As we revel in all the news from the PlayStation 4 event held yesterday, we must not forget about some of the newcomers that are soon to hit the gaming scene.
This past year we had two great Kickstarters achieve enormous feats. One was from the good folks over at Ouya, and the other bright gem was from GameStick developed by PlayJam. Haven’t heard about the GameStick? Well what rock have you been living under?!
GameStick is a portable console that runs on the Android operating system. For only $79 you can get this wonderful piece of machinery that will be completely open to developers so that they can churn out games quickly for the console. Many of the great games you have already seen on the Android market will be available on this console. In addition to that, the company is attracting other indie developers who have created games on the Xbox Live and PSN networks, to bring their games over to this new platform as well.
Like mentioned before, the console is totally portable, and is comprised of a controller and a little USB-sized stick that conveniently hides within it. If you happen to be worried about graphics, never fear, that little stick will plug right into your HDMI slot. So you will definitely get the best graphics that the console can pump out.
What’s so remarkable about this console is that the company had an original Kickstarter goal of $100,000. But all the many fans and gamers out there wanted it so bad that they far surpassed this goal and was able to raise around $650,000! Because of this new influx of money, they were able to go back and revisit some things that they wanted to offer to the public. Many people left comments on the Kickstarter page, or sent them in directly to the company, which inevitably changed some aspects of the console for the better. One of those things being the controller’s design.
As seen below, the original controller was a rectangle shape that didn’t look all too comfortable to hold in your hands. This is a big factor when gamers decide if they would actually buy this product.
Think about it, there are many gamers out there who simply love the Xbox because of its somewhat ergonomic controller design, as opposed to the PlayStation’s controller which after hours of use can become very tiring to the hands. The company listened to these concerns and now the controller has two rounded ends to it that make it easier to hold in the palm of your hands and give you the ever so important comfortable grip.
One of the big questions a lot of people ask is if devices like this will cut into the major console market. Only time will tell really. But with Apple and Android games starting take a bite into the big three’s (Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo) sales, It looks like we have some very formidable alternatives to consider. Sure, they can’t play the big heavy hitting games like Gears of War, Assassin’s Creed or Battelfield, but that’s just for the time being. Give it a couple more years, and we will probably have an all new discussion about how portable can all consoles be. Either that or Apple will release something called the iGame (totally made that up), and then everyone is screwed.
If you didn’t get a chance to participate in the Kickstarter for GameStick, you can at least pre-order the console over at the company’s website.
GameStick Technical Specifications:
- Processor - Amlogic 8726-MX
- Memory - 1GB DDR3 / 8GB FLASH
- Content Download Manager w/ cloud storage for games.
- WiFi - 802.11 b/g/n
- Bluetooth - LE 4.0
- O/S - Android Jelly Bean
- Controller - Bluetooth, 3 mode controller: gamepad, mouse and keyboard with support for up to 4 controllers.
- Full 1080p HD video decoding
- Support for XBMC & DLNA from Sept via optional firmware update.
- Support for iOS and Android mobile devices to be used as controllers
