
The shock of playing the Ouya, one year later - dumpsterkid
http://wololo.net/2014/05/16/the-shock-of-playing-the-ouya-one-year-later/
======
lhnz
The problem with calling it the perfect "party gaming" console is that it
completely doesn't work for that when "it took me almost an hour to update the
firmware and configure the 4 controllers."

I'm not saying that to hurt OUYA, I'm just saying that if they want to find
this niche they should focus some effort on fixing that.

Edit: I'm not implying that other consoles are better fitted to this. I'm
implying that engineering a console so that setup time is always fast even
when you've not touched it for weeks could be a valuable feature in the "party
gaming" market.

~~~
baby
This is a huge problem with new consoles I find. I don't remember having to
update my N64 every time I wanted to play it. But my PS3? Every time I want to
play I have to spend like 30 minutes in downloading and installing an update.
Every single time. I don't play that often but still do play from times to
times and I haven't had a clean launch for years.

~~~
rexf
I have the same problem with my gaming PC. When I boot it up, I have numerous
updates for Windows, Steam, games, etc.

~~~
wlesieutre
But how often do you not turn your PC on for a month? That's much more common
with consoles.

Steam is running all the time when my computer is on (and I use my computer
every day), and games just keep themselves up to date. For a given game that
I'm trying to play, there's maybe a 15 minute period every couple of months
when I wouldn't be able to launch it immediately.

The Windows updates aren't required in order to play games, and they can just
be delayed until the next time you're restarting. Not a huge deal there.

~~~
Argorak
Very often. I don't have a regular gaming habit, that applies to both my
gaming enviroment (strictly speaking, the Windows side of my mac) and my
console.

For the console, btw.: all of them support nightly updates, so I rarely have
the problem there.

------
dpcan
My take-away from this article was that if every OUYA shipped with a $10-$25
gift card or starting account balance, people would get into it a lot easier,
and not box it up after a week.

Most consoles ship with full games. If the OUYA is only shipping with free
trials, they aren't really competing.

Side-note, the home page of their website, what are they thinking? It looks
like a stop sign. Or a "come back later". I literally went to their site
earlier this year and thought it wasn't live yet, didn't bother going any
further - until today. Shoot, it might as be one of those giant red circles
with a line through it saying "go away!"

~~~
sp332
Just a note, _every_ game in the Ouya store has a free trial or some kind of
free mode. You can download every game & start playing it right away, then
choose to pay to unlock the rest of it later. Of course some games are
completely free, but they're generally not very polished.

~~~
kevingadd
This may have been true at launch, but it is false now:

[http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/213775/Ouya_ditching_prob...](http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/213775/Ouya_ditching_problematic_freetotry_requirement.php)

Just another ill-fated and ill-considered promise from the Ouya staffers.
Unfortunate; I liked it on principle.

~~~
jonny_eh
OUYA engineer here (not PR).

Developers kept telling us that requiring a free component was discouraging
them from publishing.

Since we changed our stance on that issue we've received a large influx of new
and awesome games. So while it might not seem ideal from a gamer's perspective
at first, the availability of a lot more games is pretty nice.

~~~
MichaelGG
What is their rationale? I saw one rant on Reddit where the dev was angry that
OUYA forced him to give away his work for free and people would just play a
demo then never pay. Are they all like that? As I understood, the technical
implementation is fairly straightforward, right?

~~~
ijk
> As I understood, the technical implementation is fairly straightforward,
> right?

As has been pointed out elsewhere in this thread, the technical and design
challenges of offering a working subset of a game as a demo can be quite high
for a small developer. Even AAA studios can't always justify the cost.

------
hahainternet
This is exactly how I feel about my Ouya. It sits on the side of my TV stand
completely unobtrusively, and if friends come over within 30 seconds we can be
playing frantic, immersive games. Not desperately struggling to figure out how
we get a second player online without a second xbox live account.

It's a shame enough people didn't realise this from the start, but $150 is not
a lot of outlay for what I got in return and when the games eventually move on
to Ouya 2, I will just put XBMC on it and it's still a great device.

~~~
billyhoffman
Yes. This. Ouya + XMBC is amazing.

While modern $99 "video pucks" like AppleTV, Roku, or Amazon are good
streaming clients for NetFlix, etc, they utterly suck at playing files from a
local network. Ouya + XMBC is an incredibly option for this use case, now that
Boxee is gone.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
I've been having a lot of success with the Chromecast lately. The more I think
about it, the less I want an intelligent TV or yet another device (which needs
updates and config) and controller (which needs its batteries replaced and
fished out of the couch cushions) attached to it. A dumb receiver like the
Chromecast seems to be the superior solution. I have no shortage of smart
devices, I don't need another. I just need an easy wireless way to get whats
on my smart devices onto my dumb TV.

Hard to beat at $35, or $29 at Best Buy right now due to a sale. That's
practically sales tax on the AppleTV plus the more or less required AppleCare.

~~~
JoshTriplett
Agreed. I don't want a smart TV or a media-player box, I want a
smartphone/tablet/PC and the ability to easily get its content onto a TV.

And if you're inclined to tinker, the Chromecast is a ton of fun: it's
actually running a full browser engine, and you can send it a page to view.
That page can then use things like WebRTC streaming.

~~~
andybak
Two things I would like to put forward in counterpoint:

1\. Communal browsing of content - you sometimes want to browse available
content on the big screen so everyone can join in. That means menus and UIs on
the TV not the device

2\. Controls with physical buttons have two advantages. A well-designed remote
is much easier to learn and use without needing to look at it. Secondly -
games controlled via a touchscreen when you're actually looking at the TV are
a fairly unpleasant experience.

I _do_ want a smart TV with a physical controller. I also want
Chromecast/Airplay etc. Different beasts.

------
ebbv
> I have terrible memories of coming to a gamer’s place to spend the afternoon
> playing Fifa, Street Fighter 4, etc… in all these AAA titles, the guy who
> owns the game basically beats your ass so hard that all the fun is gone.

This is not a failure of those games, this is a failure of the person who owns
the game to not be a dickhead.

Street Fighter 4, for example, has handicapping. You can tilt the game wildly
in the novice's favor, to the point where if they land a few lucky hits they
win.

I've never played FIFA, but I'd be surprised if it didn't have some way to
skew the balance of the game in favor of the novice.

~~~
vertex-four
I find games with friends to be substantially less fun when people have to be
handicapped. When I win, it feels like it's because of the handicap, not
because I did anything right.

~~~
sanxiyn
I find this phenomenon very interesting. I mean, obviously, you won because
you did right things. You would have lost if you didn't. By definition,
handicap should be set so that you have an even chance of winning.

This may be a cultural thing? In Go, handicap is a normal part of the game and
everybody (but see below) is fine with using it. In Chess, people seem to
detest handicap and insist on even game.

I live in South Korea, and I visited US Go club when I travelled there, and I
was extremely surprised to find that some Go players there insisted on even
game. Why would they do that? I mean, if you normally need 4 stones handicap
in Go, you have exactly zero chance to win without handicap. What fun is that?

~~~
ritchiea
The chess/go difference in accepting handicaps may be due to chess's culture
of memorization & opening study. Also since in chess all the pieces begin the
game on the board (rather than players alternating placing stones) if you it's
hard to reconcile that any deviation from the standard game (e.g. removing
pieces as a handicap) "doesn't look like chess."

~~~
sanxiyn
Well, handicap also destroys Go's standard opening theory, which is very
extensive. (Start with 4-volume Dictionary of Basic Fuseki: while far from
comprehensive, it covers basics well.)

But! Handicap is common enough in Go that there is opening theory for
handicapped games! This may not apply to Chess directly, but my point is that
if handicap is a normal part of the game, you will have opening theory for
handicapped games. This is kind of obvious if you think about it.

~~~
mst
I've always loved handicap systems in any game; if I'm playing a stronger
player in a game that doesn't have one, I set my own mental victory bar as
'lose less badly than previously'.

I suspect it's a psychological function of valuing absolute victory over
valuing progress in your abilities, and which of the two you consider more
important - and while this is entirely subjective, I feel like Go plays better
to the latter set of values and Chess to the former.

------
ch0wn
Wired Xbox 360 controllers work out of the box, as well. I feel like they
missed an opportunity in promoting the compatibility more, especially as they
got so much negative press about their controllers.

------
arrrg
Local multiplayer is also coming back on other platforms, by the way.

For example, the recently released Sportsfriends (a collection of four local
multiplayer games):
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zh5EXf4rpo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zh5EXf4rpo)

~~~
sp332
I'm excited about Sportsfriends, but is it really part of a trend?

~~~
KVFinn
Very much so. Oddly enough the largest quantity is on pc though.

------
sehugg
These are all fun games, but the Ouya's problem is that these are all the same
games the author would have been playing a year ago.

~~~
jonny_eh
That's mostly the fault of the author and our marketing budget. We've been
getting a steady stream of awesome new games including Duck Game, which I'm
sure would have been a hit at this guy's party:
[https://www.ouya.tv/game/DUCK-GAME/](https://www.ouya.tv/game/DUCK-GAME/)

------
KVFinn
The trend the author is seeing is not just on Ouya. 'Sportsfriends' on PS4
(and PC soon) has four unique games as good as any he played for local
multiplayer. Towerfall is better on PS4. And many more like these the pipe! I
heartily recommend Nidhogg when it comes out for PS4 later.

If you have a PS4 and more than one other local person to play with
occasionally you must be Sportsfriends right away!

~~~
sp332
But the PS4 is $400, and makes a lot of heat. The Ouya is $100 + money for
other controllers (which could be Ouya, PS3 or Xbox controllers). If you just
want Towerfall and Nidhogg, the Ouya is a much better deal!

------
lingoberry
Very interesting, I'm surprised to see that Ouya is still alive. This is sort
of what I want in a console today. I don't have time to play lengthy AAA games
and prefer social games, but there are few alternatives for that type of
gaming.

~~~
sp332
Ouya just had their retail launch last June. Less than a year would be fairly
soon to pack it in.

------
trustyhank
A lot of his arguments (good party console, hardware doesnt always matter,
etc) also apply to Nintendo consoles. Ive always loved the Wii for similar
reasons (the fact that it is easy to softmod doesnt hurt either :P )

------
bovermyer
This article put the Ouya back on my radar. I'll have to look into it.

------
programminggeek
The Ouya has some fun games and it's a cool little console. It's not even
remotely perfect, but I'm glad it exists. Between Ouya, Kindle TV, and maybe
someday Apple TV or other smart TV's, there's going to be a nice place to put
fun little indie games in more places, which is good for developers.

------
TruthSHIFT
His favorite Ouya game, Hidden in Plain Site, is also available for Xbox 360
and it's totally excellent.

~~~
voltagex_
Vote for it to come to Steam:
[http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=206372...](http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=206372301)

------
reidmain
Towerfall is also on the PS4.

~~~
sp332
And the version on PS4, "Ascension", is better than the version available for
Ouya right now. They say the Ouya version will eventually get the extra
features. [http://www.polygon.com/2013/11/16/5108514/is-towerfalls-
move...](http://www.polygon.com/2013/11/16/5108514/is-towerfalls-move-to-
ps4-and-pc-a-big-blow-for-ouya)

~~~
jonny_eh
Yup, in June.

In the meantime, I recommend Duck Game. A new 4-player 2D combat game that
just launched exclusively on ouya: [https://www.ouya.tv/game/DUCK-
GAME/](https://www.ouya.tv/game/DUCK-GAME/)

------
greggman
I guess this is self promotion but it seems relevant.

I probably should have posted this early but I've been working on a
library/framework for making party games with lots more than 4 players.

Players use their smartphone as the controller but all look at the same TV to
play the games.

I've only had a couple of "larger" sessions so far but have had 17 player
space wars and 14 player bomberman like. Going to try for 30 to 40 players in
a few days.

[http://greggman.github.io/HappyFunTimes/](http://greggman.github.io/HappyFunTimes/)

------
dclowd9901
Is this the same wololo who hacks Vitas and PSPs? If so, this guy's a legend
in the handheld hacking community.

~~~
pomfpomfpomf3
Yes.

------
raldi
Is anyone else finding this article's pale-gray-on-white color scheme very
difficult to read?

~~~
jsnell
Yes, but that's color scheme of half the internet these days so you just have
to deal with it :-/ I recommend this bookmarklet:
[https://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/zap.html#zap_colors](https://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/zap.html#zap_colors)

------
Rayne
I probably would have actually enjoyed the Ouya, but it had such terrible
input lag that it was effectively unplayable. Couldn't find any way to fix it,
so it just sits on a shelf in my apartment now.

~~~
rocky1138
Mine suffered from the same. Two things fixed it:

1) Flipping the unit on its side so that the power button is facing me and the
wires stick up in the air. Apparently the original run units had a metal base
which affected signal from the antenna.

2) Switching the Bluetooth controllers to get the priority no matter if
there's a game downloading or not. This feature/option was included in a
recent update and you can find it in the Controllers->Settings menu.

I have a chocolate brown Kickstarter-backer model and I no longer get
controller lag.

------
notlisted
Do not own an ouya, but I have been very pleasantly surprised by both
performance of the device and quality of the games on my FireTV. Expect great
things going forward.

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nebulous1
I just can't see the OUYA surviving the Fire TV

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higherpurpose
I know this is exactly the opposite point the article is trying to make, but
I'll wait until they're selling a version with a Denver CPU and a Maxwell GPU,
before I even consider buying one. However, I'm not sure they'll survive that
long. Maybe releasing one with Tegra K1 this year would sustain them a bit
longer. I don't think you can even do 1080p games on OUYA, unless they are 2D.
Maybe that's fine for kids or something, but not for me.

------
NicoJuicy
I also bought an Ouya, but for some reason.. I only use it for Plex...

Haven't gamed with it, but perhaps i should after reading this.

------
everyone
I wish people would stop using the term 'AAA' . Its meaningless imo as any
other members from the implied scale (AAA, AAB, AAC, whatever) are _never_
referred to. I find it one of the more annoying americanisms.

edit: What people _actually_ mean when they say " an AAA game" is "a game with
a very large development budget"

~~~
cwyers
Oh, so it's apparently not meaningless, and not even confusing, as you were
able to figure out its meaning right away.

~~~
everyone
No. Read this.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AAA_Gaming_industry](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AAA_Gaming_industry)

The terms supposed meaning is about various aspects of game quality and also
implying some kind of scale. But it is commonly used in a very vague way to
denote "game with very large budget" or "game from huge publishing house"
Things which have nothing to do with quality and are vague to the point of
meaninglessness.

~~~
cwyers
Look, if we're going to stop using terms just because they don't mean what
they originally meant when first coined, we lose about three-quarters of the
English language. That ship has sailed.

