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This gigantic metal suitcase is perfect for portable console gaming

This gigantic metal suitcase is perfect for portable console gaming

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The GAEMS Guardian is a massive portable gaming rig designed for on-the-go streamers

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Photo by Nick Statt / The Verge

When popular Fortnite streamer Tyler “Ninja” Blevins took a four-day break in June to attend the annual E3 video game conference in Los Angeles, he lost more than 100,000 subscribers — all because he wasn’t streaming every single day that week. The channels of streamers like Ninja, and plenty of other online entertainers in the Twitch and YouTube space, basically live or die on consistency.

So with that kind of pressure to pump out daily content, GAEMS, a supplier of portable gaming set ups, decided it would make the most high-end, premium version of its product to try and alleviate some of that stress. The result is the Guardian, a massive suitcase with a built-in monitor for both gaming consoles and PCs that can be lugged around and plugged in anywhere.

GAEMS first made a name for itself nearly a decade ago with well-designed encasements for game consoles, so people without reliable environments to play games — think those who travel constantly or are in the military — could do so easily on the road. The company’s products typically involve a built-in display and a clamshell case that can hold some type of gaming machine, usually a console, with all of the circuitry and plugs required to have everything function properly, and a single wall plug.

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The Guardian is that idea taken to the extreme. For one, the case is is made of a slightly more sturdy blend of metal and plastic, as opposed to the standard hard-shell plastic ones used in the past. It also has a 24-inch QHD panel with a 60Hz refresh rate this time, the best the company has ever offered. It has built-in 9W stereo speakers, and comes compatible with Xbox One, Xbox One X, PS4 and PS4 Pro — partly thanks to the removable, screwed-in metal cover, which replaces the standard velcro straps from past models.

The company claims it can house a PC as well, though you might have a hard time finding gaming PCs that fit inside the case. They’d have to be the size of a console.

The device also has special mounts — the company says they’re of the Picatinny variety, the military mounting standard (one of GAEMS’ primary markets is soldiers who want to game overseas). That way, you can equip whatever kind of webcam and lighting systems you’d want to bring on the road.

The Guardian is made for those who can’t miss a day of Twitch streaming

GAEMS says it hopes the machine is a product that streamers like the Ninjas of the world will find useful, so they can game on the go and keep their streams up and running. The Guardian has the appropriate input / output ports, the company claims, to let you offload your video to a secondary laptop for Twitch streaming. So all you’d really need theoretically is that second machine to make the whole rig work as a viable replacement for your home setup, granted you could bring your standard cameras and microphones along.

Still, this is a pretty niche product, even more so than the standard GAEMS portable rigs. The company isn’t saying how much the Guardian will cost, but its next most expensive model is the recently announced Sentinel, which costs $349.99. You could imagine given the build quality of the Guardian and the higher-quality display that it might cost quite a bit more. The company says it’s scheduled to ship some time in the third quarter of this year.