The young gamer’s ultimate wearable?
The success of Minecraft isn’t just centred on the gaming world any more. Indeed, this huge phenomenon has spread to film, TV, music and even hardware.
Most of the success of the new generation of virtual reality is said to come from those wanting a new perspective on their Minecraft world, with Notch himself donating a hefty sum to the Oculus Rift when it was first announced.
Now Computing LLC and Gameband have released an interesting addition to the Minecraft fandom collective. The Gameband is basically a USB 3.0 bracelet with 8GB of space on which you can store your custom created Minecraft worlds and even the full game, to be accessed on another computer.
It’s an interesting concept, but the Gameband goes beyond being just an average USB storage device. Installed on the drive you’ll find the Gameband application, which when executed will personalise the Gameband setup to your email account. This will then enable you to back up your existing Minecraft setup, worlds and add-ons, with the aim of allowing you to copy them to a new computer or, as we said, play them directly from the USB part of the Gameband itself.
In addition to backing up your own worlds, the Gameband comes with a few pre-loaded maps. These include examples from SethBling, Dragnoz and Hypixel.
Furthermore, the Gameband houses an 140 array red LED display along the top of the band, where, using the accompanied app PixelFurnace, you can display the current time or hack the LED to display whatever information you want.
The LED will illuminate at the press of a button, and with a decent 11mAh rechargeable battery in place, you’ll be able to get roughly 20-odd days of use before you’ll need to plug it back into an active USB Minecraft port again.
The band itself is surprisingly well constructed. The clasp protecting the USB section is made of stainless steel and features a graphic of a Minecraft Redstone block. Opening it requires a fair amount of pull, so there’s not much chance of the band loosening and falling off when you least expect it.
The rest of the band is made from a tough, black plastic, Thermoplastic polyurethane, to be exact, similar to that of one of the higher-end semi-smart watches that are currently available. It’s certainly durable enough and has been well designed, taking into consideration the fact that the majority of sales will be to young people and children, where knocks and bangs are a regular occurrence. But it’s also very comfortable, feeling more like a rubberised strap as opposed to something all plastic or a standard watch strap.
The Gameband + Minecraft currently ships in two different versions, a Gameband Diamond and a Gameband Redstone. The Diamond version displays green LED text and Minecraft diamond as the clasp graphic, whereas the version we had to test has red LEDs and the Redstone clasp. Both cost £64.99.
Having Minecraft wherever you go is always going to be a niche product to sell, even with those who play it regularly. However, the Gameband is actually quite a good device. It’s well built, well presented and would make an ideal gift for the younger Minecraft enthusiast in the family, plus it’s not too expensive for a potential Christmas or birthday present. David Hayward
An ideal present for Minecraft fans.