Do you remember the Android gaming box called Gamepop that was set to take over your living room gaming experience? It was big news early last year, but it sort of fell off the radar. But you’d be wrong to consider Gamepop a dead concept, as their current round of funding just got a big bump by Samsung.
With Samsung’s contribution, Gamepop’s manufacturer, BlueStacks, adds $13 million to their total raised in their current campaign to deliver Gamepop as a white-label solution for TV makers and cable providers.
BlueStacks is an Android virtualization program for Windows and Mac that allows you to run Android apps on your PC. They even have some efforts going with partner AMD to bring a dual-OS Android/Windows PC to market later this year. We wonder how that will differ from previous bundled efforts. As you’d imagine, this virtualization is used to power the Gamepop platform.
Gamepop was originally slated to be a set-top box, not entirely unlike Android TV, the Amazon Fire TV, and of course, one of the original Android gaming boxes, Ouya. Poor reviews of the initial hardware knocked the wind out of their sails. In deciding to support BlueStacks, Samsung praised Gamepop’s techniques for translating touch input to TVs and remote controls. A player like Samsung would be more than capable of building Gamepop as a white-label service directly into their huge line of televisions.
Gamepop has a few new backers this year, with Ubisoft and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment stepping up in March. Qualcomm, Intel, Redpoint, ARM and others are already on the books as contributors to BlueStacks current funding campaign.
BlueStacks claims that they’ve got a few other big names in their partners list, but they are keeping quiet on who they may be. They also dropped the hint that they will announce soon a major partnership that could make a huge difference moving forward. We were excited for Gamepop last year, let’s hope things happen a little faster for them this year.
What do you think, can a BlueStacks powered Android gaming service change your Android-in-the-living-room experience?
from Android Authority http://ift.tt/WGXq4A
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