The retailer has been talking up tablets for months. Now it's got game-optimized Android devices from Acer, Asus, and Samsung packaged with external game controllers.

GameStop has been planning to offer a video game-optimized Android tablet for some time and the company now has three for sale at select outlets. The Texas-based video game retailer confirmed Friday that it has Google Android-based tablets made by Acer, Asus, and Samsung in stock and is packaging them with external Bluetooth controllers to bring a console-like gaming experience to the mobile devices.

The new GameStop tablet lineup includes the Acer A100, which is priced at $329.99 without the controller, the Asus Transformer, going for $399, and the Samsung Galaxy Tab, carrying a price tag of $499.

PCMag called several West Coast GameStop outlets Friday to confirm that the tablets are in stock. The company is conducting its tablet pilot program in 200 retail locations nationwide, according to an earlier report from The Wall Street Journal.

A GameStop representative at a San Francisco retail outlet said that in addition to the external game controller, the retailer was loading the Google Anroid-based tablets with its own software and promoting tablet-optimized game titles for the devices.

Earlier this year, GameStop said it was planning to build if it couldn't find a third-party device to its liking.

"If we can work with our partners and the OEMs and they come up with a great tablet that is enabled with a great gaming experience and coupled with a bluetooth controller, then there's no need to go out and develop our own," GameStop president Tony Bartel said in April.

"But if we can't find one that's great for gaming, then we will create our own."

Last month, Bartel said GameStop to build its own tablet with so many on the market already. But he also indicated that the company would be branding any devices it sold as GameStop tablets, which doesn't appear to be the case with the tablets the retailer is currently selling.

GameStop built its own controller for the tablets, testing the devices with consumers in Dallas this summer.

"[W]e've created a controller that we're testing to really allow for immersive gameplay," Bartel said in September. "It's hard to imagine how to stream a gamelet's say Modern Warfare 3onto a tablet and then play it with your finger."

But the retailer could face a shortage of content for its tablets in the beginning, he admitted.

"There's not a lot of tablet/android based games for the consumer that are designed to use an external controller," Bartel said, adding that GameStop will stream console games to the devices as they become available.

The video game retailer has been branching out from its brick-and-mortar roots in recent months as pressure from online game distributors like Stream and OnLive has begun to be felt.

Earlier this year, GameStop acquired Impulse, a subsidiary of Stardock that provides a digital distribution service, and Spawn Labs, a developer of streaming technology. Impulse has in recent years had about 10 percent of the PC digital game delivery market while Steam controlled a 70 percent share, according to Gamasutra.