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Google Confirms Semi-Acquisition of Green Throttle Games

Two co-founders are joining Google, but one is staying and will still own the defunct company.

Vjeran Pavic

Google has acquired some of the assets of gaming peripheral developer Green Throttle Games and hired two of its three co-founders, a company spokesperson has confirmed to Re/code.

News of the deal, price unknown, was first reported by PandoDaily.

Green Throttle made an unsuccessful attempt to bring Android games to the television last year, via a $40 Bluetooth controller that could play a handful Android games on the TV. However, the app for accessing those games, Arena, was discontinued in November.

Reviewing the Green Throttle ecosystem in April, my colleague Bonnie Cha found the eight games available when the controller and Arena first launched to be a bit lacking:

Given the limitations of a mobile device’s hardware (computing and graphics power, memory, etc.), you won’t find any really complex or graphics-intensive titles, compared to dedicated game consoles like the Xbox and PlayStation … They’re all worth a try, but given their simple nature, I wasn’t drawn to play them on a regular basis.

The spokesperson said Google had hired “a few” Green Throttle team members, including co-founders Matt Crowley and Karl Townsend, as part of the deal. Their fellow co-founder, Charles Huang, has not crossed over and retains ownership of the Green Throttle business.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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