black Shark has conducted multiple layoffs since August 2022, laying off hundreds of employees in China.
Returning to Lenovo, the Chinese tech giant is expected to train its focus on its Moto smartphone lineup, including the Moto Razr clamshell foldable phone, and the recently announced ThinkPhone.
