What platform for multiplayer Unity games on the family TV?

News & General Discussion
1

Hi,

I don’t want to use Unity to create the next “Angry Birds” killer game, or be listed on the App Store in 100 countries, or earn a fortune and retire… what I would like to do is to create some fun local multiplayer games for me to play with my mates on the sofa in front of the telly.
I don’t need any help with the programming side of things - all I’m asking for is some advice on suitable hardware to run Unity compiled games in a “living room” environment (i.e. not on a PC monitor). Currently under my telly I have an XBox360, a PS3, and a Wii. I don’t believe I can publish to any of those platforms without an expensive SDK. I have wireless controllers for all of them but, even if I were to buy a cheap PC and plug it into my telly (it has VGA/HDMI input), I don’t believe that I can use those controllers on a PC (is that right?).
There’s the OUYA and SteamBox coming out soon of course, which I might be tempted by, but again I think I’ll have to buy a brand new set of 4 controllers, which is going to make them seem relatively less attractive.

I’m in the UK, if that matters.

Any suggestions/ideas?

2

Of course you can use controllers on a PC.

3

Ah, great - for some reason I thought you could only use wired controllers. How do you link a wireless XBox360 controller to Windows 8 without using extra hardware then?

4

You type your question in to google.

5

Ah, sorry - I realised you can make the XBox360 controllers work on a PC after having bought a wireless receiver, although I mistakenly thought you needed to buy one receiver per controller, which is why I thought the cost was more of an issue.

So you’d regard buying a small, cheap PC to shove under the TV + wireless receiver as the best option? Any recommendations as to manufacturers/spec to look for?

6

The best option is Ouya by far. If you already have three Dualshock 3 controllers then just use them and one Ouya controller and it works amazingly.