Google is about to either change the smartphone game, or suffer its highest-profile failure ever.
Enter the Moto X. Google hopes this phone, officially unveiled Thursday, will reboot the Motorola brand along with the namesake company it bought a year and a half ago. But the tech giant faces both long odds and a lot of questions about what its intentions in the smartphone market really are.
(Read more: Moto X isn't about Google against any particular rival)
Several details about the mystery Moto X have leaked—most significantly from Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, who took the liberty of offering a peek at the Allen & Co. conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, last month. Rumor has it Moto X will respond to voice commands without the user having to even touch it. And in a first for the industry, the smartphone will be assembled in the United States, in a Flextronics factory outside Fort Worth, Texas.
(Read more: These 'smartphone saturation' stats could prove Apple wrong)
The problem, though, is that Moto X is destined to be a costly gamble for Google—whether it strikes a chord with consumers or not. That's because from smartphones to their tablet cousins, the mobile market has high stakes. And lately some impressive companies have been losing.
(Read more: Why Google's $35 Chromecast isn't an Apple killer ... yet)
Take Microsoft, for example. Its most committed partner in smartphones, Nokia, is lucky to eke out a profitable quarter at all these days, and Microsoft earlier this week said it will take a $900 million write-down for Surface tablets it couldn't sell.
(Read more: Microsoft losing money on Surface tablets)
BlackBerry was king of the smartphone market (and arguably the planet's fastest-growing company) as recently as four years ago. Now its latest BlackBerry 10 phones are slow to catch on with consumers, moving just 2.7 million units last quarter; the stock is deflating; and analysts are buzzing about its demise again.