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Razer says it's 'doubling-down' on Android and Forge TV
Razer's Android TV-powered Forge TV is no longer on sale through Google, but tonight the company tells Engadget it's not giving up. According to a Razer representative, it's "doubling-down on Android gaming in the living room and looking forward to producing the world's largest library of Android TV games." The company thinks Forge TV can be a "spiritual successor" to the Ouya platform it purchased earlier this year, and is ramping up production to address current demand. The note (included in full after the break) promises more information soon, so we wouldn't be surprised to see the gaming hardware maker bring something fresh to CES in January.
Razer's Android TV box quietly leaves Google's store
You may have thought that Razer's Forge TV was hot stuff back at CES, but it's not clear that the buying public felt the same way. Google has quietly stopped selling the Android TV set-top on its official store -- swing by its product page and you'll find that it's "no longer available for purchase." It's not certain that Razer has discontinued the media hub altogether, but things don't look good when its own store only lets you sign-up for in-stock alerts. We've reached out to Razer to get the full scoop on this disappearance.
OUYA CEO Julie Uhrman leaves the company she co-founded
Julie Uhrman, CEO of OUYA, has announced that she'll be leaving the Android gaming company that she co-founded. The executive took to Twitter to make the statement, spending the better part of an hour thanking employees, developers and backers. Her tweets also confirm the long-rumored purchase of the company by gaming PC specialist Razer that, until now, had only been hinted at by third parties. The firm was one of the biggest early hits on Kickstarter, but when the micro-console was released to backers in July 2013, received plenty of criticism. Critics and users both attacked the build quality of the controller, game library and UI, and attempts to remedy the issue proved unsuccessful. Razer still hasn't spoken about what it plans to do with the hardware, but its plans will now be run without the input of the console's guiding light.
Best of CES 2015 Awards, Gaming: Razer Forge TV
#fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-378530{display:none;} .cke_show_borders #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-378530, #postcontentcontainer #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-378530{width:570px;display:block;} try{document.getElementById("fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-378530").style.display="none";}catch(e){} While last year's CES bubbled over with gaming hardware and services to excite, this year... well, it was more of a simmer. However, it didn't stop Razer, which (like previous years) had all sorts of hardware to show off. Here at Engadget, we deemed the company's Forge TV as the best gaming product at CES: a cheap, solid micro-console that'll stream your PC games, whatever the hardware.
Razer's Forge TV wins People's Choice Award for Best of CES 2015
The people have spoken, and Razer's Forge TV is the People's Choice winner for Best of CES 2015! It was a close call, however, as it won with only 16.13 percent of the vote -- the AirDog drone came in second at 14.62 percent and the Misfit Bolt clocked in at third with 11.96 percent. Only a few thousand votes separated first, second and third place! Still, Razer's Forge TV won fair and square -- not only did the Android TV microconsole win our Best Gaming Product award, but it also scored your votes too. Congratulations, Razer!
Razer's Android TV box targets gamers with PC streaming
Razer has joined other recent comers in the Android TV arena with Forge TV, but unlike the others, its box is aimed squarely at gamers, not cord-cutters. As such, it's suitably powerful with a quad-core Snapdragon 805 CPU, Adreno 420 GPU, 802.11ac WiFi, Bluetooth 4.1, 2GB RAM and 16GB of storage. Yes, that'll let it handle garden-variety Google Play games for up to four players and beam them onto a big-screen TV. But the Forge TV's main powers have little to do with weak-sauce Android gaming, and more to do with Razer Bluetooth peripherals and the piece de resistance called "Cortex: Stream." That tech uses WiFi to give you low-latency streaming from a source far more suitable to gaming than a dinky Android box -- namely, your PC.
Android TV sets from Philips, Sharp and Sony are coming this spring
Google's years-long effort to get a foothold in the living room is finally paying off. The search pioneer has announced that TVs from Sharp, Sony and TP Vision (aka Philips) will all run Android TV when they arrive this spring. Both Sharp and Sony will have multiple 4K models using the internet-savvy software, and every single Philips set will ship with Google's technology on board. You can also expect to see the operating system on Razer's Forge TV game console this February, and Huawei is building an Android TV media player that arrives later this year.
