The Nintendo 3DS has had a good run in recent months, and this past month is no different. Says the company in a press release sent out on Thursday, the Nintendo 3DS has earned the title of best-selling video game system in the United States for its third month in a row. Such an accomplishment […]
We already knew that the GameStick would be supporting XBMC, but PlayJam has announced that they’re partnering up with Pivos to bring the XBMC integration to the portable gaming console. Pivos is an industry player in home entertainment and media products, and PlayJam says that the partnership is good news for both the GameStick and the gamers who will be using it.
However, it seems that XBMC will be available on the GameStick right at launch. Previously, it was said that the console wouldn’t be seeing XBMC support until later in September, but it looks like the partnership with Pivos will eradicate the need to wait, allowing gamers and home entertainment junkies access to XMBC right away.
XBMC stands for “Xbox Media Center,” and it was essentially created for the original Xbox, but has sense been released as an open-source media center platform. It’s available on a wide range of devices, and it can run on Windows, OS X, Linux, Android, and iOS. It’s also available on a handful of set-top boxes like the Boxee Box.
Of course, PlayJam says that the GameStick will still primarily be a portable gaming console, but the added functionality of a home theater media center will no doubt attract a larger niche of users, especially at a price of only $79, which comes with the HDMI dongle and a nifty game controller to go along with it. Developer units will begin shipping out very soon, and the console will be available to the public next month.
GameStick announces partnership with Pivos for XBMC integration is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
It looks like Sony slashing the prices of its PS Vita systems have done it wonders. Sony had cut the price of its PS Vita down to 19,980 yen from 24,980 yen due to its struggling sales. It looked like the 30% price cut worked because Sony saw sales quadruple for the device compared to two weeks ago. The announcement was made by Hiroshi Kawano, President of Sony Computer Entertainment in Japan, while he was doing a presentation for One Piece: Pirate Warriors 2.
It’s good to know that pricing seemed to be the only barrier stopping gamers from buying the device rather than the PS Vita software itself. It would be terrible to see the PS Vita suffer the same horrible sales as its predecessor, the PSP Go. The sales for the PS Vita should equal around 44,000 this week, considering two weeks ago the PS Vita sold somewhere around 11,000 copies. The official sales number won’t be released until tomorrow.
Sony stated that the United States won’t be receiving the same sales cut treatment for its PS Vita systems. Maybe after seeing the success rate that the PS Vita can achieve with a price cut, Sony will change its mind. However, it did state that one of the major reasons for reducing the price of its Japanese PS Vitas was due to Japan’s “current exchange rate”.
Now more Japanese gamers can enjoy the wonders of PlayStation 4 cloud-gaming with their new PS Vita devices. The PlayStation 4 will allow gamers to access all of their games remotely through the PS Vita. So if you’re in a situation where you can’t play your PlayStation 4 in peace, you can just enable remote play for your PS Vita and run off to a different room. Sony is redefining the way games are meant to be played.
[via Gematsu]
PS Vita price cut results in sales quadrupling is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
The GameStick is getting ever so closer to getting into the hands of portable gamers around the world. PlayJam, the company behind the Android-powered portable gaming console, has announced that pre-orders for the GameStick are now live, and you can reserve your unit right now for only $79 on GameStick’s website.
While pre-orders are processed on the GameStick website, they’re powered by Amazon, so assuming you already have an Amazon account like everyone else, the checkout process should be rather simple and quick. Aside from the console and the controller, you can also pre-order a dock or a case for $24.99 and $9.99, respectively.
As far as availability is concerned, it seems like we’re looking at a release date of April 30, which is revealed during the checkout process. PlayJam itself says that “pre-ordered devices will ship immediately after fulfillment of the initial Kickstarter run in April,” so the date at checkout seems to be accurate at this point.
However, PlayJam has also noted that Kickstarter backers will receive their units first, so those pre-ordering right now will be placed at the end of the line, so it could be several weeks to several months before pre-orderers receive their consoles. The only question remaining is, will the GameStick outdo the OUYA? Or will it be the other way around?
[via Android Community]
GameStick kicks off pre-orders, reserve now for $79 is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
It looks like the OUYA will see an upgrade each year. At the 2013 DICE Summit, OUYA CEO Julie Uhrman said that they want to follow a strategy similar to the mobile industry, where manufacturers release new phones each year. However, instead of releasing a brand-new console each year, the OUYA will get upgraded components at the same price of $99.
Uhrman said that the updated yearly consoles will “take advantage of faster, better processors,” thanks to the decline of component prices every year. However, it seems that the yearly console will get a naming scheme instead of simply remaining the “OUYA.” Uhrman says that each new console will be the “OUYA 2,” OUYA 3,” and so on.
However, Uhrman assures gamers that all games will be compatible with all the consoles, meaning that you don’t have to worry about an older game not working on a newer console. This is certainly great news for gamers, but since the OUYA won’t see a release cycle like all the other gaming consoles, one may worry about futureproofing, and the minute they buy an OUYA, it’ll be obsolete within a year, something that other console gamers don’t need to worry about.
In any case, the OUYA should be a huge it when it release to the public in a few months. In fact, it’s already been a huge hit. The Kickstarter campaign collected almost $8.6 million, absolutely shattering its original goal. This first OUYA comes with a quad-core A9 Tegra 3 clocked at 1.6GHz, so if the company sticks with NVIDIA for future consoles, we could see them move to the Tegra 4 chip that we’ve been hearing a lot about recently.
[via Engadget]
OUYA to release new console every year is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
After OUYA‘s immense Kickstarter success, the company is looking to branch out and go mainstream. The portable Android-powered gaming console will begin selling in select retail stores starting in June. Best Buy, Target, and GameStop will sell the console for $99, the same price that Kickstarter backers have been paying for the device.
The console will also be available online at the company’s website and on Amazon. Of course, though, Kickstarter backers will be the first to get their units. Ouya CEO Julie Uhrman says that Kickstarter backers will receive their consoles in March, while orders from the OUYA website will go out in April, and retail stores will begin selling them in June. You can pre-order the console now through Amazon, Best Buy, or Target.
The console will sell for $99.99, and it’ll come with one controller. An extra controller will cost you $49.99 in retail stores, while getting one on OUYA’s website will only cost $40 shipped. Paying $50 for a controller certainly isn’t outrageous, but it raises some concerns when a controller costs half the price of the console itself. Uhrman says that $49.99 is a “premium price” for a controller, indeed, but she says that the touchpad built into the controller makes up for the cost.
The OUYA console raised more than $8.5 million on Kickstarter and has been taking pre-orders for the consoles on its website. There are over 68,000 consoles that need to be shipped out so far, with potentially even more orders to come no doubt. The tiny Android-powered gaming console is already a huge hit, and we’re pretty excited to see how the OUYA community will grow once the consoles start selling.
[via WSJ]
OUYA to be sold at retail stores starting in June is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
After 31 days of campaigning on Kickstarter, PlayJam (the company behind GameStick) has finished its final day and ended up with a total of just under $650,000 in contributions. The project actually surpassed its $100,000 goal in just two days, and edged past the $500,000 mark with just three days to go. In total, the project ended up with $647,658, over six times the initial goal.
The GameStick is expected to ship to all of its customers by April, and the company just got done making final revisions to the portable gaming console, making the controller a bit more rounded, and adding a microSD card slot to the HDMI dongle. If everything goes as planned, the company expects to ship out its first commercial run by next month.
If you’re still not familiar with GameStick, it’s essentially a game controller with an Android-powered gaming console that’s essentially a HDMI dongle. You plug the dongle into your HDTV and start gaming away. It’s novel concept, and its looking to take on the other Android-powered portable gaming console, the OUYA.
Furthermore, GameStick can also act as a media center of sorts, thanks to XBMC and DLNA support. It’ll be interesting to see how well the little dongle can handle 1080p HD video, but if it does, we’re looking at quite a game-changer for not just the portable gaming market, but also the media center business.
GameStick Kickstarter campaign ends at $647,658 is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
The GameStick is the newest in a line of Kickstarter success stories, and the company is working overtime to get the design of the new portable Android-powered gaming console just right. And thanks to all of the backers who submitted feedback, the final design of the GameStick controller has been unveiled, as well as new docking station to go along with it.
The design of the HDMI dongle itself has stayed the same, but the controller underwent some changes based on feedback from the Kickstarter backers. The controller features a more curvy design, and the HDMI stick now sits at the back of the controller instead of sliding in on top. The GameStick also got an expendable microSD card slot on the stick itself, which was a huge request from the backers.
The new docking station charges up the controller wirelessly using electromagnetic coils, and it can also support peripheral hardware such as mice, keyboards, etc. for use with the GameStick. The docking station also has a memory card slot compatible with up to 64GB, boosting the GameStick’s total capacity to 104GB potentially.
At the time of this writing, the GameStick has received over $515,000 in funding, which surpasses the company’s initial goal of $100,000. The campaign has just under 70 hours remaining, so there’s still time to contribute and get on the list to receive a GameStick console if you’re still interested.
GameStick final design and docking station unveiled is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
The most recent success story on Kickstarter is GameStick, the portable gaming console that’s looking to take on OUYA, the other Kickstarter success story. The folks behind GameStick are aggressively going after game developers in order to make the portable gaming console a success. Today, the company announced that they have added a new tier specifically for indie game developers.
GameStick added a new $250 tier, which offers indie game developers a six-month window of 100% revenue on any games they release before July 2013. Indie game devs who buy into the $250 tier will receive these benefits, as well as a GameStick console for their contribution. GameStick hopes this will ramp up the number of new games that release for the console once launch day hits.
Sadly, though, devs who buy into this tier won’t get the GameStick console any earlier than everyone else, but we have to say the benefits are probably worth it in the long run. Also, the new tier is only available to 250 developers, so if you’re at all interested in making 100% revenue on your game, you may want to act swiftly.
GameStick was first announced earlier this month and it hit its $100,000 funding goal within 30 hours of launch. As of this writing, over $460,000 has been pledged, thanks to the contributions of over 4,250 backers so far. Furthermore, stretch goals were also announced this week, including black and red controller options (for those who don’t like white), microSD support, and an additional color to be decided on within the GameStick Facebook page.
GameStick adds new tier for indie game developers is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
This morning, the team behind GameStick have announced support for XBMC and DLNA, two of the most sought after features in a product like this. While the company is shipping the GameStick as a dedicated gaming console, they have made sure that users will have the ability to hack the devices and install optional firmware.
The only catch is that you’ll have to wait a few months before you can get XBMC or DLNA support on your GameStick. The company will be releasing an optional firmware update in September 2013 that will include both of these features. The portable gaming console isn’t expected to ship until April 2013, so gamers will have to make do for several months.
GameStick is the latest Kickstarter success story, and the team quickly reached their $100,000 funding goal in only 30 hours, leaving 28 days left over to raise even more money. At the time of this writing, the GameStick has reached $144,350 in funding from 1,473 backers with 27 days left to go.
If you haven’t been keeping with the goings-on at Kickstarter, the GameStick is essentially a $79 portable gaming console powered by Android. It’s an HDMI dongle that you can plug into any HDTV, and when not in use, the dongle easily snaps into an accompanying controller. It’s currently taking on the OUYA gaming console, which has just recently began shipping out to developers.
GameStick announces support for XBMC and DLNA is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
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