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Handhelds Portables (Games) Games

GameStop To Build Its Own Gaming Tablet? 53

Posted by Soulskill from the company-destroying-optimism dept.
itwbennett writes "GameStop has been on a roll lately, purchasing both Impulse and Spawn Labs in the past week. Now it's ready to go after those casual gaming dollars, but first it needs to put a gaming tablet in your hands. GameStop President Tony Bartel told CNBC that his chain is going to start selling tablets later this year: 'If we can work with our partners and the OEMs and they come up with a great tablet that is enabled with a great gaming experience and coupled with a bluetooth controller, then there's no need to go out and develop our own. But if we can't find one that's great for gaming, then we will create our own.'"
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GameStop To Build Its Own Gaming Tablet? More

GameStop To Build Its Own Gaming Tablet?

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  • (actually a legitimate question)

    • Yes but only if you pre-order.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by kregg ( 1619907 )

      No it will run Windows and have a battery life of 5 minutes (enough to show the desktop and start bar) and the weight of the table will help you build muscle tone.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by EdZ ( 755139 )
      More importantly: will it have buttons?
      • RTFS: 'If we can work with our partners and the OEMs and they come up with a great tablet that is enabled with a great gaming experience and coupled with a bluetooth controller,"

        It says the same thing in TFA...

        Even if the tablet does NOT have buttons, I'm pretty sure the controller will... Would be nice if could sync my PS3 controllers to it...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AVryhof ( 142320 )

      A Linux-based gaming system would be pretty awesome.

      There are a lot of great games available in the Ubuntu repos, and even more that aren't but can be run pretty easy. The biggest hurdle I have seen is that input is inconsistent between games. Sometimes the gamepad works, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes a game uses few enough buttons, and sometimes you need to use the whole keyboard.

      What really needs to be done to make it work is to choose the right hardware. A reasonably powerful CPU, a GPU that is goo

  • GameStop? Really?

    My only responses to this are disbelief and laughter.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Rennt ( 582550 )

      You know, it wouldn't actually be that difficult for a company with GameStop's resources to pull it off. Bluetooth controllers and console emulators already work great on Android, and hardware is cheap. All you got to do besides slap a brand in it is skin up a rom.

      Doesn't mean anybody would buy the thing, sure. But I bet if they sold them for around $100 they could sell a heap. Somebody is going to do it eventually.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mrxak ( 727974 )

        But why would a pawn shop do it?

        My question is will they actually stock any of these gaming tablets, or will they only sell them to you if you preordered?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mrxak ( 727974 )

          Oh, and if you do get one new, will it have already been opened and played with by the people there and then repackaged and sold at full price?

      • Gamestop could build a gaming tablet. The problem is whether they can sell one. Pricing and the ecosystem are the main drawbacks to Apple's competitors right now. Even companies like Motorola and Samsung who have experience building devices find that they are at a disadvantage competing with Apple on pricing alone. Then comes the added problem of games. Even though the iPad isn't dedicated to gaming, it already has a huge lead.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sorak ( 246725 )

      I can't wait to go to gamestop and get my madcatzPad. Just like the iPad, but $10 cheaper and half the buttons don't work.

  • ...a company that excels at selling used games knows what it takes to build a tablet that can play games they have never sold.

    And they can do it better and more cost-effectively than the dozens and dozens of companies that have at least announced Android tablets with a huge head start on Gamestop...namely, they have at least hollowed out a piece of plastic or metal and inserted piece of plexiglas into it to demonstrate how serious they are at entering the tablet market.

    • Yeah, and a company that excels at niche-market computers knows what it takes to build a smartphone. And they can do it better and more cost effectively than the dozes and dozens of companies that have at least announced... Yeah, you're absolutely right.
      • Apple had experience with hardware and some experience with mobile devices in the form of iPods. GameStop has zero experience with hardware much less mobile devices. Also bear in mind even companies with tons of experience are not assured of success when it comes to making new products. Not that Gamestop can't overcome this but their obstacles are much higher than Apple.
        • Yes, of course gamestop isn't in in a very favorable position, and apple had a very good starting point to work from. But my point was just that it's unwise to completely dismiss a company just because it's entering a new market.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Hatta ( 162192 )

      Gamestop excels at selling used games? Gamestop excels at swindling ignorant parents, and that's about it.

  • Hrm (Score:2)

    by ADRA ( 37398 )

    Does anyone here think this will make it?

    Tablet/Controller is too small to play with friends (unless everyone involved had their own and they just link up together for any/all games) and too large and bulky to play on the go. What's the absent niche that they hope to fill with this?

    • No, but being able to play with friends is irrelevant-- it seems obvious that they're going for a casual, single-player or internet-enabled 'social' market rather than anything traditionally console-oriented.

      I don't think this is going to work, because I don't think Gamestop has any idea what the Hell they're doing. A tablet's a bloody hefty investment for an end user, nevermind the costs for a developer who's basically admitted total inexperience in the market. Selling games through a modified Impulse stor

      • I think they'd be better off making games for Android/iPhone. It's pretty obvious really.. making a decent bluetooth mobile gaming controller isn't that bad an idea, but there is no point at all making an actual tablet dedicated to gaming.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by slim ( 1652 )

      There's nothing in TFA about the size of the tablet.

      I'm told that one of the nicest iPad games is an implementation of the Small World board game, designed to be played by two players facing each other with the iPad on a table.

      That said, with the iPad existing, and a slew of Android tablets on their way, what can Gamestop bring to the table?

      The only thing I can imagine is a DRM-laden platform which they sell below cost price, so they can make money on the games. Risky, in that it's bound to get hacked, and

    • They don't need to make one, since the iPad 2 is grat for gaming and supports Bluetooth pairing. As for size and friends, with the HDMI cable they can just plug the thing to a TV. All they need to do is convince apple to let them make a game app store with in app purchases and accept to loose the 30% Apple will be taking of sales.
  • Too bad you will only have access to the whole title list if you PREODER FROM GAMESTOP NOW. If you dont you just get games that didnt sell on the virtua boy.
  • Sony and Nintendo hang onto their franchises, they should let them be multiplatform, of course, they do that, and sales of their hardware HALVE instantly.

    I like the Dual shock 3 controller, its bluetooth, it SHOULD work with iOS and Android devices. Sony should allow it to be used, surely its just a matter of "giving it a driver" in the Operating Systems, and game developers writing code for a Dual Shock 3 button layout?

    You'd put your iPad, iPod Touch, iPhone... or Android devices on a surface, and u
    • That's why Sony created the Xperia Play - http://psp2roundup.blogspot.com/2011/04/xperia-play-adverts-they-keep-on-coming.html [blogspot.com] - does it all in one phone!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dafing ( 753481 )
        Wish I could mod you "funny" and post here too ;-)

        Oh Sony! You mess EVERYTHING up! TV's, "LCD aint going nowhere!", music, "the kids dont want that emm peee free! They want a proprietary format, on tiny discs and made by SONY, we're cool, right?", to phones "yeah, who needs modern devices?"

        The Xperia Play, that thing that got like, 6 out of 10 on Engadgets review? :-)

        Nothing can compare to controls AWAY from the screen you're watching.
  • It's a legitimate idea. Video games will go the way of the DVD as well and be streamed over the internet. Business models will need to adapt.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by slyrat ( 1143997 )

      It's a legitimate idea. Video games will go the way of the DVD as well and be streamed over the internet. Business models will need to adapt.

      Maybe, but there will always be a portion of the population that will only buy physical copies of stuff from physical stores. I know it isn't rational at times but I've seen it happen. This is why there will still need to be stores like gamestop, so that these players can get their games.

  • Why doesn't GameStop just buy OnLive and make a special tablet to play their service? Gamestop could promote this as a feature of the play tablet to allow play of many major titles on a portable device.

  • I'd be surprised if they found success. As near as I can tell, Gamestop's only area of expertise is in acting as a middleman selling used product. I'm over-simplifying, but they basically have the same skill set as some guy on ebay or at a flee market with only a change in scale.

    They appear to have no experience in actually producing or even marketing anything whatsoever. They have no experience designing/marketing/distributing consoles, phones, hand-held game devices, games or software. So we are to assume

  • Gamestop hired several of my friends in Texas late last year - but they were all Windows Mobile 6 developers for enterprise stuff. Combine that with the fact you can develop for the XBox and Windows Mobile 7 in the same solution, and it seems like that is where they will go. I hope it works out for them.. but I don't have high expectations of Windows Mobile 7.
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