Fplus, fulfilling an order from the head of the Russian Federation, copied an outdated Chinese knock-off.
One of the leaders in the supply of Russian laptops and servers Fplus presented at the exhibition “Digital Industry of Industrial Russia” a prototype of a portable game console, which it positions as a domestic analog of the American Steam Deck and Japanese Nintendo Switch.
Users have already doubted the originality of the presented samples. Gamers in social networks noticed a striking similarity of the prototype with the Chinese console Terrans Force Handle 5 on the American AMD processor, which can be freely purchased on Chinese marketplaces for $999. The Russian console differs in the letters on the buttons – instead of ABXY Russian letters ABVG are applied. How much this version will cost is still unknown.
Fplus responded to the accusations of copying: “We study the best user solutions and focus on their strengths. Secondly, the element base in the gaming industry is the same for everyone – take, for example, the AMD processor, which is used both in PlayStation and other consoles….. Companies like Sony have millions of dollars to develop each new console. Our capabilities are much more modest, so our devkit is assembled from affordable components.”
Fplus representative Ilya Levchuk explained that the company aims to seriously develop this product in the next five years and is even going to partially use domestic components. One of its roadmap items is the possibility of partial transition to the Russian electronic component base – from 20% to 40%. Even the transition to the Russian processor and installation of the Russian operating system “Aurora” is not excluded. The latter has disadvantages – there are almost no games for it, and support for Android-applications on it remains paid. Fplus told CNews that the company is launching domestic games “Smuta” and Atomic Heart on the console.
In March 2024, Russian President Vladimir Putin instructed to create a domestic game console capable of replacing solutions from Sony, Microsoft, which left the country. Just a day later, the PlaySpace console was presented, “developed” at the Don State Technical University. According to CNews, the device turned out to be an expensive clone of a cheap Chinese mini-PC, and its price amounted to 47 thousand rubles. At the same time, a similar mini-PC with similar characteristics cost from 8 to 16 thousand rubles.