Samsung Electronics is already the world’s largest supplier of smartphones and mobile phones, but it clearly has ambitions for more. The company is preparing a special Game Pad accessory for its Galaxy- and Note-series smartphones that will make handsets capable of competing, at least in some ways, directly with dedicated portable game systems.

The Game Pad accessory, which was unveiled along with the Galaxy S4 flagship handset, supports various Samsung smartphones with 4” or 6.3” displays (which points to various Galaxy and Note models), features two analog sticks, shoulder keys, four action buttons, D-pad as well as Android-specific keys. The accessory fixes smartphone into a special frame and then connects to it using Bluetooth technology.

Given the fact that the Galaxy S4 packs massive horsepower, Samsung can easily compete against dedicated consoles in terms of performance. The controls akin to those on video game consoles is expected to make smartphones considerably more competitive against dedicated game consoles among the core gamers, who play a lot and prefer to have solid control options.

While such expectations have grounds as games for mobile devices are improving, it should be noted that there are still no titles with multi-hour gameplay for such platforms, but there are such games for PlayStation Vita/Portable and Nintendo 3DS/DS. In fact, it is high-quality games that attract core gamers to dedicated consoles, not the presence of a D-pad and analog sticks.

It is unknown whether Samsung intends to work with game developers to ensure that creators of AAA titles make games for its platform so that to promote the Game Pad as well as its smartphones in general. Without a lot of high-end titles, the Game Pad will hardly become popular.

Samsung has not disclosed pricing or availability timeframes for its Game Pad accessory for smartphones.

Tags: Samsung, Galaxy, Galaxy Note, Note