The GameStick console launched on Kickstarter back in early-January and since then it seems to have attracted quite a bit of attention. In fact, the game console attracted so much attention that the initial funding goals we quickly meet and additional perks were added as new funding levels were reached. All things considered, except for one small issue that resulted in the GameStick Kickstarter going down for a few hours, they seem to have done rather well.
And by done rather well, they have closed out the Kickstarter period as having been funded to the tune of 648 percent. As you can imagine, Anthony Johnson, CMO, PlayJam has said they are “overwhelmed, excited, grateful, thrilled and everything in between.” The final total had the GameStick campaign at $647,658 in 31 days time.
Perhaps more important at this point though, the GameStick will be shipping (to those who backed on Kickstarter) in April 2013. On the flip side, those who missed the Kickstarter can still make a purchase. Pre-orders will be available “shortly” from the gamestick.tv website. For those who are still not familiar with the GameStick, it is an Android powered game console with a controller. The console plugs into your HDTV using HDMI and the system focuses on portability.
The competition here is the OUYA, which is another Android based game console. The difference here seems to be that the GameStick has a bit more to offer in terms of portability. Granted, that is not to say the OUYA is large and heavy to carry around though. All said and done, if you backed the GameStick Kickstarter you have some time to wait before delivery and those who didn’t back, you will soon be able to pre-order.
[via SlashGear]
I backed the gamestick and the ouya.
The ouya has more raw power with the tegra 3 soc but I like the gamestick’s dock and inductive controller charging. Gamestickare attempting to add miracast screen and miraacast display to it and that is just awesome.
All told, the games, the controllers, and the media functionality (xbmc,netflix,etc) need to be top notch for this emerging “micro-console” market to take off. I really hope it does too, since I can imagine an Ouya 2 based on tegra 4 as I want an android settop that does what the Nvidia shield can do.
Also, pretty please gamestick, ouya, whoever, try to make the BT controllers (and mapping software) cross-compatible.