Wed, Jan 02, 2013 | 15:50 GMT

GameStick – “world’s most portable TV Games console”, takes to Kickstarter

PlayJam, the Smart TV platform company, has taken to Kickstarter to fund a new, portable Android games product called GameStick.

GameStick’s team, lead by Jasper Smith, along with Anthony Johnson and Luke Lam, has been in the works over the last 12 months and allows users to take their portable Smart TV games with them on the go.

“We have been developing this project for a little over a year now, and have working prototype,” said Smith on the product’s Kickstarter page. “It’s not as pretty right now as it will be, but it’s ours and it’s working.

“We’re 90% of the way to getting the final pre-production sample in our hands.”

GameStick works with any Bluetooth controller supporting HID including the Greenthrottle Games controller which is in the final design stage. It will also feature a “purpose-built game store” through which users will be able to browse and download content.

It will be powered by PlayJam’s existing Games Network for Smart TV which currently supports developers such as Relentless Software, First Star Software, and Disney.

Technical specifications are as follows:

  • Processor – Amlogic 8726-MX
  • Memory – 1GB DDR3 / 8GB FLASH
  • WiFi – 802.11 b/g/n
  • Bluetooth – LE 4.0
  • O/S – Android Jelly Bean
  • Controller – Bluetooth, 4 mode controller: icade, gamepad, mouse and keyboard

The firm’s purpose is to “bring games into the living room via Smart TV,” and is currently in 50 million homes, according to its internal estimates.

In May 2012, Criterion co-founder and CTO Adam Billyard was hired on at the firm as its CTO. Billyard joined other high-profile hires such as GameStop’s Tony Bartel, Red Octane’s Charles Huang, and Chris Lee, co-founder of FreeStyleGames and Media Molecule.

With 29 days left, 22 backers have pledged $1,975 towards the $100,000 Kickstarter goal. Videos are below.

13 comment-trail-alt Posted in: Android, Development
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13 comments

#1

Deacon
02/01/13, 1:53 pm

Typo in header guys! Protable should be a word though.

#2

Dragon246
02/01/13, 2:02 pm

Pro-table?
:D

@Steph
Thanks for recommending Strangers Wrath, enjoying it now on vita. Hard mode is cheap though.

#3

TMRNetShark
02/01/13, 2:06 pm

Okay, you guys hide links too well… >.>

#4

Deacon
02/01/13, 2:10 pm

@Dragon – Happy New Year buddy!
I treated myself and ordered Persona 4 Golden, and am now eagerly awaiting it’s arrival. It was that or Ragnarok Odyssey. Oooh shazam! I also picked up Asura’s Wrath cheap over xmas. What a freaking awesome game that is!

Sorry, completely off-topic ;p

#5

westie40
02/01/13, 2:15 pm

Header should also read “TV” not “TC”. :-)

#6

freedoms_stain
02/01/13, 2:17 pm

That controller looks awful. A rectangular box, seriously?

#7

sb319
02/01/13, 2:46 pm

Sounds “beaudiful” alright.

This seems an odd thing for Kickstarter – after all, PlayJam are a large, established company that has been around for years, doing red-button games and such. They’re clearly making this thing regardless, so what is the Kickstarter fund raiser for? Publicity?

#8

JRNO
02/01/13, 2:47 pm

I’m really having hard time trying to understand the appeal of systems like this and OUYA.

#9

Moonwalker1982
02/01/13, 3:00 pm

Basically another console for Android games?

#10

Stephany Nunneley
02/01/13, 3:50 pm

@5 Gah. You know I think you are right. I thought it was an abbreviation for something as I pulled it straight from my email. :/

#11

Dragon246
02/01/13, 3:53 pm

@Deacon,
Same to you mate! Right now going for another platinum in strangers wrath vita.First six months will be light on gaming for me because of real life pressures :P

#12

rainer
02/01/13, 5:16 pm

@sb319 there are a ton of gullible people on Kickstarter (see ouya, pocket tv etc).

100k to make a gamepad for an Amlogic stick of which you can already buy from various Chinese outlets and factories. Reading the comments is amazing at how clueless these backers are.

Oh and the Amlogic 8726-M6 chip that powers it is a great multimedia chip but it’s no 3D powerhouse, quite weak in fact anyone buying this for games is going to be disappointed.

#13

DSB
02/01/13, 6:12 pm

There are a lot of cynical people on the internet. I don’t think anyone is just dying to throw money at any halfbaked scheme. For ever succesful funding, there are plenty of Kickstarters that never get off the ground.

Backing a project that may not even be in development yet is a huge risk, and I don’t think that’s lost on very many people. Kickstarter is charity, it’s not meant to support great expectations.

In funding any new console there’s always the risk of ending up with another Gizmondo. That’s obviously why even so few major companies want anything to do with a project like that.

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