Samsung is using the Galaxy Note 7 to talk up the fact that it (along with many other recent phones) supports the next-generation Vulkan API, which will be supported by the next iteration of Android. As a result, it’s giving away $US400 of Android games on the Google Play Store, unfortunately only when you buy the $1300-plus smartphone.
Sure, it’s a very expensive phone — in the region of an Apple iPhone 6s Plus and other top-of-the-line — but the included extras make the price a little more palatable. These games will be freely available to any buyer who pick the phone up before January 2017, but if you pre-order in Australia you’ll also get yourself a 256GB microSD card bundled, a theoretical saving of another $300.
These are the games you’ll get, rather optimistically priced at a total cost of $US400:
- Need for Speed No Limits
- Hit
- Vainglory
- Olympus Rising
- Nonstop Knight
- Empire: Four Kingdoms
- Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft
- MARVEL Contest of Champions
- Asphalt 8: Airborne
- Hungry Shark World
- Angry Birds Pop Bubble Shooter
- Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes
- Sims City Free Play
- Clash of Kings
Of these, Need for Speed No Limits, Hit, Vainglory and Olympus Rising are all compatible with the Vulkan API. Vulkan’s lower-level graphics processing versus older standards like OpenGL allows for faster frame rates and more consistent frame rates overall — with less variance between visually demanding areas and lesser ones. Vulkan will only be supported on Android 7.0 Nougat, and the Note 7 launches with Android 6.0 Marshmallow, but the Game Pack’s availability from August 20 onwards might point to an imminent upgrade for the Note 7 to the latest version of Android when it launches some time this month as well. [Samsung]