The Gamestick, a tiny portable console designed to run Android games on a TV, has reached its Kickstarter funding goal after only two days. The device's developers, who say they've identified 200 games that will run well on the $79 console, asked for $100,000 to ship a first run by April 2013. The premise behind Gamestick is similar to that of Ouya, a breakout Kickstarter success that's currently shipping to developers. The Gamestick is cheaper and less powerful than Ouya, running Android 4.1 Jelly Bean with an Amlogic 8726-MX processor, 1GB of RAM, and a cloud storage system for the games themselves. The biggest difference, though, is the form factor: while Ouya is a roughly palm-sized box, the Gamestick is an oversized stick that plugs into an HDMI port and snaps into a minimalist controller when not in use.
The Gamestick will face some of the same challenges as Ouya, particularly uncertainty over whether enough Android games can translate well to the big screen to build a catalog. It's also going to have to compete with both Ouya and Android-based USB stick computers. With 28 days to go, though, there's still plenty of time to prove there's a market for another Kickstarter-funded portable console.