Korean tech giants, Samsung and LG, are moving into the gaming industry with the aim of seeking a breakthrough in the saturated PC market and testing future display technologies on gaming devices, according to industry watchers.

In recent years, Samsung and LG have competitively released gaming laptops and monitors in the market traditionally dominated by Taiwanese firms, including Gigabyte, Asus, Acer and Micro-Star International.

Samsung Electronics announced Monday it had launched the world’s largest quantum-dot light-emitting diode, or QLED, gaming monitor with high dynamic range functions. High dynamic range, or HDR, is an imaging technology that depicts objects as naturally as human eyes can see by making light parts lighter and dark parts darker. 



The 49-inch QLED monitor, called CHG90, has a 32:9 aspect ratio with super ultra-wide, double-full high-definition resolution. It also provides wider vision for users -- as if they are viewing two 27-inch monitors placed together.

Its rival LG Electronics also launched laptops optimized for gaming last month. The laptop called 15G870 has the highest-performing Intel processor i7-7700HQ, which makes data-processing fast, and features Nvidia’s graphic card GTX1060, which smoothly shows complicated gaming content.

The tech giants’ latest release of gaming devices is seen by analysts as making use of the growing high-performing gaming market.

Demand for gaming laptops in Korea rose 230 percent to 103,000 units in 2016 from 45,000 units in 2015, according to research firm IDC Korea. The global gaming market is also expected to rise an annual average of 21 percent over the next four years to reach $22.5 billion by 2021, according to market research firm Technavio.

“The global gaming laptop market has seen rapid growth with the momentum of Blizzard’s ‘Overwatch’ released in May last year. The gaming market is expected to continue to grow this year,” said Kwon Sang-joon, an analyst at IDC Korea.

“Overwatch” is a team-based multiplayer online first-person shooter video game developed and published by the US tech firm Blizzard Entertainment. It has around 30 million users worldwide.

As for why Samsung and LG jumped into the gaming market even though PC and laptops are not their mainstay, Cho Joon-il, a researcher at LG Economic Research Institute, said, “They can capitalize on the gaming technologies for their future technologies such as virtual reality and augmented reality.”

Chinese tech giant Lenovo is slated to unveil VR devices that can be integrated with gaming laptops and computers in partnership with Microsoft. US computer maker HP has also showcased gaming devices optimized in a virtual reality environment.

By Shin Ji-hye (shinjh@heraldcorp.com)