Koyozo’s flagship Koyozo One — with hall-effect joysticks, haptic feedback, and an intelligent app ecosystem — signals India’s bold leap from playing games to building the hardware that runs them.
Quick Take:
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Indian gaming hardware startup Koyozo has unveiled the Koyozo One, an integrated mobile handheld gaming ecosystem designed to transform standard smartphones into console-grade gaming devices — stealing the spotlight at the India AI Impact Summit 2026 in New Delhi, where global tech leaders including Google, Microsoft, and the UN Secretary-General converged. The Koyozo One pairs precision hall-effect joysticks and triggers with haptic feedback, dual USB-C and Bluetooth connectivity, and the intelligent Koyozo Club software platform — offering Indian gamers a homegrown alternative to imported controllers from Backbone, Razer, and GameSir.
This positions Koyozo to directly challenge global controller brands that dominate India’s premium gaming accessories market through expensive imports and steep taxes. With a locally built, locally priced ecosystem, Koyozo can now reach the 500 million+ mobile gamers in India who have long been underserved by hardware designed for Western markets — something BGMI, Free Fire, and Genshin Impact players have felt acutely for years.
| StartupFeed Insight
What the numbers say: India is the world’s largest mobile gaming market by user volume yet imports nearly 100% of its premium gaming hardware — Koyozo is the first Indian startup to build a hardware-software ecosystem to close that gap. What this means for you:
Our prediction: Koyozo will close a seed or Pre-Series A round by Q3 2026 and ship the first commercial batch of Koyozo One units by Diwali 2026, riding India’s gaming hardware white-space narrative. |
What’s New: Inside the Koyozo One
The Koyozo One is not a standalone controller — it is a full hardware-software ecosystem purpose-built for India’s mobile gaming reality. At its core, the device features zero-drift hall-effect joysticks and linear hall triggers, which eliminate the stick drift problem that plagues conventional potentiometer-based controllers used by competitors. Hall sensors use magnetic fields instead of physical contacts, meaning the Koyozo One offers superior longevity and precision — the same technology used in high-end console controllers costing significantly more.
The hardware connects via low-latency wired USB-C or Bluetooth, supports pass-through charging so players never need to pause a session to charge their phones, and comes with modular accessory support for personalisation. The device’s form factor clamps around a smartphone, transforming it into a Nintendo Switch-style handheld gaming device.
Why It Matters: India’s 500 Million Gamer Problem
India is the world’s largest mobile gaming market by user count, driven by accessible Android smartphones and titles such as BGMI, Free Fire, and Call of Duty Mobile. Yet the country has historically lacked premium indigenous gaming hardware — forcing serious gamers to either import expensive controllers (Backbone One retails around Rs 8,000-9,000 with import taxes) or settle for low-quality Chinese generics.
The Koyozo One’s unveiling at the India AI Impact Summit — a stage shared with Google’s AI partnership announcements and Microsoft’s global AI equity pledges — sends a pointed signal: Indian startups are no longer just consumer markets for global tech. They are builders of it. Gaming hardware was one of the last frontiers where India had no credible homegrown player.
How It Works: The Koyozo Ecosystem
The Koyozo One pairs with the Koyozo Club app — an intelligent software layer that is the real competitive differentiator. Koyozo Club provides:
- Auto button mapping for non-native games via Play Sync — letting players use physical controls in titles that otherwise only support touch inputs, including BGMI and Free Fire on Android
- Remote play integration that streams PC games to a phone via the Koyozo Remote Play desktop app — effectively turning any smartphone into a portable PC gaming device
- Personalised control profiles per game, with one-touch switching between saved configurations
- Game discovery, performance insights, and a library of hundreds of supported titles in a single interface
The ecosystem works across Android smartphones with USB-C, iPhone 15 series and above, Windows PCs, Nintendo Switch, and PlayStation and Xbox consoles via Remote Play — making Koyozo One arguably the most versatile multi-platform mobile controller in its class.
Competitive Landscape: Koyozo One vs. The Field
| Feature | Koyozo One | Backbone One | Razer Kishi V2 | GameSir G8+ |
| Hall-Effect Sticks | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Haptic Feedback | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Pass-Through Charging | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
| Android + iOS + PC | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ (Android) | ✅ |
| Native App Ecosystem | Koyozo Club | Backbone App | Nexus App | GameSir App |
| India-Made / Priced | ✅ Local Price | ❌ Import Tax | ❌ Import Tax | ❌ Import Tax |
The key insight from this comparison: Koyozo One is the only controller in its competitive set that combines hall-effect sticks AND haptic feedback AND local India pricing — while global alternatives carry the burden of import duties that price many Indian gamers out.
Summit Context: India Is Building the Gaming Stack
Koyozo was one of five Indian gaming and AI startups showcased at the India AI Impact Summit 2026 in New Delhi, selected by the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting. The other four — Yesgnome (Sketly AI art-generation platform for game studios), Metasports (Hitwicket cricket game with 18 million users and a generative AI commentary engine), Youth Buzz (Man vs. GPT interactive AI gameplay on Ourcadium), and Evivve (Enterprise Cognitive AI Readiness Tool) — collectively paint a picture of India moving across the entire gaming value chain: from AI art tools and AI commentators, to hardware, to interactive AI gameplay formats.
A special panel discussion at the summit convened global investors and industry leaders to discuss India’s expanding influence in AI-driven game development — with Koyozo’s hardware debut serving as the most tangible, physical proof point of that ambition.
What’s Next for Koyozo
Pre-bookings for the Koyozo One are open at shop.koyozo.com with free shipping across India. The company has not yet announced a commercial shipping date or retail price, but the pre-book momentum and government-backed platform debut suggest a commercial launch is imminent. Watch for a funding announcement and Diwali 2026 as the target commercial milestone.
