An Android-x86 powered Gaming Console | Hacker News Reader

An Android-x86 powered Gaming Console

indiegogo.com

18 pointsmariuz23 comments

Everything on the campaign page is so poorly executed it looks like scam. And the goal is... $1,490,000. Is it some kind of a joke?

The cheapest funding level which actually gives you the hardware is $149, and they say their factory requires a minimum order of 10,000 units. That seems to be the $1,490,000 right there. :)

Also, the title here is kind of misleading, it's not very powerfully branded as a "gaming console", it's just a "computing device". Also known, I guess, as "a computer".

No idea how big Android is for x86, are most apps even available cross-compiled?

> The cheapest funding level which actually gives you the hardware is $149, and they say their factory requires a minimum order of 10,000 units. That seems to be the $1,490,000 right there.

That seems tight.

How do you think they are they covering the 4-7% (9-12% if you don't reach goal) cut taken by indiegogo and credit card companies?

I am of course just guessing, but those numbers kind of stood up. Perhaps they're hoping for enough takers on the other funding levels to make up for the overhead. That sounds reasonable, doesn't it? But I haven't had my afternoon coffee yet, so it's a bit "numbers, schmumbers" at this point.

It is a fixed funding campaign, they don't get anything if they don't reach the goal.

HN title policy continues to confuse. I'd argue that the title "An Android-x86 powered Gaming Console" is bit misleading as the device is not really marketed as gaming console.

It's a PC. Serious ho-hum.

If this has anything to do with gaming, it sure escapes me. Where's the controller (do NOT tell me you're going to use a cell phone...).

I don't know if I missed something but what's the point in this? Couldn't I just build a little x86 machine and stick x86 Android on it, for cheaper than the reward levels in this listing?

Maybe it's not intended to be unique and it's just a system builder using indiegogo to get some orders.

$149 for the base model seems quite affordable. I seriously doubt you could build something comparable yourself for less. The quoted MSRP are bit on the high side, but on the other hand the casework looks nice and compact, so I wouldn't call them unreasonable either.

I'd like to see how you'd do just that. Show me a cheap quad-core PoE box running Scientific Linux with at least the same level of performance. Never mind Android, I need something that runs Eclipse and the emulator reasonably well. 3D performance isn't that important, if it runs AlienArena, Nexuiz and Sauerbraten it's good enough.

Just a halfway decent mini-itx htpc case plus power supply can easily set you back $100 or more. You're going to have a hard time building something like this for $150. I'd love to be proven wrong, but I have a hard time seeing it.

The motherboard seems to be a Wibtek device.

(http://www.wibtek.com/products/MotherBoard/show/?pid=1000077)

I believe that this is the exact model:

http://www.wibtek.com/products/MotherBoard/show/?pid=1000113

ARM Android consoles are already barren enough, content-wise. Making an x86 variant specifically targeting an ndk-heavy sector of the app store seems... a strange choice.

Meh. It would make a lot more sense if it had a Wine port, perhaps even ship with support from Crossovers or similar.

I want one.... but looks too good to be true.

We will see.

Come on, didn't people learn from the OUYA fiasco?

What's its selling point, price\performance?

Size? The motherboard appears to be smaller than Mini-ITX.

I'm also guessing it's based on one of Intel's upcoming "Silvermont" Atom CPUs. That makes me very unlikely to support this project since I'd imagine the market's going to be flooded with similar products well before this project's estimated ship date.

It's almost certainly "Celeron J1850". The specs line up perfectly (10W TDP, 2.0 GHz clockspeed, 4 cores).

That chip is about $80 in quantity pricing if the early price leaks are to be believed.

That is not much leeway for the rest of the device.

Why have VGA?

Lots of people still have VGA monitors + they're cheap as second monitors.

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