Handhelds, Tablets, and in-flight entertainment: Gaming on the move

I was impressed not just by their customized devices (with decals, cases, and what not) but also their preparation as they carried charging bricks and noise cancelling headphones to almost cancel out the flight experience almost entirely.

Hyderabad: Long flights and train journeys that can span days are easy for those of us for whom sleep comes easy. However, for the rest of us who aren’t gifted with such superhuman abilities, the challenges of getting through an inter-continental 8-hour flight surrounded by the ubiquitous crying toddler can be daunting.

At such times I have often found respite in the distraction and immersion of a favorite game — I have found the system so effective that I now often spend a couple of weeks in advance deciding what games to play on my trusty Nintendo Switch when I am getting ready for large amounts of travel.

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For example, I spent a fair bit of 2022 playing Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Scarlet. Similarly, travel in 2023 was reserved for the spectacular Tears of the Kingdom as I hopped conferences and countries solving one puzzle after another in Link and Zelda’s unending saga.

The freedom a device like the Switch offers on an inter-continental flight or a cross-country train ride is unparalleled and increasingly I have found that I am not the only one playing games on handhelds during long journeys. In the last couple of years, I have seen the number of inquisitive looks and questions from fellow passengers and airport security personnel transition from “What is this device?” and “What do you do?” to polite conversation about my gaming choices and preferences.

For example, last summer, I was on a flight to London seated beside two young Indian students flying to the US for their second year of undergraduate studies who spent nearly six of the eight hours on flight playing Hollow Knight and other games on their Steam Decks.

I was impressed not just by their customized devices (with decals, cases, and what not) but also their preparation as they carried charging bricks and noise cancelling headphones to almost cancel out the flight experience almost entirely.

Similarly, since the arrival of the ROG Ally and the Legion Go the number of people playing games while traveling is increasingly more evident. While the argument of the portable handheld is not a new one – I have advocated for one as a trusty side kick since the days of the trusty brick game handhelds when I relied on them to navigate 26-hour long train rides from Delhi – Hyderabad on the AP Express (now called the Telangana Express).

I also believe there are enough opportunities for games in long journeys without carrying dedicated gaming devices. Most in-flight entertainment systems offer a mix of games in their roster now that are suitable across ages and genres.

For example, I spent over an hour on my last long flight (a Boeing 777) playing Chess and the numerical puzzle game 2048. There were also a lot of other popular games to choose from and considering how they were all running quite smoothly on the screens at the back of the seats, I couldn’t help but dig a bit more.

I realized that the games were being offered via Android as most of the screens were functioning as tablet devices running on the platform with a custom UI/forked interface/skin that mimicked the experience the Airline was trying to offer. On spending more time with the system, I couldn’t help but notice how such a device was no different than say an Amazon Fire tablet.

If that is the case, how close are we to seamlessly gaming mid-air provided airlines allow us to sync our smartphones with the screens on the plane? Most airlines already do offer Wi-Fi to some degree on long flights, would it then be possible to play a game like Genshin or Honkai or even an in-plane multiplayer CoD Mobile?

The possibilities are several and while I understand that entertainment on planes is limited more for security reasons than anything else, I think we are onto something here. Is there a more effective way to tune out crying toddlers in tight spaces? Boring answers like earplugs and noise cancelling headphones not allowed.