If this is the alternative, then those despised virtual touchscreen controls may not be so bad after all.

The Wikipad gaming tablet, due out this spring for $249, answered the call. Gamers hated playing traditional console-style action games using pretend analog sticks and buttons on flat mobile touchscreens. Without the tactile sensation of actually pushing something with your thumbs, you just couldn’t get the same responsiveness as you would with standard joypad controllers or systems like the PlayStation Vita. So what to do? The best-of-all-worlds solution seemed easy enough: Pair up a gaming-capable tablet with physical controls.

It was a great idea on paper, but someone forgot to write “good design” on that same sheet.

The packaging

The box is actually really nice and deserves some mention. It has a soft-rubber coating, slick photography and typography, and molded foam inserts to hold everything snuggly in place. Wikipad’s packaging was perhaps the most impressive part of the entire product. While opening it up, I felt like I was unwrapping an expensive, high-end gadget — something that belongs in the Apple store or, at the very least, behind a locked glass case at Best Buy.

It’s a bit like putting an Armani suit on a hot dog.

The tablet

Maybe that’s a little harsh since the tablet itself is fairly nice as well, and that’s what most of your money is going toward. It has a 7″ screen and boasts an Nvidia Tegra 3 quad-core mobile processor. It’s a lightweight-yet-powerful Android alternative to the iPad. (See the full specs here.)

On the back is a rubberized skin, with raised ridges that form a rectangular-shaped box.

These ridges not only help you grip the Wikipad when it’s out of its controller holster but slightly elevate the tablet when it’s resting face-up. The idea is to make sure the speakers get more breathing room and can clear the table the device is lying on for better sound output.

The controller

So far, so good, but you’re probably not curious about the Wikipad because of those ridges (or even the base tablet itself) — you want the console-like controls. While they functionally work just fine — the analog sticks and buttons do what they’re supposed to do — they feel so utterly cheap that you wonder if the packaging costs more to manufacture.

The buttons and D-pad look like they’re made of low-grade plastic painted in a crappy shiny chrome (like the original Xbox 360 disc-tray covers). The entire controller cradle is way bigger than you would expect of something that’s supposed to hug a slim 7″ tablet. When I first wrapped my hands around the side grips, I was simply shocked at how hefty and cumbersome the whole thing felt. For those of you who say that even Nintendo’s Wii U GamePad tablet controller is too bulky, the Wikipad is going to feel like you’re playing with a GameCube console — in your hands.

I playtested the Wikipad with Hockey Nations (a standard team hockey game) and Dead Trigger (an anti-zombie first-person shooter), both of which come preloaded with the system. Neither game looked that amazing from a graphical standpoint, but they showed off smooth animations in 3D environments. The buttons seemed responsive enough; though, the overall girth of the controller made lifting my right thumb off the analog stick to hit a button an awkward affair.

The analog sticks themselves may have too wide a range of motion. For Hockey Nations, that wasn’t much of a problem, but for Dead Trigger, I could never aim at zombies’ heads precisely enough. At no point did I feel like I was playing an Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 first-person shooter simply because the right stick had too much give in it.

The tablet itself is elegant, but the controller is not. Perhaps I missed some settings that could refine the analog controls a bit, and maybe in the future, we’ll see a “Wikipad Slim” designed for those of us who don’t have thick-cut meaty mitts. But as it is, I’m not too impressed with this attempt at turning a tablet into a console.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Console-style gaming on an Android tablet finally gets a start date now that Wikipad (the company) has set a new release window for its 7-inch slate with video-game-controller-style buttons.

Wikipad (the product) will debut at retail in spring for $249. The hardware company previously introduced a 10-inch tablet, which is still coming, but it plans to revamp its specs.

“We wanted to get Wikipad into our community’s hands, and what we found was that the smaller, 7-inch form factor just seemed right,’” Wikipad president of sales Fraser Townley said in a statement. “The smaller frame delivers an aggressive price while keeping the same amazing specs.”

The Wikipad has full access to the Google Play market, the PlayStation Mobile store, the Nvidia Tegrazone, and more. While the Google Play market is crowded and focused on touch-control games, every game on PlayStation Mobile is controller optimized.

To provide the best gaming experience, this Android device comes wrapped in a shell that provides full physical controls. The tablet runs Android 4.1 Jelly Bean on an Nvidia Tegra 3 processor with 16GB of storage and 1GB of RAM. It’s slightly more powerful than Google’s own Nexus 7.

Nvidia recently announced plans for Tegra 4 at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). It’s significantly more powerful than the previous chip. While Tegra 3 is no slouch and should provide great performance in games, it wouldn’t surprise me to find the 10-inch Wikipad is using that technology.

The company would only say that the 10-inch device is still evolving to include the latest and greatest specs.

Wikipad’s 10-inch tablet was due out late last year, but the company discovered a flaw in pilot production. This sent the design team back to improving the design of the controller shell.

That delay is probably for the best.

The 7-inch Wikipad is now aggressively price at $249. That’s the same price as a 32GB Nexus 7, and while Wikipad is a gaming-first product, it is also fully capable as an Android tablet.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Finnish startup Rightware is finding more and more homes for its Kanzi user interface, a fancy 3D layer for websites and mobile devices. It is available with an improved version today.

The second generation of the Kanzi user-interface development platform is being adopted in a variety of products. That’s because people need a nifty, smooth, and eye-catching way to view the increasingly complex information displayed on their tablets, smartphones, and car dashboards. And the user interface has to move fast as people change screens or drill down on menus, said Tero Sarkkinen, the co-founder of Rightware, in an interview with VentureBeat.

“We’ve got a new generation of Kanzi coming, and it will be used in a new generation of devices,” said Sarkkinen. “The graphics will be fluid and fast. We’re becoming the gold standard in user interfaces.”

The flow of new customers for Kanzi version 2.6 is gaining momentum. Kanzi is being used for the in-dash infotainment systems in the whole fleet of cars made by Audi. Johnson Controls is using Kanzi to design the user-interface screens for car computers, such as instrument panels or navigation screens.

It is also available as an interface for apps on smartphones and tablets. One of those is the Nabi XD kids tablet computer from Fuhu. And Qualcomm has adopted Kanzi for its QRD reference platform for mobile devices. And RKS Design, an industrial design firm in Thousands Oaks, Calif., is using Kanzi for the design of tablets, smart TVs, and other embedded gadgets.

To make a user interface the right way, the creators have to craft the screen so it can be refreshed constantly, and pixels have to match precisely. App makers license the technology to do that from Rightware and use Kanzi to create custom user interfaces. Those interfaces can take advantage of high-end 3D graphics effects, but they run smoothly. That’s because Rightware optimized Kanzi for OpenGL ES, the open-source graphics standard technology. With OpenGL ES compatibility, Kanzi can tap the 3D graphics hardware in a device to draw its eye-catching imagery in a speedy way.

Espoo, Finland-based Rightware started as a part of graphics benchmarking firm Futuremark in 2004. Its goal was to create user interfaces for mobile computing. Sarkkinen left Futuremark in 2009 and immediately spun Rightware out of it. He raised $4.5 million, and on Jan. 3, he announced that he had recruited former Nokia executive Jonas Guest as chief executive. Sarkkinen, meanwhile, heads the company’s business in North America. Guest served as a member of Rightware’s board before taking the position, and he spent 15 years at Nokia.

Earlier, Rightware said its customers included Wikipad, a mobile tablet gaming company (interface pictured at bottom). Wikipad has licensed Kanzi so players can browse through a game library quickly. Asus uses it in its Transformer convertible tablet/laptop. Fantasy Dice uses Rightware as a gaming interface.

It has a small team that designs user interfaces for a fee, but for the most part, it supplies tools for developers to use themselves. The interface tool allows developers to see the changes they make to a design in real time. The tools are available for sale now for $10,999 at the high end. Rightware is also providing a version for app developers for $999.

Rightware has 52 employees in Finland and offices in the U.S. and China. Sarkkinen said the company plans to raise a new round of funding later this year.

Normally, we video game guys don’t have to work too hard when it comes to covering consumer electronics. We have a few consoles, a few handhelds, maybe a few peripherals here and again, but it’s nothing like crazy world of phones and tablets … or at least it wasn’t.

This year, something happened: We started getting video game consoles from companies other than Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft.

These alternative gaming devices, sometimes called microconsoles, come in all shapes, sizes, and flavors. You want to stream your games like Netflix? You can do that. Want to play Android-based games on a tablet with controls built into a handle? That’s a thing. Want Valve’s Steam experience on your television? It’s happening.

But it’s damn hard to keep up with everything. How do they work? What kind of games will they run? How much do they cost? OK — I’m panicking now just thinking about putting all of this information together for you … but I did.

We’ll try to keep this easy. Let’s get started.

Android-based microconsoles

Ouya

Price: $99
Release date: March (preorders)/April (retail)
Website: Ouya.tv

The Ouya is the single biggest reason I’m explaining all of this. When the tiny console box launched on Kickstarter — and raked in over $8 million from backers — it created more questions about the future of gaming than it answered.

Ouya’s basic concept is to bring the open platform of Android gaming to the television. It accomplishes this by providing a cheap box that has the guts of a smartphone but doesn’t rely on touch-screen controls. Instead, it comes with a physical controller with buttons, analog sticks, and everything else that gamers require to rack up a dozen headshots in a first-person shooter.

The console plays Android games, most of which aren’t designed for a controller, so Ouya is also a digital-distribution platform that will showcase original games (and Android games that the developer redesigned for physical controls).

On top of that, Ouya’s creators also promise the device is completely open to hacking. That means emulators and piracy. A good chunk of consumers may get something like Ouya just to play classic Super Nintendo games on one of the many Android emulator apps. A bunch more might get the system and pirate Android games (not that the developers can’t fight that on their level with authentication).

For Ouya to succeed, it will have to build a library of games that convince a portion of the audience to get their software directly through the new microconsole. This is possible.

Ouya is about to ship out to consumers in just a few months. It could easily launch with games like Minecraft Pocket Edition and others that already have full controller support.

The little Android has a few months to prove it’s worth the HDMI input it’s taking up on your television, otherwise people are likely to forget it as the new consoles come pouring down and wash it away.

GameStick

Price: $79
Release date: April
Website: Gamestick.tv

Take everything I wrote about Ouya and apply it to GameStick. It’s nearly all the same, but the GameStick is smaller than Ouya and $20 cheaper.

This thumb-drive-sized HDMI device uses Android. It has smartphone-like components. It comes with a physical controller. It has its own digital distribution platform.

The main difference between Ouya and GameStick is that PlayJam, the company behind this tiny device, is a game developer first. That could mean the GameStick will have better software support.

GameStick’s Kickstarter still has nine days left. So far, 4,240 backers contributed over $450,000.

Android-based tablet-controller hybrids

Project Shield

Price: ?
Release date: Q2 2013
Website: Shield.nvidia.com

Now things start getting weird. We went full hands-on with Nvidia’s Project Shield Android handheld at the Consumer Electronics Show. That’s when we discovered Project Shield is an impressive gaming device with some seriously cool features.

Nvidia’s handheld looks like an Xbox controller with a TV jammed into it. It features the company’s next-gen Tegra 4 processor and a 5-inch touch screen that flips up during gameplay.

It’s another controller-focused take on Android gaming. It has an HDMI port, so gamers can plug it into their televisions and use it just like Ouya. Developers are gonna have a lot of options if they want to make a mobile game that supports physical buttons.

But Project Shield has something Ouya and GameStick do not: The ability to stream games from your PC directly to the portable unit. This doesn’t mean you’ll be playing The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim on the bus, but your PC could feed games to the system if you’re sitting on your couch. In that way, the device is a lot like a Wii U GamePad controller for the PC. Only instead of New Super Mario Bros. U, gamers can tap into their entire Steam libraries.

If Nvidia prices Project Shield competitively, it will take a lot of the oomph out of the impact that the other Android alternatives will have.

Wikipad

Price: $499
Release date: 2013
Website: wikipad.com

Wikipad is the name of the company and the product. The device is a 10-inch Android-based tablet that comes with a game-controller dock. This shell adds analog sticks, face buttons, and shoulder buttons to what is otherwise a pretty standard Android slate. Those controls, however, allow for precision in games from both the Google Play market and the PlayStation Store.

Sony provides a lot of classic PlayStation titles on its Android store, and a system with physical controls is the ideal way to experience them. Only Sony-approved devices can access its store, so hopefully GameStick, Ouya, and Project Shield can get on that list.

Wikipad should have launched its tablet in late 2012, but it delayed it. It still isn’t available, and the tech grows old. Tegra 3 is capable, but Tegra 4 hardware is due out as early as April and will likely blow it away.

Windows-based tablet-controller hybrid

Razer Edge

Price: $999 (base)/$1299 (pro)/$1499 (pro + gamepad)
Release date: Q3 2013
Website: Razerzone.com

OK, enough Android. Perhaps you prefer your console/handheld alternatives to have a PC flavor? Gaming equipment company Razer might have what you need.

It’s called Razer Edge. It’s a 10-inch Windows-based gaming tablet with screaming hardware. The $999 “basic” version starts with a Intel Core i5 1.7 GHz processor that can overclock to 2.6 GHz. It has 4 GB RAM, 64 GB SSD, and a GeForce GT 640M graphics card all packed into something not much bigger than a standard tablet. The $1299 Pro model upgrades the system to a Core i7, 8 GB RAM, and 128 or 256 GB SSD.

A rig with the Edge’s specs can run Skyrim at around medium to high settings. That’s not bad for a portable device.

Add $200 to the price and it comes with a controller dock similar to the Wikipad. Razer Edge also has a keyboard dock for traditional gaming and a living-room dock with a plethora of inputs and outputs. Just like most things on this list, the Razer Edge can connect to your TV, work with wireless controllers, and replace your console.

Valve-approved Windows/Linux-based Steam Box things

Xi3 Piston

Price: $999
Release date: March
Website: Xi3.com

The Steam Box is something much more nebulous than the Xi3 Piston micro PC, but it gives us a good idea of what Valve wants.

Valve is pushing the idea of a TV-connected gaming PC pretty hard. The Xi3 is a result of that. Valve put some money into Xi3 and is definitely experimenting with the company’s hardware. We’ll get into what exactly Valve is doing with the Steam Box as a whole in the very next section, but let’s explain the Piston first.

The Piston is a tiny little powerhouse. It’s a small cube-like device with a 3.2 GHz quad-core processor from AMD that packs the graphic on the same chip. It has 8 GB of RAM and up to 1 TB of storage capacity.

You’re supposed to plug this thing into your TV and run Steam in Big Picture mode, the interface the company designed for television displays, and that’s it. You have a Steam console.

The Steam Box

Price: ?
Release date: ?
Website: ?

Valve is working on a piece of hardware all their own. It is a Linux PC that will plug into your TV, but the company is also inviting others to do the same. If those companies want Valve’s help, Valve will help.

The software giant is going for a three-tiered strategy with the so-called “Steam Box.” Valve chief executive officer Gabe Newell called it a “good, better, and best” model in his interview with The Verge.

The “good” solution involves streaming devices. Not something like OnLive or Netflix that streams the data from some centralized location out to your house, but something that streams the games from your gaming PC to your television. Nvidia revealed a graphics card called Grid that is capable of something like that at CES.

The “better” solution is the one that Valve will release. It has a dedicated CPU and GPU. It doesn’t have a physical-media player. It’s small and quiet. It runs Linux, it has its own controller, and Valve will sell it itself.  It is a lot like the Xi3 Piston.

The “best” solution is the craziest, most expensive rigs you can think of. They have all the bells an whistles. They run big, hot, and loud. They aren’t even really Steam Boxes.

Games-streaming service

OnLive

Price: $99.99
Release date: Available now
Website: Onlive.com

OnLive is still a thing.  In August, GamesBeat reported that OnLive went through restructuring that saw its assets sold to another company. It’s still operational, and users can still play games on the service.

For those that don’t remember, OnLive is Netflix for video games. Gamers can stream full console games, like BioShock or Saints Row: The Third, to their PC, tablet, phone, or television without any serious hardware.

For the television, OnLive released a microconsole that can zap the digital platform right to a television. It works surprisingly well, but it the occasional lag is enough to keep it from fully replacing a dedicated gaming system.

Turns out your phone is already a console

MHL cables

Price: $7.65
Release date: Available now
Website: Monoprice.com

The thing about the Ouya and the GameStick is that they’re just focusing on a feature that your Android smartphone is already completely capable of. The Ouya plugs into your television and is compatible with a physical controller. You can do that with a Nexus 4, Samsung Galaxy S III, or an HTC DNA.

MHL cables allow people to connect a phone to a television HDMI input. Then some Android apps allow players to use a PlayStation 3 or Wii controller to interact with games. It’s a cheap and easy solution that basically amounts to the same thing as Ouya.

Of course, Ouya may encourage more developers to produce controller friendly games, but those titles are compatible with standard Android phones.

Green Throttle Atlas Controller

Price: $44.95
Release date: Early spring 2013
Website: Store.GreenThrottle.com

Green Throttle takes the idea of MHL cables a step further. The company designed its Atlas controller to work with Android phones. It sells the controllers in bundles with the cables required to connect your smartphone to the television.

Green Throttle wants players to use their phones as a console and they want them to use the Atlas to interact with it. The company has its own proprietary digital-download store similar to Ouya and GameStick. With this device, your phone truly is almost no different from either of those dedicated consoles, and it is probably more powerful than at least the GameStick.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Wikipad, the company developing an Android tablet of the same name that will ship with an attachable gamepad for console-style gaming, will debut in GameStop retail stores on Oct. 31.

Exclusive launch preorders for the $499 tablet will be accepted starting on Sept. 7 at GameStop stores and the retailer’s website. The deal with GameStop is a coup for Wikipad, since GameStop is the world’s largest game retailer with more than 6,000 stores.

“GameStop is the retail destination when it comes to video games,” said Fraser Townley, the president of sales for Wikipad. “Nobody but GameStop provides gamers with the best gaming content on the market. And for those who purchase or preorder a Wikipad at GameStop, their tablet will have access to valuable extras, including exclusive free, full-length game titles,” to be identified by GameStop at a later date.

The device will be sold at other retailers as well. But Townley added in an interview with GamesBeat, “If GamesBeat did not sell this, we would be doing our jobs wrong. It’s a natural fit, and it would be unnatural if they weren’t selling it.”

He said the tablet functions as a blazing fast and thin business device, and at $499, it is relatively inexpensive compared to similar tablets on the market. The target market will include not only hardcore gamers but working professionals as well.

“The motto will be ‘work hard, game hard,’” Townley said.

“What sets the Wikipad apart from the expanding sea of tablets in the marketplace is its ability to provide a console-like video game experience with its patented attachable controller,” said Joe Gorman, the vice president of GameStop’s mobile business unit. “With Wikipad, I get stunning visual entertainment and applications I expect from a tablet as well as a handheld gaming console experience. The Wikipad has taken mobile gaming to a whole new level. There is nothing else like it in the marketplace.”

Wikipad says the tablet will ship with a full suite of games on platforms such as PlayStation Mobile, Nvidia’s Tegra Zone, Google Play, and others that are currently unannounced. The device has a 10.1-inch IPS screen, a light chassis (560 grams, or 1.2 pounds), expandable memory (1 gigabyte), and the attachable game controller pictured here. The screen has a 16:10 aspect ratio and a resolution of 1280×800. The Wikipad is 8.6 millimeters thick.

The device has a powerful quad-core Nvidia Tegra 3 T30 1.4 gigahertz processor at its heart. It also has at least 16 gigabytes of internal flash memory storage, though the exact amount is not set yet. The battery can last for six hours of continuous game play and eight hours of video playback. It will run with the Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) version of Google’s mobile operating system. The system has an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera and a 2-megapixel front-facing camera.

Townley said he expects the tablet will be in plentiful supply, as he is confident about the company’s ability to scale production to meet demand. Townley said the timing was mainly driven by the desire to include the latest version of Android in the device.

Townley said the Los Angeles-based company has been working on the project for about a year. It has a cores staff of 15 employees and has a total of 58 people working on the device, including contractors.

“We think our timing is good, since the noise this fall is for tablets with smaller screens,” Townley said. “We’ll be in a unique position.”

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Sony is hoping to widen the reach of its PlayStation Mobile platform by adding two new partners today.

The Japanese company’s Sony Computer Entertainment Europe division announced that Playstation Mobile, previously known as Playstation Certified, will soon be available on the Wikipad and will receive support from hardware maker Asus.

PlayStation Mobile, Sony Computer Entertainment’s program for Android devices to play PlayStation titles, has been available solely on Sony’s own devices such as the Tablet S until the company’s recent partnership with HTC. Now, the first tablet with a gamepad and the current manufacturer of the “Google tablet,” aka the Nexus 7, have partnered with Sony.

This partnership may prove extremely beneficial for both Sony and Asus. Wikipad, which we recently spoke to (see part 1 and part 2 of our exclusive interview) and was partnered with cloud gaming service Gaikai before Sony purchased the cloud-gaming company, may also benefit because of its included game controller. Asus’s two current main tablets, the Nexus 7 and the Transformer Prime Infinity TF700T (which features the most powerful Tegra T33 processor), will have both the power to run higher-end titles and include top-of-the-line hardware to fully accommodate games previously built for the big screen.

According to a report issued earlier today by market researcher IHS iSuppli, Asus only has 2.8 percent of the tablet market share in the U.S. in the second quarter, up from 2.7 percent in Q1. Samsung and Amazon are both ahead of Asus in tablet sales, but that is expected to change with Google’s new partnership for the Nexus 7. The combination of the $200 tablet pushed by the search giant and PlayStation titles that will soon be made available for it may show a major shift in Android tablet sales.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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This is part 2 of our interview with Wikipad’s James Bower and Fraser Townley, the company’s CEO and president of sales. Click here to read part 1.

GamesBeat: Getting back to partnerships, are you working with OnLive as well as Gaikai/Sony?

James Bower: We’re in discussions with OnLive as well. One of the key things of Wikipad is that we’re approaching this as a very open platform. We’re willing to work with a lot of various players. The most important thing for us is that our customers have content and that there are various ways for them to get content. There’s the traditional way through Google Market. And then there’s the streaming games, like Gaikai, which was just bought by Sony, and OnLive. We’re in discussions with what our relationship is moving forward.

We also have other forms of content that are interesting, forming on the horizon, that I can’t share yet. We’re not concerned that there won’t be enough content on the Wikipad to get started, and it’ll only get better over time.

GamesBeat: What is Wikipad’s funding? Is the company self-funded?

Bower: The core founders have funded all of the capital to date–

GamesBeat: And the core founders are yourself….

Bower: Myself, Matthew Joynes, and one other founder that we’ll be announcing shortly. We haven’t discussed him as a founder because of who he is, but that will be coming out shortly. It’s a higher-profile person. A lot of the financing of the business is through banking relationships for the purchase orders we have, and things like that.

GameBeat: You previously worked at Master Image. What was your position there?

Bower: President/COO.

GamesBeat: And when was the company acquired?

Bower: Master Image was acquired from Korea and moved to California in November 2009.

GamesBeat: Do you think you’ll have to look for outside funding, perhaps getting closer to the product release?

Bower: I think it’s a question of how fast we want to grow. As of today, they’re fine. So to answer your question, yes, we’re open to look at that and how it can accelerate the business, but it’s not something we’re overly concerned about doing in the short term because of where we’ve come with doing it ourselves.

GamesBeat: Why go with Tegra T30 instead of the more powerful T33, like in the ASUS Transformer Prime Infinity TF700T?

Bower: One of our goals was to ensure that the Wikipad was both lightweight and thin as possible. The T30s is Nvidia’s smallest, high-powered, component CPU. The T33 is a larger component requiring a larger PCB and would have added addition thickness and, in turn, additional weight to the Wikipad. An additional benefit to the T30s is that it draws less power from the battery. This results in the benefit of longer battery life for gamers using the Wikipad compared to the T33, which draws more power from the battery.

GamesBeat: From my own research, it seems like Wikipad is a secretive company. The company has put out so little information. Is this intentional?

Bower: We really had the intent to come out with the stereoscopic version of the Wikipad. And we made the announcements at CES. With some of the decisions we’ve made to make a better tablet, faster platform, that gamers will take very seriously, some of that strategy had to shift a little bit. We’re being very cognizant and careful about what we announce and when we announce it. We don’t want to mismanage the expectations of our future customers. As you’ve seen, there are a lot of people who are excited with what’s coming, with the potential of Wikipad, of what it means. And we want to be very careful and cautious on what we say, and we want to deliver on what we say.

But you’re going to see a shift in the chatter coming from us, and we’re going to amplify things considerably, going into the launch of the company. It’s just us being cautious.

GamesBeat: Are there any game partnerships, like with developers or publishers, that Wikipad has to release titles specific to the Wikipad?

Bower: We’re working with some of the [graphics] engine guys, like Unity and a couple of other guys that build the engines for other guys. We’re in some discussions for unique game designs for the Wikipad, but there’s nothing to the point where we can make an announcement. We’re going to see a lot of content coming from a lot of directions.

GamesBeat: What can you say about the manufacturing of the Wikipad?

Bower: We’re working with the top two manufacturing plants in the world, that have embraced us as a newer company and have taken us on.

GamesBeat: Can you announce who they are?

Bower: Not yet. But we can sleep at night knowing that the guys who sleep at night are the guys who are manufacturing it for us are manufacturing some of the best brand names in the market.

GamesBeat: Several products similar to the Wikipad have been showed over the last year. The Wii U uses a tablet controller but targets a home audience. Razer’s Project Fiona concept device is a laptop-in-a-tablet with a built-in controller running Windows 8. How would you differentiate Wikipad from these?

Bower: It’s challenging to come back with a very poignant answer to that, because one’s a concept and the other people have only just started to see and play with. The unique factor that we have is that we’re really a bridge between a historically mobile console and the invention of the tablet. We do everything as good or better than other tablets on the market, and very easily you can transform the Wikipad into a very efficient, easy-to-use video game device that’s very comfortable.

How we’re different is that we’re not just about gaming. The focus of the company is gaming; that’s who we are, and that’s our pedigree. But when this comes to market, people are going to realize that, wow, I might as well just buy the Wikipad to do all of this plus have fun with games and have a control mechanism that I have on my console.

GamesBeat: Apple holds 68 percent of tablet marketshare with the iPad. Amazon’s Kindle is the next best, and it’s not even close. Android isn’t even close, even though it’s riding smooth at 50 percent of smartphone marketshare. Is that a concern?

Bower: Not really. Apple’s done such a fantastic job with their products, and we all love them. What we’re coming to the market with is a different concept; it’s not just a tablet — it’s a mobile gaming platform that can do all of the functions that you can with a tablet with all of the advantages you have for gaming. So we’re competing right down the middle with what a tablet is, with what people expect out of a tablet, and with what people expect out of a mini console device.

And it’s a space that isn’t populated by very many, or anybody, because we’re really the first ones to market on this. And the other aspect of this is if we’re as successful with this as we believe we’re going to be, from the indications from retailers, from the orders we already have, we don’t have to dominate a market to do really well, because we’re new, we’re relatively small, and we’re innovative, we’re agile. We have a roadmap for the next 24 months. We don’t have to make 2, 3, 10, 20 percent of the market to do really well. One percent of the market is tremendous success. But I think we’re going to do better than that.

GamesBeat: Do you also see the Wikipad competing with portable game consoles, or does it hit the middle ground so users can have a tablet, a game console, all in one device?

Bower: That’s what I would say. What we’re proposing to the market is a bridge between the two. We’re saying if you get this, you can still do all of the things you love to do with a tablet, and you’re also going to have access to all of the great content that’s historically only been able to get through a console-only device.

GamesBeat: What do you think about newer game technologies like Microsoft’s Smartglass? Or the large number of upcoming Android game controllers? And the recently announced Kickstarter success home Android-based game console Ouya?

Bower: What’s coming from Microsoft is great. We’ve seen some of the prototypes of Windows 8 and RT, and it’s great. The interesting thing about the future of that platform is going to be the access of some PC content. There’s not much I’m going to talk about in relation to our company at this point, as it relates to Microsoft’s platform, but it is something that we’re looking into. It’s something that we’re open to, not to replacing the current platform we have now, but maybe as an additional product. But it’s exciting. I think Microsoft has finally got a hit with this new OS. And behind the scenes, retailers and manufacturers behind the scenes, are really excited.

GamesBeat: And that’s notwithstanding Valve chief Gabe Newell’s recent remarks about how Windows 8 is just awful?

Bower: Everyone’s going to have their own opinion. I think Android has done a fantastic job on getting out there. If you look at the global numbers, Android has outpaced everything. You then talked a little bit about…?

GamesBeat: Android game controllers?

Bower: You know, for me…I can only speak for myself because our product isn’t on the market yet. If you’re dealing with a mobile product, if there’s separation between the screen and the your person, then it’s an unengaged experience. I think in order to have the experience, on a device that is personal, that you’re willing to put your credit card into, the game experience on controllers has to be directly connected because you’re expecting it to be totally personal. I would rather use this [holding an Xbox controller] than this on a tablet that I have to prop up and play. That’s all I can say. The market will determine who’s the winner at the end.

And since I mentioned Ouya, we’re really excited about Ouya. Them talking about and launching on Kickstarter, and the results that they have, is a really interesting and solid sign for us. The games that are going to play on that are going to work on the Wikipad, and the games that will work on Wikipad will work on the Ouya. The more content that is prepared for them is going to help us, and the more content prepared for us is going to help them. It’s a very interesting concept that they have.

What I think it’s really going to come down to is how can these devices, and how can our partners like google and others, begin to fix the piracy issues? Because the big game developers, the Epic’s of the world, the Crytek’s, they won’t invest the tremendous amount of money they spend to create these great games for consoles until the piracy issues are fixed. Because it’s a lot more difficult to pirate something for a Playstation or an Xbox. It’s just a lot more work. And the discussions that we’ve had with them is yes, the concept is great, but fix the piracy so that our investment of $30 million, $40 million, $50 million, $80 million in marketing and development cost isn’t going to go to a waste and everyone is going to steal it. Fix that problem and we’ll develop everything for this platform.

GamesBeat: But you’re not concerned at this point about piracy….

Bower: Not for us. But I think as far as the experience on these devices, the game publishers need to know that their investment in these high-quality products is protected, and then we’ll see more of that content come about. We’re very involved with the dynamics behind the scenes with our partners like Nvidia and Google and others about how we can help…we’re people’s art that they create is protected, and respected, and paid for. So that there’s enough money so they can develop their next games.

GamesBeat: Have you been in contact with Ouya, maybe for a partnership?

Bower: We love what they’re doing, I’m sure we’re going to have a conversation at some point, but there’s nothing in the works right now. There isn’t anything worth talking about, or even speculating about.

GamesBeat: What about, since we already spoke about potentially going outside of the company for funding, using Kickstarter since Ouya was so successful. Is that something that you’re considering?

Bower: Frankly speaking, we’ve considered that from the beginning. We decided not to because of the significant adoption that has been relayed to us from retailers around the world. Would Kickstarter have helped us or hurt us? We want to see the retailers make money with us. Right now we’re really focusing on the retailer relationships that we already have in place.

GamesBeat: When will the Wikipad ship?

Bower: We’re looking to release later this year.

GamesBeat: And that’s just in the U.S.?

Bower: For now, yes. We’re also actively looking at the European and Asian markets.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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There are tablets, and then there’s a gaming tablet. The Wikipad, an Android handheld that promised to be the first mobile device with a gamepad built specifically for the device, is set to launch later this year. Venturebeat recently sat down to talk with CEO James Bower and President of Sales Fraser Townley in a local design office in Thousand Oaks, Calif.

Here’s an edited version of our interview. For details on the Wikipad’s specifications, see our report from late last month.

Venturebeat: What is Wikipad, and what is the history of the company?

James Bower: Last year we (Bower, Matt Joynes, and one more founder) started thinking about what type of consumer device could make a difference. What’s something that we could do that would really get good market acceptance as well as being a game changer?

We all started getting smartphones and tablets and we’re playing games and whatnot, and it just doesn’t quite have that experience as when you’re playing with a controller. The touch experience is okay, but it doesn’t quite get you there. So we thought what can we do to take the concepts of tablets and create a much better gaming experience.

VB: When did the company get started?

JB: We officially formed the company in September. But as a team, we’ve been thinking through concepts, I would say, since back in the spring of 2011.

VB: What was the team doing back then if it wasn’t a company?

JB: Matt [Joynes], who is the chairman of the company, previously bought and sold companies. He and I partnered up on this, and he was twiddling with some of the business planning of creating a consumer device. I was involved with the restructuring of a company called Master Image, which was acquired and restructured and moved to California. That company created stereoscopic 3D for cinema and screens for tablets and smartphones.

The market dabbled in [3D in mobile devices] for a little bit. We saw LG come out with its 3D version (the LG Optimus 3D) of a phone, and the Nintendo 3DS, but there hasn’t been a tremendous market push to adopt this from a tablet and smartphone perspective. In some cases, from my standpoint frustratingly so, anyone who loves stereo sees this as a huge potential market that hasn’t really been opened yet. We see this in the television market; most TVs support stereoscopic in some form, and we see a lot of the market shifting to that.

The fact is, there’s a lot of 3D content that is still coming out. What’s different when it comes to a personal device, when you don’t have the challenges of putting glasses on that becomes a socially inhibiting event — you know, you’re not going to sit with friends and put glasses on in your house. It’s a little bit awkward. When you remove that barrier and enable stereoscopic 3D, it starts to change.

VB: So the original idea was to have the Wikipad be a stereoscopic tablet, and as time went on the 3D got pushed out?

JB: Yes, but it’s more than that. It’s the nature of how fast we can get to market with the price points that we need to get with the market research we’ve done, you know, for the first version [of the Wikipad]. [3D] is in our DNA, if you will, and in our future plans.

VB: Why the name “Wikipad? What exactly does that mean?

JB: ‘Wiki’ actually means fast [in Hawaiian], and so we were thinking about what are we going to create here? We’re going to create a tablet that’s really fast, that’s really edgy for the gaming community, and ‘wiki’ is such a representative name of what we want to be, which is a fast pad. And it’s catchy. Sometimes there’s an educational tone associated with it, and if we come out with a tablet that people may think has educational benefits as well, we start to hit a brand that’s accepted across a lot of mediums.

VB: If I’m not mistaken, you’re currently partnered with NVIDIA, as well as Gaikai. Does that mean Sony as well now, since they purchased Gaikai?

JB: Gaikai has been a great relationship for us, but we’re under NDA with Gaikai and Sony. That’s about all I can say right now, but we know what’s going on and we’re still close to the situation, and the transaction is just in the completion stage as we speak. Stay tuned.

VB: What about Sony Mobile Certification, where Playstation titles can play on some Android devices, mostly from Sony and now some select HTC smartphones?

JB: Sorry, I can’t comment.

VB: Fair enough. So you’re working with NVIDIA as well. Why go with Tegra?

JB: For a number of reasons — a few secret ones that I can’t talk about, and a few that I can. When it comes to a brand of processor that is close to the hearts of gamers, NVIDIA has been there a long time. They have a very good, integral brand; they have a very good relationship to content, and content is key for us, as it relates to our product. So there are a lot of advantages to Tegra as it relates to gameplay. They’ve been working on a lot of things behind the scenes that they haven’t talked about regarding gameplay. They also were one of the front-runners in the development of stereoscopic 3D support, integrating their 3D vision capabilities into the Tegra processor as well. So it became much more of a turnkey easy solution for our future as we look at stereoscopic 3D.

VB: So you’ll be working with them for 3D support?

JB: Yes.

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Wikipad, the company developing an identically named tablet that will ship with an attachable gamepad for console-style gaming, has revealed the specifications of the device in an exclusive interview with GamesBeat.

The Wikipad (tablet, not company) will have a 10.1-inch IPS display with 16:10 1,280 x 800 resolution. The actual tablet will weigh 560 grams and be just 8.6mm thick, making it one of the thinnest and lightest 10″ tablets ever, only slightly thicker than the iPad 2 and nearly 40 grams lighter. When the Wikipad was first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year, it was a 7″ tablet that was more similar in design to the Amazon Kindle Fire.

The final design model, which the company revealed to us at a design office in Thousand Oaks, Calif., will feature the NVIDIA Tegra 3 T30 1.4GHz quad-core processor with 1GB of DDR2 RAM. For comparison, the recently released Nexus 7 uses the T30L, which is a 1.2GHz quad-core processor with a 416MHz GPU (compared to 520MHz on the T30) and slower DDR2 RAM (667MHz vs. 1066MHz), and the ASUS Transformer Prime Infinity 700 and upcoming Ouya will use the more powerful T33, which clocks at 1.6GHz and has bandwidth for faster 1600MHz DDR3 RAM.

The Wikipad will also ship with at least 16GB of internal storage, though the amount of local storage hasn’t been finalized as of yet. However, according to Fraser Townley, President of Sales at Wikipad, “we will not go down, we will only go up.” 16GB is the standard amount of storage for tablets today.

The battery is 23.46Wh, capable of six hours of continuous gaming and eight hours of video playback.

Instead of tapered edges, the Wikipad will have flat sides similar to the iPhone 4/4S. The rear panel will also have an elevated plastic lip designed for a better grip in any holding arrangement. This also enables the speakers on the back of the tablet to bounce off of any flat surface and deliver strong acoustics.

Every Wikipad will ship with Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) and the controller add-on. The controller, which connects to the Wikipad from the bottom with a proprietary connector, is designed similar to the Xbox 360 controller, though according to the company there is little relation to Microsoft’s nearly seven-year-old design. The controller features two sets of triggers, bumpers, and analog sticks, as well as four face buttons, start, and select. The controller is also designed to cover the speakers and flow sound through acoustic tubes out the front grill for better audio performance. The controller also has a port to connect it to a power source on the back.

Wikipad will also feature a built-in 8-megapixel rear-facing camera and a 2 megapixel front-facing camera.

Finally, the Wikipad will not ship the first line of the tablet with a 3D display, which the company originally showed off at CES. Future models may ship with a 3D display. The Wikipad doesn’t have a definite release date yet, but according to Wikipad President James Bower, it will release later this year, and the company will reveal much more regarding the tablet in the very near future.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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