Last week during the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Huawei, Chinese hardware maker and subject of international security concerns, showed off their newest toy — the Huawei TRON. According to the Chinese media, the TRON can supposedly play PS3 games. PS3 games that have been set for the Huawei TRON.
The Ouya-esque Android-based gaming console is making a splash in China and the media have been covering the system left and right. On top of the normal coverage, they seem to have dug up (or made up) the fact that the TRON can play PlayStation 3 games. On top of PS3 games, the Chinese media, (or rather, the Global Times Tech page, where the majority of the stories seem to stem from) say that the TRON can play PC and Nintendo DS games as well.
The TRON, currently a China-only console, sports specs that are similar to that of the Nvidia Shield: an Nvidia Tegra 4, 2 Gigabytes of Ram, 32 gigabytes of flash memory, and the normal assortment of networking components. Like many Android products sold in China, the TRON doesn't come with Google Play.
According to media reports of the TRON, the operating system is a highly tuned version of Android. However, even though it's Android, it still doesn't explain how and where the Chinese media have gotten the information that the TRON can play PS3/PC/NDS games. One common thread amongst the media reports in China say "华为推出微型游戏主机TRON 可玩定制PS3游戏", which translates to, "Huawei introduces miniature gaming console TRON. It can play custom PS3 games." Furthermore, reports state that game developers who make these PS3/PC/NDS games only have to tweak their games for the TRON and to make them compatible.
It's unclear how the TRON will run PS3 games, considering that they're not made the same way as, say, Xbox 360 or PC games. Ditto with NDS games. We know that the Nvidia Shield "runs" PC games via streaming, and NDS game compatibility could be achieved via some sort of black magic emulation. We can only wait and find out when the system launches in China later this year for $120.
Top Photo: [Sohu.com]
华为推出微型游戏主机TRON 可玩定制PS3游戏 [People's Daily via Global Times]
华为发布微型游戏主机Tron：售120美元 运行PS3游戏 [TechWeb]
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Eric is a Beijing based writer and all around FAT man. You can contact him @FatAsianTechie@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @FatAsianTechie.