Consola Android

[Jorge-Vieira]

Android Console Obox Slated for 2016 Launch in the UK

Obox, the Chinese Android-powered gaming console, is coming to the UK in 2016, its creator Snail has announced. Snail is better known as the developer of free-to-play MMO Age of Wushu, but has risen to become the fifth-largest mobile network provider in China.
Despite its reveal at the recent Consumer Electronics Show (CES) earlier this year, Obox is one of the best-kept secrets in gaming at present. Unlike fellow Android gaming platforms Ouya and Gamestick, the size of the Obox console is comparable to the Xbox One.
The Obox also boasts some impressive hardware, packing in an NVIDIA Tegra K1 processor, 4GB RAM, three HDMI ports, WiFi and LAN connectivity, and a whopping 4TB on-board storage. Obox can output 5.1 surround sound, plus 4K and 3D picture. Its Xbox-esque controller doubles up as an air-mouse, while Snail’s W3D phone/console hybrid can be used as an additional gamepad.
Though the price of the console is yet to be announced, the Obox is expected on UK shores early next year.

Noticia:
http://www.eteknix.com/android-conso...016-launch-uk/

[Winjer]

Depois do falhanço que foi a Ouya, até admira que haja quem queira avançar com mais uma.

[Filipe]

Para os jogos do android já existe os smartphones e os tablets, para quê uma consola para fazer isso?

[Jorge-Vieira]

ZRRO lets you play Android games on your TV for $149

Allowing users to play Android games, run Android apps, browse the internet and watch Netflix,the ZRRO Box sets out to be a new-age console, telling Razer that "We'll Take It From Here" - as seen in their release headline.



Currently on Kickstarter, this project has raised $35,392 in only a few days and is looking at a $200,000 total target with 41 more days to reach it.

Set out to turn your TV into somewhat of a "huge tablet," the ZRRO Pad will track and mirror your fingers' 3D position onto your TV, meaning you hover your finger over the pad to move your position and press the screen itself to select. You can also pinch, swipe and drag - just like other portable devices.

Along with the advanced controller, the package comes complete with the ZRRO BOX, which is the console itself - offering support for up to 4K resolution, with 2GB of DDR3 RAM, a quad-core processor and 16GB of internal storage.

As with almost-all Kickstarter campaigns, there is a myriad of different donation options available. An investment of $149 will see you receive the early-bird basic console package, including console itself and one controller. Bumping it up to $179 grants you a handy carry case on-top. Once the early bird deals have been exhausted, the general console pack will set you back $199.

image: http://imagescdn.tweaktown.com/news/...mes-tv-149.jpg

Noticia:
http://www.tweaktown.com/news/43599/...149/index.html

[Jorge-Vieira]

Imagination Eyes Low-Cost Android Consoles With High-End PowerVR GT7900 GPU

Today, Imagination Technologies announced its new top of the line mobile GPU and successor to the PowerVR GX6650, the PowerVR GT7900.
The new GPU comes with 2.6x more ALUs than the GX6650, which is 512 "cores" in total, combined in 16 Unified Shader Clusters. The GX6650 had only 192 ALUs and six clusters. This will give the GT7900 more than triple the performance of the GX6650.
Imagination expects the higher performance to be kept in check by the transition to the newer 14nm and 16nm FinFET process nodes later this year. Also, this new GPU is mainly targeted at inexpensive mini-consoles (such as Android TVs), which could afford extra cooling compared to a mobile phone or tablet.
The PowerVR GT7900 aims to bring "PC-class" gaming with powerful hardware and support for the OpenGL ES 3.1 graphics API and the Android Expansion Pack (geometry shaders, tessellation, ASTC LDR and HDR texture compression standards, and so on).
Imagination also added hardware virtualization inside the GT7900 GPU so it can support multiple operating systems without a drastic hit in performance. This feature could be especially useful for enterprise customers who want to keep personal environments separated from work environments, even on mobile devices. The feature can be found in Imagination's MIPS Warrior CPU, as well.

Even though most CPU or GPU designers these days focus on "burst" or "turbo" speeds that win popular mobile benchmarks, which run for only a few minutes, which isn't enough time to really heat up the device, Imagination seems to remain focused on sustained performance. Fortunately, when it comes to gaming, sustained performance is really all that matters. If a GPU or CPU can only run at its full advertised speed for 5-10 minutes, and then its performance drops by half in order to keep the device's internals from melting down, that doesn't provide a very good user experience.

A new feature that came with the Rogue architecture is PowerGearing. This is a saving mechanism that automatically shuts off parts of the GPU in power-constrained applications. In other words, the GPU's performance will only be activated as needed, rather than the whole GPU being fully activated at all times and consuming more power.
Just like Nvidia's Tegra X1, Imagination brings a bigger focus on the high-performance/low-power FP16 mode that can reach up to 1.6 TFLOPS. The GT7900 GPU can reach 800 GFLOPS in the FP32 mode.
All the new GPUs being announced right now will feature (true) 4k support, and the PowerVR GT7900 is not missing this feature either. In fact, the GT7900 is the second PowerVR generation to support 10-bit YUV color support, which is an essential part of the UHD/4k standard. Imagination's new GPU can also easily handle 4k video playback at a smooth 60 fps.
Imagination also offered a sneak peek at the Dwarf Hall console demo, which is to be fully unveiled at GDC this year. Some of the effects in the Dwarf Hall demo include:

• 1 million triangles per frame in some scenes
• Deferred shading with 128-bit physically-based G-buffer
• Many dynamic lights
• Multiple specular probes treated as lights
• Soft particles
• Lens flare effects
• Full post-process pipeline with color correction, saturation, dynamic exposure and HDR tonemapping

System makers interested in building an affordable console with PC-class gaming and true 4k video playback support could buy the full SoC solution from Imagination, which includes:

• a main dual-threaded processor quad-core I6400 MIPS CPU that's organized in two clusters and supports Android 5.0 Lollipop
• the new PowerVR GT7900 GPU
• PowerVR Series5 video encode and decode processors (VPU)
• PowerVR V2500 camera processor (ISP)
• Hi-Fi audio microcontroller
• an Ensigma radio processor which includes 2x2 MIMO 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 (and Bluetooth Smart/LE) and digital radio
• Ensigma security module
• other components as needed

Imagination is advertising its new PowerVR GT7900 GPU for the 14/16nm FinFET process nodes, which will only be available later this year. That means products that will include the GT7900 will only begin shipping late this year. More information will be revealed at MWC next week.

Noticia:
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/ima...les,28638.html

[Jorge-Vieira]

Razer Forge TV Android Micro Console Is Now Available To Pre-Order Starting At $100

Just when you thought the whole Android micro-console craze might have run its course, here comes Razer ready to shake up the category with its Forge TV, winner of eight awards in January at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, including a pair of "Best of CES" awards. Needless to say, the hype is high for this pint-sized gadget, but should you pre-order one?

You'll have to decide that for yourself, and while you mull it over, here's what you need to know. Forge TV is a NUC-sized device that measures 105mm by 105mm by 17mm (4.1 inches by 4.1 inches by 0.7 inches). Inside and around the diminutive console is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 System-on-Chip (SoC) with a quad-core Krait 450 CPU clocked at 2.5GHz and Adreno 420 graphics.

image: http://hothardware.com/ContentImages...rge_Gaming.jpg

"Powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 processor, the Razer Forge TV is designed to bring gamers console-quality graphics and an immersive gameplay experience to their living room," said Raj Talluri, senior vice president of product management, Qualcomm Technologies Inc. "Its high-quality video-post processing capabilities and high-capacity video engine also enable great picture quality with multi-video decode, making it a great platform for video services."

It also boasts 2GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage, 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.1 + HS, GbE LAN, HDMI 1.4 output, USB 3.0, and Android 5.0 Lollipop.

image: http://hothardware.com/ContentImages...azer_Forge.jpg

Forge TV strives to be an affordable living room entertainment box that's capable of playing the next generation of Android games and serving up movies, TV shows, and music. There's a huge selection of apps, and you can search for content via voice using the Android remote app. It's also Google Cast ready.

Razer's Forge TV console is available to pre-order for $99.99 and will ship within two weeks. There's also a Serval Android controller bundle for $149.99 that includes the Forge TV and a single controller (it supports up to four controllers). And sometime later, Razer will offer a gaming keyboard and mouse lapboard called Turret.

Noticia:
http://hothardware.com/news/razer-fo...QUyYw28keQo.99

[Jorge-Vieira]

Android console maker Ouya said to be looking for a quick sale

Things have gone from bad to worse for struggling Android game console maker Ouya. After falling on hard times over the past year or two, the company inked a deal with Xiaomi to bring its catalog of games to China. That ray of hope appears to have moved on, however, as CEO Julie Uhrman is said to be looking for a quick sale.
In a confidential e-mail to investors and advisors obtained by Fortune, Uhrman said the company is looking to drum up interest by the end of the month. The primary focus right now is simply trying to recover as much investor capital as possible, she added.
Uhrman was quick to stand by her product, saying they believe they’ve built something real and valuable. In the memo, she said she continues to read tweets and e-mails from fans that play the console every day and their catalog now consists of more than 1,000 apps from 40,000 developers.
Ouya got its start on Kickstarter in the summer of 2012 and quickly became one of the site’s early successes. In total, backers pledged a whopping $8.59 million which still ranks fifth among the all-time most funded campaigns behind the Pebble Time, Coolest Cooler, the original Pebble and the Exploding Kittens card game.
Despite its early pop, the company had a hard time convincing casual buyers to spend money on it and differentiating itself from the eventual copycat Android consoles.

Noticia:
http://www.techspot.com/news/60510-a...uick-sale.html

[Jorge-Vieira]

Android game console Ouya dead

This is an ex-Parrot
Following Razer's takeover of the company, the open-source console Ouya is officially dead.

The Android-based Ouya console had a lot going for it it was open source, cheap, and had crowdfunded itself a success. A troubled launch and stagnant left the Ouya as nothing to be excited about. Razer's interest be in the software side of the company, including its digital store, which will be rebranded as Cortex for Android TV, for Razer's own Forge TV platform.
Razer Co-Founder and CEO Min-Liang Tan said that Razer had a long-term vision for Android TV and Android-based TV consoles, such as the Xiaomi Mi Box and Alibaba Tmall Box, to which OUYA already publishes.
"OUYA's work with game developers, both triple A and indies, went a long way in bringing Android games to the living room and Razer intends to further that work. This acquisition is envisaged to usher more developers and content to the Android TV platform."
Those who bought an Ouya, will be migrated to the Forge console and controller, with their entire games collection, and with some discounts to boot.
Tragically though, it seems the Ouya hardware is officially deader than a Norwegian Blue.

Noticia:
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/38327-a...sole-ouya-dead

[Jorge-Vieira]

Razer to honour Ouya Free the Games funding commitments

Although the Android Ouya console failed to make the splash its developers hoped, one aspect of its platform did impress a lot of indies: its Free the Game promotion. With it, Ouya promised to match whatever developers were able to raise on Kickstarter from a million dollar fund. The plan was to dole out the additional funds in waves when the game hit beta, was released and eventually left Ouya exclusivity, but due to its buyout by Razer, several developers recently announced that they didn’t expect to receive anything.
That was because earlier this year, Ouya added a caveat to its Free the Games policy, which gave it an out if there was an issue of bankruptcy or insolvency. While that hasn’t happened, it initially appeared as if it would be using the Razer buyout as a way to avoid paying any outstanding fees to developers.

Fortunately then, Razer has announced that it will honour any and all of Ouya’s pledges, which it claims total around $620,000, to some 27 developers (as per Eurogamer). While confirmed by Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan, he said he was surprised that the promotion hadn’t been completed, since it was launched more than two years ago. He also explained that although Razer didn’t have any obligation to fulfil the pledge, it would do, thinking it the right thing to do to support the indie developers and to bolster the current library of titles on its Forge platform.
To be eligible, developers that were part of the original scheme will need to sign on to the new platform. Its rules have changed a little, with Razer no longer requiring exclusivity. Instead, it wants developers to use the funds to provide a certain number of copies (equal in cost to the funded money) to Cortex TV users for free.

Noticia:
http://www.kitguru.net/desktop-pc/co...g-commitments/

[Jorge-Vieira]

Razer Will Honor Ouya Devs 'Free The Games' Fund Agreements

Earlier this week, Razer announced that it had purchased micro-console maker and game distribution platform Ouya for an undisclosed sum. The transaction details weren't made public, but the company did state that it had purchased the software assets, distribution platform and the name of the company, but it had no intention of moving forward with the hardware side of Ouya's business.
One aspect of the deal that was unclear was a previous Ouya program for independent developers to receive funding, and the fate of the agreements already in place with many developers.
Shortly after Razer's announcement, several publications ran stories about independent developers who were owed thousands of dollars for games that were to be released on the platform. Ouya had started a program called Free the Games Fund, which set aside $1 million to be distributed to indie developers who launched a Kickstarter campaign before August 10, 2014, managed to raise at least $50,000 in funding, and agreed to launching exclusively on Ouya for at least six months.
In exchange, developers would receive a 100 percent match of the Kickstarter funding up to a maximum of $250,000, until the $1 million fund dried up. The official rules stated that 50 percent of the funds would be awarded upon completion of a playable beta, 25 percent when the game is made available, and 25 percent when the exclusivity agreement expires.
According to an article published on Motherboard, where they stated a contract was provided to them, a provision exists that can essentially void the contract in the event of bankruptcy or insolvency. In the same article, a spokesperson from Razer was quoted as saying that the Free the Games fund was not part of the acquisition.
Razer has since announced that it will be honoring the agreements of developers taking part in the Free the Games program. The company said the fund is estimated to have as much as $620,000 in agreements, and Razer plans to fulfill them all. FtG developers will be required to sign up for the new Ouya publishing agreement to receive their milestone benefits, as there are currently no ongoing relationships between Razer and the FtG developers, legal or not.
The company has largely left the financial agreements in place, with one notable change: Developers will no longer be required to have exclusivity agreements. Razer has no plans to limit Ouya developers to one platform, and will encourage publishing to all Android gaming platforms.
Instead of exclusivity, Razer will be requiring that developers fork over the equivalent dollar figure in game licenses to be distributed for free on the Cortex TV platform. Razer gave an example of a $1 game receiving $10,000 dollars in funding. That developer would provide 10,000 free copies of the game in exchange.

Noticia:
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/raz...und,29706.html

[Jorge-Vieira]

This Bold Chinese Console Is a Mix between the PS4 and Xbox One

It’s definitely not uncommon for the Chinese to create replicas, whether we’re talking about iPhones, watches or clothes. However, this time they’ve managed to rip off both of the world’s most popular gaming consoles at once by creating a bold knockoff that includes some of their most iconic design features. Dubbed, “Ouye”, which is suspiciously similar to “Ouya”, the console’s body appears to be a clear replica of a PlayStation 4, while the controller is basically a modified version of the iconic Xbox One controller.



Now just because it looks the part, this does not meant that this Ouye is capable of handling any impressive games, as it is powered by a relatively weak octa-core A80 processor and a Power VR G6230 GPU. It also runs modified version of Android 4.4.2. Consequently, its price tag sits somewhere at around $70, and I really see no reason why any gamer would want to purchase it apart from using it as a decoration piece. Fortunately, the console has received some negative feedback from gamers given its obvious design rip-off. Ouye was unveiled on a Chinese Kickstarter website, and its creators hope to raise $15,000. I really wouldn’t get my hopes up, but we’ll just have to wait and see how many of these things will actually find buyers.
Thank you Kotaku for providing us with this information.

Noticia:
http://www.eteknix.com/bold-chinese-...-ps4-xbox-one/


Android PSX1

[Jorge-Vieira]

Razer Forge TV Gains Cortex Game Store, Absorbs Ouya Titles

In an effort to expand the software available for its Forge TV game console, Razer released the Cortex Game Store with hundreds of games.
Initially, the Cortex Game Store will offer over 240 games that can be purchased by anyone who owns a Forge TV. Many of these games are carried over from Ouya’s proprietary marketplace, which Razer obtained earlier this year when it bought out Ouya. This additional content strengthens the Forge TV’s position in the Android gaming market by providing content, which is not available on the Google Play Store.
Over time, Razer plans to extend the Cortex Game Store with new titles curated for the Forge TV. Unlike some other Android gaming alternatives, like the Nvidia Shield TV that has numerous PC games available over a proprietary streaming service, the Forge TV has to rely solely on the content available on the Google Play Store and on the new Cortex Game Store to attract users.
This makes the success of this new service vitally important if the company wants to differentiate itself from other Android devices. Even with its own marketplace, Ouya struggled in the heavily overpopulated and highly competitive Android market, so the new content Razer adds later may be key to the success or failure of the Forge TV.
Forge TV users will be able to access the Cortex Game Store after installing the latest system update that was released today. Razer is offering users a $10 credit in the store to first-time users (which is everyone) to help get the store going.

Noticia:
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/raz...uya,30799.html