Charles Huang: Big-Screen Gaming From a Phone

As the PlayStation, Wii, and Xbox lose market share to smartphones and tablets, video game developers face problems, too. Playing graphics-rich sports, shooter, and racing games on mobile touchscreens better equipped for Angry Birds can be deflating or nigh-impossible. Guitar Hero co-creator Charles Huang thinks he has the answer: supplement the mobile hardware with controllers that can better replicate the living-room gaming experience. “The opportunity for us,” says Huang, 43, “is to leverage the install base of all those (mobile) devices but give people the type of games they want to play.”

Huang’s Santa Clara (Calif.) startup, Green Throttle Games, has developed an Android-compatible controller that connects wirelessly via Bluetooth to mobile gadgets, which then link to high-definition televisions. Huang says he expects to have about 20 titles, including some of his own, ready for the launch of the controller and its app, Arena, in the first quarter of 2013. Chris Scholz, the founder of Sausalito (Calif.)-based Free Range Games, is building a snowboarding simulation and a space-combat adventure for Arena. “You get that big-screen experience that’s hard to capture on the phone,” says Scholz.