Company Turns Your Android Smartphone Into a Game Console 126
Posted
by
samzenpus
from the talk-and-play dept.
from the talk-and-play dept.
MojoKid writes "The time we spend making calls on smartphones pales in comparison to the other activities we use it for, like surfing the web, logging into Facebook, streaming music and video, and of course playing games. It's that latter functionality that a startup called Green Throttle wants to tap into, and given the horsepower of today's smartphones, it makes a lot of sense. The company envisions harnessing the power of today's well-equipped Android smartphones and tablets in order to play console-like games on your HDTV. Right now the concept is limited to select devices — Google Nexus, Samsung Galaxy S II and S III, HTC One X, Kindle Fire HD, and Asus Transformer — though the company says it's adding to the list quickly. The system is fairly simple. You load Green Throttle's Arena app on your compatible device and start gaming using the company's Bluetooth-enabled Atlas controller, which looks a lot like an Xbox 360 controller, then push your phone's HDMI output to an HDTV."
False Premise (Score:0, Insightful)
The time we spend making calls on smartphones pales in comparison to the other activities we use it for
Speak for yourself, dickhead.
like surfing the web
Painful, at best.
logging into Facebook
Hell No.
streaming music and video
With today's data plans? Don't make me laugh.
and of course playing games
Well ya, like Tetris.
play console-like games on your HDTV
Wait, now I have to carry around my 46" HDTV? Fuck that shit.
Re:OUYA (Score:3, Insightful)
From the OUYA site:
So... every game will be a demo that's misleadingly called free, and will proceed to nickel-and-dime me to death once I'm hooked on playing it because that's the institutionalized business model? And all this to get graphics that aren't quite as good as my seven year old Xbox 360?
No thanks. I'll stick with a dedicated console that was designed from day one to be a dedicated console, with occasional kill-some-time gaming on a mobile device when I'm away from home, and have no interest at all in using a dedicated device running outdated hardware on an operating system chosen solely because it was free so I can place the developer's hand right into my wallet.
OUYA is a non-event too.
Re:I went and RTFA (Score:5, Insightful)
The "way of connecting a game control to a phone" is called Bluetooth. Your phone has is.
The HDMI thing isn't a "bonus" -- it's a feature of your phone. And if it's not a feature of your phone, this device isn't going to magically give you it.
This is "stone soup" sales tactics. Sell you something "magic" that lets you do wonderful things... because you don't know you can already do them....
Re:False Premise (Score:4, Insightful)
What sort of terrible smart phone do you have that sucks at web browsing?
If you are close enough to an HDTV for this to be useful you would be on wifi, not on 3G/4G. So data plan is of no concern.
Tetris is available, but so are games that are PS1 and PS2 level quality. In fact many PS2 games have been ported to modern smartphones.