Just the other day we wrote about the iCade device that turns your iphone or ipod into a game pad. Chris Jorgensen and Andi Greisel decided the iCade didn’t work well enough for them, so they started a Kickstarter to fund their alternative solution.
Inspired by the original Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), the GameDock is a dock for your iPhone, iPod, or iPad which connects to your TV and comes with one controller that plugs into the dock. You can then use the TV as a monitor and play all your favourite games the classic way. As well as offering up mobile games on a big screen, the dock doubles as a charger for your iPhone.
Over 100 games are already supported and you can play either single player or two player with the addition of a second classic controller. A HDMI connection makes hooking this up to a large TV a breeze.
The project needs $50,000 in order to buy the required materials in bulk and make the hardware affordable to manufacture and offer at a reasonable retail price. The software is updatable and the hardware uses Bluetooth to link to the phone.
The dock comes with a built in app which acts as a dashboard to select what game you want to play, meaning you don’t have to move off the couch and interact with your phone directly. Even if you don’t have a TV to hook up to, you can still use the GameDock with the iPhone or iPad as the display.
It’s a neat idea and seems like it could work really well. However, if you want one you’ll have to pledge at least $150, which is more than double what the iCade costs. It’s a lot to fork out for something that just means you can play your App Store games on the TV. For that price, I’d personally rather buy a Nintendo DS or put the cash towards a PS Vita.
More at Kickstarter
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