$6M invested in start-up turning your smartphone into a home console

Investors are betting big on Green Throttle, a Santa Clara start-up that believes mobile phones could one day replace traditional game consoles in the living room. The company announced on Tuesday that it has received $6 million in Series A funding from a combination of two early stage VC firms, Trinity Ventures and DCM, to help launch a series of products that essentially turn Android smartphones (or tablets) into instant game consoles. Green Throttle's approach is threefold. It is planning on selling hardware in the form of its Atlas wireless game controllers and television adapters, it's creating a TV friendly dashboard in the form of a mobile app, and it's publishing compatible games created in-house and by external developers. It's a lot like what Ouya is doing, with one key exception: Green Throttle isn't making the console itself. Instead, it's using the phones and tablets that players already own, allowing players to play the same game on their television and on the go. Green Throttle was co-founded by RedOctane co-founder (and Guitar Hero co-creator) Charles Huang, mobile executive Matt Crowley, and CTO Karl Townsend, formerly of Palm and Nokia.