End Game

Earlier today, word emerged around Google's purchase of Green Throttle Games, a studio that had two key parts of a gaming equation right under one roof. But this newest bit of news joins a wider coalition of facts that suggests some very big things ahead for Google, and in particular, Microsoft may want to watch out.

Green Throttle Games offers up both the Android Arena—an app that allows users to turn an Android powered tablet or smartphone into what amounts to a small gaming console driven by Android games—and the Bluetooth Atlas controller, a device specifically geared toward controlling such games. It was a reasonable enough concept—give gamers an opportunity to play games, console-style, pretty much anywhere said gamers happened to be—and though it didn't quite work out for Green Throttle Games, it may work out very nicely indeed for Google.

See, the problem wasn't so much one of technology, but seemed to be more one of market. For Google, however, having such technology on hand would be a huge part of a new all-in-one set-top box that could be a rival for most anything on the market, including Microsoft's new Xbox One.