One of the nice things about an open ecosystem like Android is that 3rd party players can join in with certain deals of their own, which in the end will only end up helping the Android ecosystem. Take Sony and their PS Suite. They are bringing PS games to Android, without Google having to beg them to bring them over. They do it because it’s in their advantage, too. They get to license their PS Suite to other manufacturers and get paid for it.
Gamestop has decided to enter the Android ecosystem, too, by offering 7 games for free with their Android tablets. So if you buy your Android tablet from them, like the Galaxy Tab 10.1 or Acer Iconia, you’ll get 7 free games that are pre-installed, and you can also order a $39 gamepad with it, to make it easier to play those games. However, you’re going to need to put the tablet on a stand if you want to use that controller properly. This is why I find it a little odd that they didn’t tryto make a deal with Asus, too, over their Transformer tablet and its keyboard dock, which would’ve made more sense for this.
Either way, I’m not really sure if this will prove to be a very successful endeavor. If I were them I would wait for ARM-based Google TV set top boxes to come out, and I would try to bundle the gamepad and games with that. Not only will it make more sense from a pricing point of view, but it also makes more sense to play games like that on your TV with the controller.
Hopefully, Google will realize the potential of Google TV as a console platform, and they will fully endorse and support this kind of thing. I’d prefer they showed some games in there from day one, but maybe they are just waiting for ARM set top boxes with better graphics than what Intel Atom has to offer. At the right price and with enough games, Google TV could become a real competitor to existent consoles. Once that happens, GameStop should be all over that and try to promote Google TV set top boxes/consoles hard together with their controllers.