Mobile Gaming on your TV!

Its all very easy for people in their thousands to marvel and wait for the release of the latest Next Gen gaming consoles, and why not speaking from  tech point of view theirs a lot to get excited about. However what about the people who cant initially afford to lay down £349 +, or those who are looking for something different, more family oriented? Well I would reply that the answer comes in two flavours, and boy are they delicious.

Flavour 1 - GamePop

The first is "GamePop" a third party development game console which if you play mobile games are bound to love, the console itself is minuscule in size like a jam packed fire cracker waiting to explode, typically the size of a standard pack of chewing gum

You probably think this is a crazy sort of pitch right now, but wait what GamePop have going for them is that more and more people are becoming addicted by mobile gaming, with games you wouldn't find on the bigger giants such as Microsoft or Sony to name but two. What GamePop does ingeniously is try to tap into this market and say hey you know that mobile game your always playing?  Well what if you could play it on your 30 inch TV, with either a dedicated emote controller or by using your phone at a very tiny price.

Now I have your attention, lets get down to the facts, what you get when you pre-order (more on that in a moment) is the mini version of the console and a controller as well as a library of over 500 top mobile games as found on IOS and android devices. All of this you get for a subscription of just £4 per month, yea I know that's pretty tempting, what could you lose? The subscription lasts for 12 months after which you get to keep the console, if you decided its not for you and you want to send it back sooner you just need to pay a £15 restocking fee.

This is a great little option if you enjoy mobile gaming, or even a great family gamin option which is fast easy to set up with lots of potential for fun. The console isn't being developed by one of the big names and is not yet available however if you pre-order at no extra cost right now, one will be sent to you when its released in the winter, pretty close to the release of the PS4 and Xbox One consoles.  Your card wont be charged until the unit is sent to you which is also a big plus.

For affordable, addictive, fun gaming I recommend you check out GamePop and the intro video over at http://www.gamepop.tv

Flavour 2 - Ouya

The other Flavour is called "Ouya" the words more commonly associated just before soldiers, usually marines shout before they enter battle. Now the price tag shifts more rapidly with this console which is a buy it straight away option at £99 which is pretty good for a games console, but again a little stepper to say the least given the GamePop price.

Ouya doesn't have a subscription plan like GamePop instead you can download games to try and then purchase them, downloading them to play. the console does have some good things going for it though, and some interesting ideas.  For example the console is fully modifiable to your own design, one screw and your into the hardware, customizing it as you see fit, every aspect is completely customizable, you can even develop your own games and run emulators with it, making it more of a tech DIY console and worthy of a more closer look. Games on the Ouya can also support resolutions of up to 1080p

One look at the device itself and you can’t imagine how it has earned the title of console in fact just by looking at it without knowing what it was you probably believe it to be a lavish looking external hard-drive:  The console is very small in size roughly the size of 3 decks of playing cards placed on top of one another. 

You’re probably ready to disregard any thoughts of seriously buying at this point, but you may well be wrong. The console uses an Android Jelly Bean flavour O.S., and comes with 8GB Flash memory and 1GB of DDR3 SDram with graphics capability provided by Nvidia ULP GeForce. The console also has Ethernet, USB 2.0, WI-Fi and blue-tooth, surprising the amount of things that you can fit into such a small device.

Ouya will will be able to run built in aps such as popular game streaming services such as Twitch TV and Onlive game streaming service as soon as it is plugged in as well as running a modified Android variant which will be open to rooting (without voiding the warranty) Not surprising given it size and limited internal part structure that it can be opened up all but fairly easily in fact you only need your traditional screwdriver to access the internals, this allows for modding and hardware upgrades which can be done by you the user however you please. 

What the team behind Ouya have done is allow owners of the console to also be developers without paying fees for doing so, something the big game companies would die of fright at the very mention of such an idea.  

For more info check out https://www.ouya.tv

Its great to see these smaller development companies try and corner the mobile gaming market, even if they can't directly compete with the big guns, I don't think they are trying but instead of attempting to take them on they're finding their own niche level ground, most people play mobile games on the go and when they come home, why not bring that experience to your living room TV, whether  direct support for transitioning between playing a game on the go and then picking up on one of these consoles when you get home remains to be seen but that would further add to the allure of its initial premise.