That's my assumption too. I have not heard about any specifics yet, though. Just curious. There is a blog entry about 3.0:
We’re excited to announce that Angry Birds will be coming to Roku later this summer. We believe that the TV will become a huge market for casual gaming and as Anthony Wood, Roku’s founder and CEO said, “just as we were the first to enable Netflix to stream instantly to the TV, we intend to be the catalyst for transforming the way people play casual games on the biggest screen in the home.”
While we can’t yet share all the details of our upcoming products and future SDK releases, we are ready to discuss how you can get started with casual gaming on Roku today.
The upcoming release of the 3.0 software will add significantly to the capabilities of the Roku player’s support for game development by incorporating BrightScript’s new 2D graphics functionality. The 2D graphics functionality provides advanced animation and compositing with optimum performance on Roku hardware. While it was designed primarily for games, it can also be used to create new and unique interfaces and video channels. While games like Angry Birds will require additional SDK features, games written with the 3.0 SDK will work on all current hardware as well as future products.
The 3.0 SDK is just the first step in our efforts to bring casual gaming to Roku. If you would like to discuss building games or other applications for current or future Roku product please email us at partners@roku.com.
-Patrick
but it doesn't specifically mention new hardware, other than in a future compatibility context for 3.0. Some mention a new controller? Must have missed it.
BTW. I think that Roku is really on to something here. A < $100 box (current hardware) can turn any TV into a "Smart TV". Separates the "smarts" from the display (as compared to the the integrated smart TVs), works on older TVs, and adding some gaming capability is fantastic. I'm anxiously looking forward to seeing what the Roku crew comes up with next!
