Google acquires what's left of Green Throttle Games

Green Throttle created a controller and app that allowed users to play Android games on their TVs

(Updated to reflect confirmation from Google)

Green Throttle Games has not, for all intents and purposes, existed for the last six months. That has not stopped Google from picking up the remaining pieces, however, in its effort to create its own TV set top box.

Google has purchased Green Throttle's parts and labor, as well as a few members of its team, including two of its founders, A Google spokesperson has confirmed to VatorNews. The company is not, however, disclosing the terms of the deal or sharing any details about what they will be working on at Google.

Green Throttle sold a Bluetooth controller, called Atlas, along with an app called Arena, which allowed users to play Android games on their televisions.

The Green Throttle Arena app provided a central hub to find and highlight games developed both by Green Throttle, and other independent developers and publishers. Green Throttle worked with studios including nWay, Free Range Games, Mercenary Technology and Monstrous.

The company was founded in 2012 by Charles Huang, who was the co-creator of the Guitar Hero video game franchise, as well as Matt Crowley, who was the former Palm and Nokia product lead, and Karl Townsend, the lead engineer for the first two generations of the Palm Pilot. 

Green Throttle raised $6 million in Series A funding in December 2012 from Trinity Ventures, with participation from DCM.

The company found it hard to break into the space, however, and, in November of last year, put up anotice on their website that the Arena app would no longer be available on Google Play or the Amazon Appstore for Android, and that all backend support for the app would cease.

"Stick around and we'll keep you posted on the evolution of Green Throttle," the company said at the time.

Both Crowley and Townsend have updated their LinkedIn profiles to show that they now work for Google, with Crowley putting his title as "product guy," and Townsend calling himself, "hardware guy." Some are saying that the two founders have listed themselves as Google employees since November (I am only able to see their limited profiles) so it is possible that this acquisition actually took place late last year,

Huang, who retains ownership the Green Throttle business, has not come to work at Google. It is unclear what, if anything, he will be doing with the Green Throttle name at this point, especially given that he has already founded another company, Singtrix, the maker of Karaoke machines which are able to auto tune a singer’s voice in real time.

It is also unclear what exactly the Green Throttle team will be doing at Google, or what the company plans to do with the parts it picked up. The rumors are, though, that they will be put to use in creating Google's set top box, which is apparently going to coming out this year, and will be centered around gaming.

VatorNews reached out to Green Throttle for more details regarding what the team will be working on. We will update if we learn more. 

This news was first reported by Pando Daily on Tuesday

(Image source: amazon.com)