Gamevice, Inc. (formerly Wikipad, Inc.) is a

Simi Valley Simi Valley (; Chumash: ''Shimiyi'') is a city in the valley of the same name in southeastern Ventura County, California, United States. It is from Downtown Los Angeles, making it part of the Greater Los Angeles Area. Simi Valley borders Th ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

-based tablet and tablet peripherals manufacturer specializing in

gaming Gaming may refer to: Games and sports The act of playing games, as in: * Legalized gambling, playing games of chance for money, often referred to in law as "gaming" * Playing a role-playing game, in which players assume fictional roles * Playing ...

products. The debut product was the Wikipad, a proprietary Android tablet hardware engineered for mobile

, which featured a detachable controller. Gamevice later came to market with a peripheral-only product, rebranded under the name, Gamevice. The company was founded by Matthew Joynes, James Bower, and Brendan Iribe. The current

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

is Phillip Hyun.

History

Wikipad

At the

Consumer Electronics Show CES (; formerly an initialism for Consumer Electronics Show) is an annual trade show organized by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA). Held in January at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Winchester, Nevada, United States, the event typi ...

(CES) in

Las Vegas Las Vegas, colloquially referred to as Vegas, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and the county seat of Clark County. The Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area is the largest within the greater Mojave Desert, and second-l ...

on January 10, 2012, the Wikipad was shown with both a 2D and a glasses-free 3D-enabled device. In May 2012, Gaikai, a

cloud gaming Cloud gaming, sometimes called gaming on demand or game streaming, is a type of Online game, online gaming that runs video games on remote Server (computing), servers and Streaming media, streams the game's output (video, sound, etc.) directly to ...

service which

Sony is a Japanese multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at Sony City in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. The Sony Group encompasses various businesses, including Sony Corporation (electronics), Sony Semiconductor Solutions (i ...

acquired two months later in July 2012, partnered with Wikipad, Inc. to integrate its streaming service into the tablet. The Wikipad was originally scheduled for an October 31, 2011 release, but was delayed indefinitely on the day it was originally supposed to be released. The Wikipad was released on June 11, 2013, in the United States with a price tag of $249. In March 2014, a game control mapping tool was announced for the Wikipad to help map touchscreen game controls to the physical Wikipad controller in an effort to improve gameplay. Also in March, the price of the Wikipad dropped to $199. In June 2014,

OnLive OnLive was a provider of cloud computing, cloud X86 virtualization, virtualization technologies based in Mountain View, California. OnLive's flagship product was its cloud gaming service, which allowed subscribers to rent or demo video games, com ...

cloud gaming support was added to the Wikipad.

Reception

Eurogamer ''Eurogamer'' is a British video game journalism website launched in 1999 alongside parent company Gamer Network. In 2008, it started in the formerly eponymous trade fair EGX (Eurogamer Expo until 2013) organised by its parent company. Fr ...

rated the Wikipad's screen size and intentions as nice, saying it had "its heart in the right place", but decided that the lack of compelling Android games, high launch price, and outdated specs and software limited the appeal of the device.

IGN ''IGN'' is an American video gaming and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa district and is headed by its former e ...

gave the Wikipad poor reviews taking into consideration the lack of games in its library, flimsy construction, and software that was considered dated, even at the time of the device's release. It concludes that "The Wikipad is a mostly failed attempt at turning an Android tablet into a gaming handheld."

Gamevice

In January 2014, Wikipad, Inc. announced a new controller called Gamevice to expand its mobile device coverage. The industrial design for the Gamevice controller was developed by RKS Design. Gamevice is a detachable controller with a classic

D-pad The D-pad (short for directional pad) is a compact input method developed for video games, designed to translate thumb movement into directional control through a flat, cross-shaped surface that rests on four internal switches. Each switch corres ...

; twin triggers; A, B, X, and Y buttons; and dual

analog stick An analog stick (analogue stick in British English), also known as a control stick, thumbstick or joystick, is an input method designed for video games that translates thumb movement into directional control. It consists of a protruding stick mo ...

s. On January 31, 2017, a new Gamevice controller was released for the

iPhone 7 The iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus are smartphones that were developed and marketed by Apple Inc. They are the List of iPhone models, tenth generation of the iPhone. They were announced on September 7, 2016, at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium i ...

. On February 15, 2018, Gamevice announced and launched a

Minecraft ''Minecraft'' is a 2011 sandbox game developed and published by the Swedish video game developer Mojang Studios. Originally created by Markus Persson, Markus "Notch" Persson using the Java (programming language), Java programming language, the ...

-themed controller bundle, which includes a Gamevice controller, a carrying case for the controller and a download code for Minecraft on

iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...

Legal issues

In August 2017, Gamevice filed a lawsuit against Nintendo in the

United States District Court for the Central District of California The United States District Court for the Central District of California (in case citations, C.D. Cal.; commonly referred to as the CDCA or CACD) is a United States district court, federal trial court that serves over 19 million people in South ...

, alleging that the design of the

Nintendo Switch The is a video game console developed by Nintendo and released worldwide in most regions on March 3, 2017. Released in the middle of the Eighth generation of video game consoles, eighth generation of home consoles, the Switch succeeded the ...

conflicts with its patent on the design for the Wikipad. The lawsuit sought damages on existing Switch sales and banning further sales of the console. The lawsuit was voluntarily dismissed by Gamevice in October 2017. However, in March 2018, Gamevice initiated a second patent infringement lawsuit on Nintendo related to a different set of patents. Gamevice also sought action through the

United States International Trade Commission The United States International Trade Commission (USITC or I.T.C.) is an agency of the United States federal government that advises the legislative and executive branches on matters of trade. It was created by Congress in 1916 as the U.S. Tari ...

related to patent infringement under Section 337 of the

Tariff Act of 1930 A tariff or import tax is a duty imposed by a national government, customs territory, or supranational union on imports of goods and is paid by the importer. Exceptionally, an export tax may be levied on exports of goods or raw materials and is ...

, and was seeking to block imports of the Switch into the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. On October 10, 2019, the lawsuit against Nintendo ended, with the U.S. International Trade Commission affirming the conclusion of the presiding administrative law judge's initial determination that no violation of Section 337 had occurred. On March 27, 2020, Gamevice filed a new patent-infringement lawsuit at the USITC against Nintendo in addition to appealing the previous case that it lost. The lawsuit ended in favor of Nintendo.

References