Why have an Xbox, PlayStation or Wii when you can play Android games on a cheap and small console? That seems to be a popular train of thought recently, as displayed by the success of Kickstarter OUYA. However, OUYA now has company from the BlueStacks GamePop.
GamePop is a similarly small games console powered by Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, coming from a company who specialises in software that allows Android apps to be run on Windows. It’s priced to compete as well, with the console coming free with a one-year subscription to the GamePop service, which is $93.83.
BlueStacks claims there will be over 500 games available to play on its GamePop console when it does launch, most of these being mobile games that Android phone and tablet owners will be familiar with. There’s also talk of getting big name developers on board to create unique and new titles, which is something OUYA is currently trying very hard to do.
No real specifications have been revealed just yet, but a video appears to show us the console hooking up to a TV via HDMI. Gamers will have the choice of a dedicated gamepad or using their smartphone as a wireless controller for what’s played on the TV, which is pretty cool. Games like Shine Runner and Jetpack Joyride are shown off, so it looks promising for some of the biggest and best Android games to be available.
The controller doesn’t quite look as stylish as OUYA’s from the brief video shots, although it does follow the familiar Xbox 360-style shape and button layout – complete with identical colours for the diamond of buttons on the right.
It’s not clear just yet how much the console itself will cost, although a yearly subscription of $93.3 – that’s just a little less than the price of an OUYA, by the way – will get you access to ‘the world’s largest selection of mobile games on your TV’.