This was inevitable; a competitor to the Android-based Ouya console has its own Kickstarter for funding, as well as an aggressive plan for an April rollout. That is exactly when the Ouya should ship.
Dubbed as “the most portable TV games console ever created”, the GameStick runs Android 4.1 on a 2-inch device that, from the looks of it, you’ll rather quickly mix up with any USB flash drives you may have lying around — although the connection itself is HDMI. How do you get games controllers into that mix? Via Bluetooth; the plan for the $US79 device is that it’ll ship with a Bluetooth based controller, but any Bluetooth device that supports the HID profile should in theory work. That doesn’t mean every Android title will work though; the Kickstarter page shows off a very Xbox-style interface with selected games running; at this stage they’re pegging that “around 200” titles will run.
I’m somewhat intrigued by the Android TV gaming space, if only because while the development costs aren’t entirely trivial, they’re still pretty low-key by the standards of regular game development; as such, it’s a field that could see a lot of competitors emerge very quickly indeed. Are you tempted to pick up an Android-based console in 2013?
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