Let's start with the terminology: blockchain. Bitcoin. nft. web3 games. Assuming your eyes haven't rolled into the back of your head enough to read the rest of this article yet, I have terrible news for you: two new handhelds are trying to corner the market once again on blockchain-based gaming.

First up is the SuiPlay0X1, a handheld gaming console with "native Web3 capabilities". Proudly announced as "the world's first blockchain-native portable gaming console," the SuiPlay 0X1 is integrated with Sui Blockchain, a layer 1 blockchain and smart contract platform.

What this means for potential buyers is a portable "Web3 game," essentially a game connected to the blockchain or with cryptocurrency integration. Assets in the game can be tracked and moved on the blockchain, and in this case, a crypto wallet tied to the handheld can be set up. Bully.

But there's more, crypto fans: after a sneak preview event at Paris Blockchain Week on April 7, the BitBoy One, a translucent orange Web3 gaming handheld, was announced on Twitter (via Tom's Hardware), developed by Ordz Games, which also makes the bold claim of being "the world's first Web3 gaming machine," but otherwise looks like the standard emulation handheld that once spent a crazy night with Terry's Chocolate Orange appears to be.

But there's a party trick: despite the relatively meager hardware inside - a four-year-old Arm SoC-based Rockchip RK3566, 32GB of internal memory, and 4GB of RAM - Ordz claims that not only can it be used as a hardware crypto wallet as well as play blockchain play-to-earn games to earn tokens through the device, he claims. And as if the crypto experience on handheld gaming devices wasn't enough, the creator (the curiously named z3th) also states that the device can also be used to mine bitcoins. Very slowly, though.

"The mining power of the physical device is very, very weak. It would take years to mine... You won't make any real money from it. But it's for fun."

. [The BitBoy One is expected to retail for about $500, which means you could buy a Steam Deck OLED for a little more. This one won't make any real money either, but at least it has hardware that can play games that don't look like they were released in 1989.

At its core, the Web3 game is a rather nebulous concept to begin with, and has been tried many times in the past, usually with devastating results. Then concepts like "mechanisms to control NFT sales pressure" were horribly revealed, and amidst a sustained Internet backlash against the concept, some companies tried to back out of discussing the relevant terms altogether.

Gamers were not only reluctant to jump on the Web3 gaming bandwagon, but seemed hostile to the whole concept. It is difficult to see how these two handhelds might change perceptions in this regard, unless the goal is to draw crypto fans into the gaming space.

As it stands, I will believe in the future of Web3 gaming, and when I see these handhelds in action. At the moment, the SuiPlay0X1 appears to exist purely as a rendering, and the BitBoy One appears to be closer to a mass-production machine, but with the kind of hardware usually found in cheaper emulator devices.

Neither seems to be anything that will set the world alight, and when it comes to gaming, I have a feeling that the majority of gamers will be somewhat satisfied with that. Crypto and gaming have always been tied together like water and oil. Nothing seems likely to change this fact any time soon.