Greetings everyone.
I know that nowadays it's really convenient to play games on the cell phones or tablets, but I do think a D-pad or a joystick is the right way to enjoy game.
And yes, there are controllers made for this purpose, but it's not as portable when you combine these two together.
Other than that, I love electronic devices and it will be really awesome to own a product designed by myself.
Brief idea:
Basically I want to build a portable gaming console which somehow should look like a psp: a screen in the middle with control buttons on the side, and maybe with some other additional modules like camera (to be decided).
I can design a case to hold all hardware together and 3D-print it. Plastic with acrylic and aluminum will be great.
What I think:
1. I think an android OS will help a lot because it's just a mature platform.
2. I've played some game on my Nexus 7 2013 with a xbox controller via OTG and it works great, so I think cracking the controller to wire buttons based on the pcb will save a lot of efforts.
3. The control in basic UI is a little wired, some buttons are maybe not configured right, but I think it won't be too hard to fix the driver.
4. I've looked through to find a arm board to work with, but most of the boards are really slow in android (which I believe is because you have to write the system in a micro SD card). But with GPIO pins, you can always easily do whatever you want to.
5. Maybe I think I can crack a used cell phone or a tablet. Let's take a Nexus 4 for example, basically it's about cracking the board and screen, wiring the controller pcb to the OTG port, replacing the battery with a larger one, put them together.
My concerns:
A. I used to stick to raspberry pi, but they don't have the android, so I moved my eyes to banana pro, it's pretty easy to understand. like here: http://www.amazon.com/Banana-Pi--Banana-Mainboard-Cortex-A7-Dual-core/dp/B00RD86QPA/ref=sr_1_1
B. Cracking a device will be easier (maybe also cheaper), and the screen is always better, but there's no much port to use.
C. Any other ideas or recommendations will be more than welcomed.
Thanks