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[VanWinkle]

The Shield is already considerably more powerful than a Vita, and isn't held down by super high definition target screen like the iPad 4.

Fair, but people don't make games for Shield, and you won't see $40 games with huge budgets on there either. Basically, Vita games will continue to look better in many ways than mobile games for awhile.

 

[Lonely1]

Fair, but people don't make games for Shield, and you won't see $40 games with huge budgets on there either. Basically, Vita games will continue to look better in many ways than mobile games for awhile.

Well, that is true. But is not like Vita has a brilliant high end software support in its future after Killzone.

 

[jcm]

Well, sure but it still seems weird. Amazon is a retailer. They don't have any experience actually building anything. At least Sorny and MIcrosoft were actual tech related companies when they jumped in.

Among many other business lines, Amazon sells content, and they make and sell devices to consume that content.

 

[Lonely1]

Among many other business lines, Amazon sells content, and they make and sell devices to consume that content.

And is not like is a massive undertaking. If Ouya Inc managed to ship something functional, Amazon shouldn't have problems shipping something significantly better,

 

[Zarx]

Fair, but people don't make games for Shield, and you won't see $40 games with huge budgets on there either. Basically, Vita games will continue to look better in many ways than mobile games for awhile.

There actually are a few games that are coming natively to the shield including HAWKEN and ArmA Tactics.

 

[MesserWolf]

I'm not sure the average consumer would notice a huge difference.

2012 Multiplayer iOS Game:

2013 Campaign Mode Vita:

Even if they would notice, I am not sure how many would care of such difference among the average consumers

 

[lifeexpectancy]

I really don't get the point of this unless it's less than $100, like $50-$75.

I see people saying "$199 and a couple good games and I might bite". WHY???

You can go out and get a quality 360 slim or PS3 slim and a couple games easily for under $200. Hell I saw a PS3 on Craigslist with like 5 games for $150. How on earth can a glorified set-top box/cell phone game machine even compete with that? It can't. It would have to be EXTREMELY low-end cost wise (aka $50-75) to even remotely tempt anyone with any degree of sense.

You can download games of XBLA or PSN (you don't need XBL gold or PS+ to buy games) without paying a dime for the free to play games. Granted, those games aren't as plentiful as on cell phones but they also have lots of sales. I picked up The Orange Box and DMC 4 for 5 bucks each, and some really quality XBLA titles for like $1-2 during big sales.

I just don't see how this thing competes if it costs over $100.

 

[MadOdorMachine]

I really don't get the point of this unless it's less than $100, like $50-$75.

I see people saying "$199 and a couple good games and I might bite". WHY???

You can go out and get a quality 360 slim or PS3 slim and a couple games easily for under $200. Hell I saw a PS3 on Craigslist with like 5 games for $150. How on earth can a glorified set-top box/cell phone game machine even compete with that? It can't. It would have to be EXTREMELY low-end cost wise (aka $50-75) to even remotely tempt anyone with any degree of sense.

You can download games of XBLA or PSN (you don't need XBL gold or PS+ to buy games) without paying a dime for the free to play games. Granted, those games aren't as plentiful as on cell phones but they also have lots of sales. I picked up The Orange Box and DMC 4 for 5 bucks each, and some really quality XBLA titles for like $1-2 during big sales.

I just don't see how this thing competes if it costs over $100.

When IOS and Android games have normal controls as standard, things might change. Plus apparently Amazon are making their own games. I also doubt it would be more than $150. As you and many others have already said, it would be a failure at any price over that.

 

[TouchMyBox]

I'm hoping we see a android games console with some real support that runs on the tegra 5. That should be delicious.

 

[MadOdorMachine]

I'm hoping we see a android games console with some real support that runs on the tegra 5. That should be delicious.

Yeah, their mobile Kepler chip is impressive to say the least.

 

[M3d10n]

When IOS and Android games have normal controls as standard, things might change. Plus apparently Amazon are making their own games. I also doubt it would be more than $150. As you and many others have already said, it would be a failure at any price over that.

The real draw of Android and iOS, for developers and publishers, is the gigantic userbase that already exists there because those are super cool multipurpose devices people buy for countless reasons.

The popularity of these platforms has little to do with the quality or even the price of games available: the games are extras and people would still buy these devices in droves even if they didn't have any games. This is why low budget games for such platforms are both low risk and bring big returns: a large amount of people actually like playing games, but only a fraction like it enough to "commit" to it in some form, be it buying a dedicated device, buying a controller for their multipurpose device, buying a paid game, buying IAP for a free game or even talking about games with their peers.

When you remove mobile/tablet games from their environment and put them into a box whose main purpose is gaming (a device that hooks up to a TV and has a game controller as primary input device), they lose the advantage of a preexisting audience that "might as well play a game if it isn't too much trouble" because now there *is* trouble: you'll have a controller in your living room and a device hooked to your TV and wall socket for everyone to see, something very different from the dirty hidden folder full of "dirty" games in your phone or a bunch of Flash games in your computer bookmark.

It's like porn. Tons of people browse porn in their phones but only a fraction subscribe to porn cable channels.

 

[MadOdorMachine]

The real draw of Android and iOS, for developers and publishers, is the gigantic userbase that already exists there because those are super cool multipurpose devices people buy for countless reasons.

The popularity of these platforms has little to do with the quality or even the price of games available: the games are extras and people would still buy these devices in droves even if they didn't have any games. This is why low budget games for such platforms are both low risk and bring big returns: a large amount of people actually like playing games, but only a fraction like it enough to "commit" to it in some form, be it buying a dedicated device, buying a controller for their multipurpose device, buying a paid game, buying IAP for a free game or even talking about games with their peers.

When you remove mobile/tablet games from their environment and put them into a box whose main purpose is gaming (a device that hooks up to a TV and has a game controller as primary input device), they lose the advantage of a preexisting audience that "might as well play a game if it isn't too much trouble" because now there *is* trouble: you'll have a controller in your living room and a device hooked to your TV and wall socket for everyone to see, something very different from the dirty hidden folder full of "dirty" games in your phone or a bunch of Flash games in your computer bookmark.

It's like porn. Tons of people browse porn in their phones but only a fraction subscribe to porn cable channels.

How hard is it to add controller support? Come on now. Also, if Amazon is releasing a box and building their own dev teams, don't you think they're going to have some exclusives? Some games obviously won't work with a controller and I imagine they wouldn't be available for the console. The point is to make the games compatible going forward.