As was recently reported on by numerous Android blogs, Google is supposedly screening apps to ensure proper remote/gamepad support before listing on the Google Play Store on Android TV. I can now confirm...that's not very extensive testing. I've got three games loaded on my system right now, and I'm using the official Nexus Player gamepad by Asus. It's obvious right off the bat in all three games that there's an issue. Here's the games, the issue(s) for each, and how long you'd have to test to notice.
Beach Buggy Racing: Minor issue, but in the tutorial, the game tells you to hit the "B" (red) button to use your character's special move (not to be confused with a power up, which is "A" (green)). The proper button on the controller is "Y"(yellow) and is reflected as such in the game's controller configuration screen. This is a minor error but would be caught 60-90 seconds into the game's opening tutorial. In the controller configuration, the home button is listed as pause. This is incorrect, as home takes you back to the leanback launcher, and "back" functions as pause.
Final Fantasy 3: Game has rudimentary support for the gamepad, in the sense that each action in game does correspond to a button. The "touch" menu button is still prevalent in the game. In the opening cave, which serves as a tutorial, the first on-screen command that tells you which controls to use tells you to "pinch the screen to zoom in." I had to push all the buttons to find out the the left bumper sort of fills this need, but not properly. This game is still 100% touch based with poorly adapted controls that are only saved by the fact that this is an RPG and doesn't require precise control. This is a moderate issue and would be caught 15-60 seconds into the tutorial cave depending on random battles.
Soul Calibur: I tested the touchscreen controls on my Moto X, and the Nexus Player Gamepad on both the Moto X and the Nexus Player. The results were interesting. On the NP, there's no effective start button (back sometimes works, sometimes doesn't). When you lose and have the option to continue, no button will function as the start button, and you cannot continue. There's no ABK combo button to soul charge. There's no controller configuration at all. YOu get movement, and 4 re-arranged face buttons. That's it. On the Moto X, the Nexus Player's gamepad functions like the Dreamcast controller in relation to the face buttons (a huge improvement), but still no ABK or start/continue functionality. Lastly, the phone's touch screen controls give you full customization, all buttons to include ABK, and full start/pause functionality with the option to continue if you lose. How quickly would this be obvious? Well, to someone testing only the Nexus Player, it would appear that the face buttons worked, and they wouldn't be aware of the lack of ABK functionality. They would have had to lose a fight to notice the continue issues.
Overall, I'm disappointed in the quality control so far relative to what Google has claimed. Beach Buggy Racing is excellent with minor issues that are to be expected in any software. FF3's port was lazy, and Soul Calibur's was haphazard.
By:
dd
On 22:39
