The concept of core (read: controller based) gaming on Android has been a somewhat laughable notion until recently. Despite valiant efforts from companies like Nvidia, MadCatz, and OUYA to push the platform forward, it has become a victim of its own openness, resulting in frustrating barriers. Stuff like fragmentation of both hardware and OS versions, inconsistent controller support, and an increasing infestation of clones has driven many game developers to give preference to Apple's iOS. But the proverbial stars may finally be aligning for Google to compete with consoles and PC gaming in the living room.
After all, we now live in a world where Razer — a company creating products predominantly targeted at hardcore PC gamers — is making an Android TV game console.
Other names are written in those stars. Names like Nvidia. They’ve declared that Google is “bringing PC-class gaming to Android,” in part thanks to the power of their Tegra K1 chip. The other pieces of the puzzle? Android TV, the Android Extension Pack (EAP), and Epic’s Unreal Engine 4. During the Google I/O keynote today, a new demo of Epic’s Unreal Engine 4 showcased some genuinely stunning realtime gaming graphics. “Quite literally this is PC gaming graphics in your pocket,” Google’s David Burke exclaimed. That’s more than marketing hype. Nvidia’s Kepler desktop GPU architecture is present and accounted for in the Tegra K1.
