The ongoing battle for dominance between Korean electronics giants LG and Samsung has previously been about screen size and picture quality, with each vying to create the biggest and most best 4k tvs.
Now, with both players firmly entrenched as high-end TV makers, this battle – perhaps rightly so – has shifted to the cloud gaming front, with the latest volley coming from LG as it advertised 3 months free access to the Google Stadia Pro game streaming service for new and existing LG TV owners.
LG’s promotion begins August 10 and will run until the end of January 2023. To access the free service, viewers will need a TV running version 5.0 or higher of LG’s webOS smart TV platform. , which mostly means OLED and QLED sets sold in 2020 or later.
Cloud gaming on LG TVs got a boost this year when the company announced a free six-month subscription to Nvidia GeForce Now – another gaming service accessible through the webOS smart interface – to buyers of its models. 2021. This limited-time promotion has since expired, but it showed the company’s interest in using cloud services to direct gamers to its OLED and QLED TV lines, which offer gaming-oriented features such as 120Hz display, variable refresh rate, G-Sync, and FreeSync.
The company’s C2 series of OLED TVs also includes a 42-inch model, the smallest OLED TV yet, and one that caters to both gamers and fans of the best OLED TVs with limited viewing space.
Samsung, meanwhile, has been busy making its own gaming push. The company’s new TVs for 2022 feature Samsung Gaming Hub, a portal in a set’s Tizen smart TV interface to access cloud services, with Stadia Pro and GeForce Now as the first out of the gate.
Samsung added the XBox TV app to Gaming Hub in June, and just announced this week that Amazon Luna game streaming service will arrive soon, making bundles with the Hub an obvious destination for gamers looking to leave their consoles behind.
It’s the game for LG and Samsung as competition in the TV sector intensifies
Big-screen TVs are an obvious choice for console and cloud gaming, so recent developments on this front from major Korean competitors come as no surprise. Viewers can expect to see more gaming-related features, services, and offers in the future as the two go head-to-head in the cloud gaming arena.
But another factor here is increased competition due to lower demand. This is based on two factors: many homebound people are buying new TVs to make indoor time more entertaining during the “lockdown” phase of the pandemic; and the recent spike in the cost of living, a situation that has caused remaining potential buyers of discretionary items like expensive televisions to narrow their wallets.
Add to that Samsung’s recent entry into OLED manufacturing, a situation that has led to unprecedented drop in prices for OLED TVs in 2022, plus a decrease in TV production as panel makers recalibrate production to align with current economic realities and future forecasts.
Buyers can expect to see even further price cuts later this year as the impact of supply and demand ripples through the economy. In the meantime, anyone looking to get a new TV should keep their eyes peeled for deals or wait for better ones to arrive on Black Friday. These deals will be good for all of us, but with new developments from LG and Samsung, they will be even better for gamers.