There are 4,374,746,304,000 TVs in the world but less than 1% of them are used to play games! Crazy.

We think that’s because traditional games consoles and content are too expensive. So 12 months ago, we set out to challenge that by making the most affordable, open and portable TV games console ever created. At $79 GameStick offers the most affordable route to playing games on your TV.

Open

The mobile games market thrives on the use of open platforms and we wanted to bring the same ethos to TV. Open, so that more developers can innovate and develop quickly. Open, so that players can access more great games and get better pricing. Open because it’s about time that the walls keeping independent developers out are smashed down. And so, harnessing the Android ecosystem, GameStick is a completely open platform. If you love creating or playing games, you will love GameStick.

Portable

People are always on the go. Traditional consoles are big. We set out to create a big screen games console that was so small you could pop it in your pocket. It’s tiny! So small in fact that GameStick fits inside it’s own controller so you can take all your games with you to any TV you like, anywhere. Simply plug it into the HDMI slot, grab the controller and play away.

Games

Using Android as the underlying operating system gives us access to all the innovation and content within the mobile, tablet and now PC world. At the last count, (we’re still counting), there were 700,000 Android games in the Android ecosystem. So far we have identified 200 titles that will be great to play on GameStick but we are working with our network of over 250 developers including great studios such as Madfinger, Hutch, Disney and others to bring you the best line-up. What’s really cool is that the average cost of a game on GameStick will be just a few dollars and many will be free to play.

But that’s not all..

We’re about driving and supporting innovation and to prove that, we are making everything we build – our tools, services and developer community available to other manufacturers. We think this will really accelerate change – a good thing for player and the industry as a whole.

Join the revolution

We want to unite gamers around the world through the most basic of human instincts – the desire to play. We all love to play and this project is about bringing the widest group of gamers possible via an open ecosystem.

In the US alone, we spend 250 BILLION hours a year watching TV – that’s 73 days per person. We suggest it’s time to stop watching and start playing.

Status

We have been developing this project for a little over a year now. We have a working prototype of the GameStick as demonstrated below. It’s not as pretty right now as it will be but it’s ours and it’s working. We’re 90% of the way to getting the final pre-production sample in our hands. GameStick works with any Bluetooth controller supporting HID including, we are delighted to say, the Greenthrottle Games controller. Our own Bluetooth controller is in the final design stage designed and is with our engineering and our manufacturing team in China for PCB development. The last thing we are looking at is the final positioning of the GameStick transport slot, which we may move to the rear of the controller – we expect the pre-production samples to be ready in 5-6 weeks.

Our production plan is as follows:

We need you!

This is a big project. We are very lucky to be able to use our existing back-end infrastructure and developer network to get this off the ground. The investments we have made over the past few years allows us to scale up and share our innovation with the wider industry. But…. like all big projects, we need support to bring this to market in a big way. It just can’t happen without you.

Our mission is to help change an industry that is as ripe for change now as the music industry was 10 years ago. We can only do that by being bold and focused on bringing you the best games at the best prices via great products. We would really appreciate your support.

About us

We are PlayJam – an award-winning company that for the past 3 years has strived to bring games into the living room via Smart TV. In that time, we have built the largest games network on Smart TV which to date comprises of free to play games. We are in about 50 million homes today.

The Team, lead by Jasper Smith, a veteran of the interactive games and TV sector, is obsessed about bringing the best possible games experience to the big screen and is constantly looking for new and innovative ways to achieve that goal. Working with Anthony Johnson and Luke Lam, GameStick has been incubated within PlayJam over the last 12 months.

Technical Specifications

• Processor – Amlogic 8726-MX
• Memory – 1GB DDR3 / 8GB FLASH
• WiFi – 802.11 b/g/n
• Bluetooth – LE 4.0
• O/S – Android Jelly Bean
• Controller – Bluetooth, 4 mode controller: icade, gamepad, mouse and keyboard.

Risks and challenges Learn about accountability on Kickstarter

Putting games on TV is in our blood – we’ve been doing it for years, from early Pay TV solutions to today’s Smart TVs. One thing we have learned along the way is that it is never simple. We think we’ve found a great route with GameStick and have been fortunate enough to be able to use a lot of the underlying technology we have already developed to help get this project off the ground.

We’ve worked with some great partners from leading chip manufacturers to R&D and hardware development houses in Asia to get to this point. We have faced some significant design challenges along the way, not least in terms of packing the technology within such a small form factor but also in terms  overheating issues in earlier prototypes which we have now solved through our choice of processor.

We believe we are now 80% there but we need to put the latest prototype through 3rd party rigorous testing. We also need to convince the developer community that their games belong on TV. We have some great games lined up already from some of the most successful Android developers out there but there is still more work to be done. Our energy and focus thus far has been directed at getting to working prototype and planning for launch. Going forward, we will be calling on the more than 250 developers we already work with on TV to join those that have already committed to GameStick plus anyone else as excited as we are by this opportunity.