Company Turns Your Android Smartphone Into a Game Console 126
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."
OUYA (Score:5, Informative)
$45 for this "Single Controller Pack", or $99 for a dedicated OUYA game console with controller, also runs android, doesn't have to worry about the game being interrupted by a phone call, no worries about frame rate drops due to various background services running, and already has dedicated third party developers (rather than a "developer program"). Yeah, sorry guys, the other team already has my money!
http://www.ouya.tv/ [www.ouya.tv]
Bluetooth is a standard (Score:5, Informative)
Many Android games have native Bluetooth game-pad support, for though that don't you can use something like: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fishstix.gameboard [google.com]
You can already get hundreds of far cheaper Bluetooth game-pads, many designed to also mount your phone.
Re:What is the point? (Score:5, Informative)
Plus, with OUYA just around the corner, there will be no need to fry your phone's GPU and wring out the battery in an hour. There's a cheap box designed for the purpose.