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Wikipad gets chromed out buttons and Big Fish games, we go eyes-on
What's this? The Wikipad? At CES 2013? But we were told it wouldn't be here! As it turns out, the Wikipad is still kinda here, albeit with Big Fish Games. And wouldn't you know it, Big Fish games are now integrated into the $500 Android gaming tablet's launcher. Not only that, but the Wikipad's seen some visual updates since we last got our hands on it -- most notably are the chromed out buttons, which show up on all sides of the device. The controller piece is still removable, though it's unclear if the original specs still stand. Last we heard, the 10.1-inch, 1,280 x 800 IPS screen sat out front of an NVIDIA Tegra 3 T30 quad-core 1.4GHz processor, with 1GB of DDR2 RAM, all powered by Android 4.1 Jelly Bean (at least initially). Either way, those new chromed out keys sure do add some spark, eh? Follow all the latest CES 2013 news at our event hub.
Big Fish Unlimited lets gamers resume play on mobile, PC and TV, stay distracted at all times (update: HTML5 explained)
The perpetual crisis of casual gaming is that need for just one... more... turn. After all, those 29 levels of progress aren't coming with you to the office, are they? Big Fish Games wants to ease our consciences (or at least our egos) with Big Fish Unlimited. By using HTML5 to constantly save progress, the cloud service remembers exactly where a player was and ports it to the next device: it's possible to hop from a Android tablet, to a Roku box, to a Windows PC's browser without having to replay anything. The nature of the streaming games themselves won't give OnLive players second thoughts, but their lighter footprint won't demand as much from an internet connection, either. Most of the intended audience will appreciate the price -- the now active service costs $8 a month for access to more than 100 games from the full catalog, and free play is on tap for 20 of the games as long as you can endure periodic ads. Whether or not coworkers can endure another round of your hidden object games is another matter. Update: We've since talked to the company directly, and it turns out that the HTML5 is more for the cross-platform support; it's the server that tracks progress whenever you quit a given app.
