TransGaming’s brush with Smart TV technology began when Intel approached the company in its search for a gaming partner. TransGaming put together a user interface compatible with Intel’s hardware, equipped with 16 games from its collection and impressed the Santa Clara, Calif.-based firm so much that its start-up investment arm, Intel Capital, put half a million dollars into the company and invited Gupta to be a keynote speaker at its developer conference, Intel Developer Forum, in San Francisco.
"That became the coming out party for our Smart TV distribution,which led to broader strides into digital distribution of interactive entertainment content onto Smart TV.
Incidentally, Intel announced that it will launch its own Internet TV set-top box sometime this year, which could be a distribution outlet for TransGaming. And, building on a recent agreement that it signed with TV streaming platform Roku, TransGaming plans a major launch in the weeks ahead.
The company also makes money by licensing its 3D-rendering software, SwiftShader. During the company conference call on Tuesday, Gupta said TransGaming is exploring ways to supplement or replace the graphics processing unit, or GPU, on mobile devices. That type of technology would make games on smart phones and tablets faster and open up a wide range of possibilities as far as the scope and complexity of games that the devices can handle. “It’s a market we are aggressively going after,” Gupta said.
TransGaming is trying its hand at developing its own games, too, with the release of World Poker Tour this fall. It is also toying with the concept of micro transactions. For example, picking the shiny shoe as a playing piece in Monopoly would come at a premium. Even if a small sub-set of players make the selection, it’s still a decent amount of coin.