Mad Catz is a name that many old-school gamers will associate with subpar third-party accessories while modern fighting game fans love the company for its high-quality fight sticks. Both probably never thought the company would be getting into the console business though.
Mad Catz announced today that it will be officially entering the micro-console market on December 10 with the M.O.J.O. The $250 micro-console will join the likes of the Ouya and Nvidia Shield in attempting to convince consumers that playing mobile games on TVs is somehow preferred over their native home on mobile devices.
“The M.O.J.O. Micro-Console for Android has attracted strong interest due to its high-performance hardware, open software platform and the ecosystem of accessories,” said Darren Richardson, the President and Chief Executive Officer of Mad Catz Interactive, Inc. “M.O.J.O. is the center piece of our GameSmart mobile initiative and brings core gaming experiences to the mobile platform.”
So, what’s this “high performance hardware” that Richardson speaks of? After all, the Ouya claimed the same thing, and its Tegra 3-based chipset has only proven to be a hurdle in bringing mobile games to the big screen. Well, the M.O.J.O. will be one upping the Ouya with a Tegra 4 CUP clocked at 1.8GHz, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage, HDMI out capabilities and a microSD slot with support for up to 128GB flash carts. It also runs on Android 4.2.2 so it will be able to take advantage of all but the most advanced mobile graphics technologies.
Even with those specs, will it be enough to convince people that this micro-console thing isn’t just a fad? It’s hardware is definitely capable of playing some pretty games, and its controller doesn’t look cheap. Beyond that, its only real defining feature is that it can stream PC games from your PC to the living room. That will certainly excite some PC gamers, but many of them will probably wait for the presumably more affordable SteamOS-powered streaming machines.
Still, if you find yourself captivated by Mad Catz foray into the micro-console space, you can check out more details here.
[Image: Mad Catz]