Uzebox is an 8 bit open source game console with ~150 game/demos actively developed by open source enthusiasts. There is now software mechanisms to interleave UART data into the scanline drawing assembly code and other necessary items to make it possible to use the ESP8266. There is now a new official PCB that has the ESP-E built in and the first generation of small networked games are in the works. So it is a nice platform to experiment with network stuff since you have easy to use video, SD card, sound/music, gamepad/keyboard input, etc with an easy C language based kernel. There is also a cycle accurate emulator you can use to develop, and several people have made full games without ever owning hardware.
Until now the emulator did not support ESP8266 at all which made it cumbersome to develop network applications. Now I have createdemulator support in Uzem(the Uzebox emulator) and so it is rather quite easy to quickly make programs that interface with AT and do real internet things. And you have full graphic capabilities and all that built in of course.
I think this is a much more capable platform than Arduino for quickly making code that actually does something and interacts with the user and besides has the interesting possibility of games(check out all the existing ones to get an idea of the retro quality). I just wanted to pass it along and maybe someone will become interested in this new horizon, I don't think there is any other place ESP8266 emulation attempts have been made?
Thanks!