Zilliqa, the smart contract-focussed blockchain, has its eyes set on Web 3.0 gaming. Zilliqa Research, the company behind the blockchain, has revealed that it is currently working on a gaming console and gaming hub.
The company has even unveiled a minimal-looking prototype of the console. Six months were spent on designing and testing the console.
— Zilliqa (@zilliqa) September 22, 2022
This isn’t the first time a blockchain ecosystem has toyed with the idea of hardware-specific offerings. Solana’s ambitious Android smartphone, Saga, was one of the prime examples of the hardware-based aspirations of Web 3.0 players.
With its console, Zilliqa aims to onboard more users to its platform with the lure of rewards. The idea is to incentivize Web 3.0 gaming by letting users play while mining the native ZIL tokens. The launch of the console aims to make Web 3.0 accessible by “hiding” its complexity for the end user.
The console isn’t just meant for gaming, though. It comes with mining utilities and Web 3.0 wallet features. The mining compatibility will help blockchains become further decentralized as the number of ZIL miners will increase. So Zilliqa is going beyond boosting Web 3.0 gaming adoption.
The new Zilliqa prototype reveals that the blockchain also plans to cater to non-crypto gamers who would simply want to focus on gaming. Such users will still be able to earn crypto (ZIL tokens) as in-game rewards, depending on their skills.
Valentin Cobelea, gaming technology head at Zilliqa, revealed that the consoles will launch in 2023, along with two Zilliqa native games. The consoles will enter the beta testing phase starting in October.
