It has been more than a year since the Legion Duel 2 arrived in the Philippines as a gaming phone alternative to the ROG Phone series. While they did have the Legion Y90 last year, that gaming phone was exclusive to China. We started to be suspicious about Legion’s gaming phone business when prototypes of the Legion Play were being sold in the grey market without Lenovo filing legal complaints. It turns out that Legion has decided to pull out of the gaming phone business completely.
We understand if you’re never aware of the development. In fact, it took Android Authority to ask Lenovo to get a clearer picture of what will happen to the Legion gaming phone business. A spokesperson from Lenovo confirmed that Legion will pull out of the gaming phone business with the following statement:
Lenovo is discontinuing its Android-based Legion mobile gaming phones as part of a wider business transformation and gaming portfolio consolidation. As a leader in gaming devices and solutions, Lenovo is committed to advancing the gaming category across form factors, as well as focusing on where it can bring the most value to the global gaming community.
Lenovo’s plans to have gaming phones under its Legion brand were short-lived, barely lasting 3 years, and only producing three models during that timeframe. We can’t blame Lenovo either: the gaming phone industry is a challenging market to conquer. Even the Xiaomi-backed Black Shark is struggling, laying off hundreds of employees early this year–which might be why the Black Shark 6 has yet to go official.
So far, only ASUS’ ROG Phone and Nubia’s Red Magic are the only major gaming phone manufacturers that are doing well. Nubia already has the Red Magic 8 Pro, while ASUS is expected to reveal details about its ROG Phone 7 series on April 13.