
Reasons why OUYA is a bad idea (at best) - nemo1618
http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/IanFisch/20120711/173901/
======
kerryfalk
I hate to add another "this is why HN is going down the tube" post so I'm
going to try and be very constructive here.

There are naysayers for every idea. For new ideas there are more of them than
when the ideas are established.

Every new product sucks. All of them. Some suck less. But the good ones
improve with time.

I do not want to be part of a community that rallies against people trying to
do great things with passion and change the status quo.

To me as a gamer and a guy who learned to do basic HTML as a pre-teen because
he loved games and learned to hack at games with others far more experience
than me this seems like an absolutely brilliant idea. If I were 13 again, I
would be figuring out how to build games for OUYA if for nothing else than to
be cool among my group of friends.

This comment comes from the gut and is not as analytical as some of my others
but this post does not belong here.

OUYA team, I salute you. I don't care about the shortcomings of your initial
product, I think your idea is sound and it seems there are thousands of people
who seem to agree.

~~~
maratd
I'm sorry, but your impassioned and eloquent post is wasted on the garbage
you're responding to. If it was a well thought-out critique, it might be
warranted, but the author couldn't even be bothered to proof read. There are
horrible spelling and grammar mistakes throughout the entire article. And I'm
not being picky. If I have to stop and think about what words are missing from
your sentence so that I can understand it, I'm not going to bother thinking
about what ideas the sentence actually tries to convey.

~~~
jdechambeau
I'm not seeing any typos or missing words. Could you point out a couple for
me?

~~~
maratd
> They claim their console will "open" and "hackable".

> ... speaker seems to say the word "television" a disturbing amount of time,
> as ...

> How many existing Android games will be play well with this thing

> It spend far more when it launched the original Xbox.

> I can only hope the OUYA people do intend to make good on their promises,
> rather than just taking the money and running.

A few choice selections that still remain. Not to mention all the mind
crushing run-on sentences! I had a better writing style in the 5th grade.
Look, I'm starting to sound like a grammar Nazi, but this guy makes me want to
reach into the screen and punch him. Google Translate can do a better job.

------
ekianjo
This is a crap of a post if I ever see one. It's easy to see the huge amount
of bias in the lines. I need to say before writing further that I am not
interested in the OUYA stuff, but I'm curious to see how it does, and there's
probably some kind of market for it.

"1. android game list not compatible" : There are several apps on Android
which enable games working with touchscreen only to be translated to physical
controls by simulating touch pressure at precise points on the screen. Of
course, this wouldnt work for Angry birds of game such as that, but there are
a number of games for which this approach will work.

"2. The Android Game Library is Extremely Lackluster" : Yeah, maybe. But
apparently there's some significant profit happening from a bunch of game
creators, if not they would have stopped making games for Android a long time
ago.

"3. Indies Will Not Fill the Void" : Why not? We have seen Braid on Ubuntu
store even though it's a tiny portion of the market for games. There will be
support from Indies. Porting something to the OUYA will be something fairly
easy since the hardware is standard and the environment is already one people
are familiar with. Cost of porting will be very low, I believe.

"4. The Userbase Problem" : They already solved this partly by : \- adopting
Android and therefore benefiting from Android market games \- ensuring ports
would be easy to make with standard hardware and environment, as my previous
point. \- and it seems, at least from Kickstarter, that there is some strong
market interest for it, at least for a niche market.

"5. Some Things Just Don't Scale" : Author focuses on online capabilities, but
just like on other consoles, you dont need online to enjoy great single player
games like Limbo or Braid.

"6. Games are Moving Away From the TV" : Yeah, so what? There will still be
always a market for TV-games. It's not like everyone is going to stop playing
games on a big screen. There will be a market for it. Noone is ever
considering that the games' market will be 100% mobile in the years to come.
It may be decreasing because of the old business model as well, and the lack
of innovation on home-based consoles.

"7. Android Specs Move too Fast" : Yeah, and so do hardware specs for PCs, yet
games usually support a wide range of hardware capabilities, to be able to run
in different resolutions and different processors, while still remaining
playable. I don't see the big deal there. And nothing prevents them for
updating the OUYA every 2 years or something while still keeping game
compatibility, something impossible with current consoles.

I can't believe someone claiming to be a developper in the game industry wrote
that post. Seriously.

~~~
ekianjo
By the way, seen on another article on the subject :

"So what is Ouya, you ask? Ouya is a game console built on the Android
operating system. Its creators pitched it as a platform for independent
developers, and it clearly has big potential. In just 24 hours, 20,000 people
bought an Ouya console — a product they had never heard of before yesterday.
By way of comparison, Microsoft sold 326,000 Xbox 360 consoles in its first
week after many millions of marketing dollars."

I think this clearly shows there is a market for it, just like there is a
market for old-style Adventure Games a la DoubleFine.

------
postfuturist
Refutations:

1\. A lot of games already support the Sony Experia Play gamepad layout which
is extremely similar to this controller. I own that phone, there are plenty of
games. This is just plain wrong.

2\. Nonsense, plenty of fantastic games. Maybe not XBOX 360 / PS3 level of
library, but is that necessary for success? I think not.

3\. Yeah, there's junk, but there are also a lot of gems. So what, that's what
ratings are for. Plenty of crap available on all game systems. This isn't
competing on having specific games, but being an open platform. Expensive dev-
kit not required. People actually like that, even if they don't use it. I love
low-budget indie games. Lots of other people do, too.

4\. Android already has great games. The games are already there, or trivially
easy to port. A lot of developers added support to the Sony Experia Play after
the fact when that came out. There's a good chance all those games will work
on day 1 on OUYA.

5\. No real compelling argument here. Android is an open system for networked
games, they can work however they work. What's not economically feasible about
games running their own servers or having multiple competing server services.
These already exist in the PC game world.

6\. Well the success of current consoles suggest that lots of people still do
(and will continue) to game in their living rooms staring at their giant HD
screen. I do.

7\. Specs moving too fast? The XBOX 360 is dramatically "behind" in specs (not
to mention the Wii), but as we already know, the tech specs of game systems
aren't really much of a limiting factor in creating enjoyable experiences..
Hell, lots of people love games made for radically out-of-date consoles. Who
is going to be writing games in 2 years for Android that doesn't run on
current best-in-class android devices? Idiots, that's who.

8\. We'll see...

------
Danieru
OUYA is a startup. A startup's job is to explore new markets at a high risk.

Maybe that is too abstract, I'll reword it. A startup's job is to overcome
challenges and create the non-obvious.

Each of those 'reasons' are just challenges that OUYA will have to overcome to
succeed. The reasons do not make OUYA a bad idea, but rather a hard idea.

------
untog
I don't disagree with any of the points raised. I think the counter to all of
them is that the console costs $99. It's quite possible to have a speculative
purchase of it on the basis that it might work out, but even if it doesn't,
it's a perfectly hackable box you could maybe use as a media centre.

The bigger fear to my mind is that despite taking all the money, they'll
somehow never ship a product. Certainly, they are not obliged to by the terms
of Kickstarter. I'm sure they will, though.

------
hello_asdf
This blog seemed rather negative about the system, but I'm still excited to
see how OUYA turns out. I know that I can hook up a box to a tv, and program
for it. Most programmers know that. However, it's the idea that you're
programming for a standalone console that just makes me want to code.

------
rokhayakebe
This post describes the "Captivity of Negativity"

~~~
waterlesscloud
Then there's the slamming of mobile game developers "People who do exist are
the hacks who are responsible for the 99 cent garbage you see flooding the
iPhone and Android app stores."

~~~
batiudrami
Mobile games are garbage. They, at best, are pay-for flash games, and at
worst, are a small fraction of a game designed to push you into paying money
to unlock features which are a near unfeasible grind to unlock normally (if
it's even possible).

The only way they shine is Draw Something/Words With Friends-style turn-based
multiplayer, and even then they still suffer from the issues I noted above.

I have far more fun playing Pokemon on an emulator on my phone than I've had
with any mobile game to date.

~~~
rje
You may not enjoy them, but it's dismissive and incorrect to label the entire
set as 'garbage'.

Offhand, here are some mobile games that I have played that are in no way
garbage:

    
    
      * Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery
      * Waking Mars
      * Shadowgun
      * Infinity Blade/Infinity Blade II
      * Hero Academy
      * Magic 2013: Duel of the Planeswalkers
      * Aralon
      * Great Little War Game
      * Space Invaders Infinity Gene
      * Shadow Era
    

Pokemon is an amazing game and one of the most popular ever made, so saying
you've had more fun with it than another game isn't saying much at all.

------
chaostheory
I think the author fails to see that OUYA isn't made to replace the Xboxes,
Wiis, and PS's of the world. OUYA is not for the mainstream. OUYA is a cool
and cheap experiment. It's a cheap TV gaming box for hackers and developers
akin to the venerable GP32 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GP32>

------
portmanteaufu
It's obvious that the OUYA benefits from the existing Android ecosystem, but
what I'm really looking forward to is the benefit that the Android ecosystem
will get from the OUYA. If the OUYA experiences even moderate success it will
draw a lot of neat games into the marketplace for people with a mobile device
to enjoy.

------
TimJRobinson
A lot of the same arguments were made about the wii when it first came out
(specs are crap, no good games, controllers are unconventional so games have
to be recoded for them), it still did quite well.

Though even if everything else fails I'll still enjoy it as a $99 media
streamer.

~~~
eostyx
Exactly the same as my sentiment.

Why are all these gaming tech "pundits" jumping on the internet hate
bandwagon. It stifles innovation and is regressive. There's no telling if this
will be a success because that's entirely up to the
developers/community/designers that may or may not lead it.

I donated because I want to see that consoles by definition not need to be the
latest and greatest (I have my PC for that and most people will have extensive
"fanboy" wars over the next console put out by either Sony or MS). Not only
that but I support the idea that Android could be THE entry level to game
development. It could be an amazing learning tool for beginners, everywhere.

I'm starting to hate using HN... Anyone found good alternatives?

------
kposehn
I do agree that there is something about OUYA that makes me hesitate to plonk
down my $99 for a console.

However, I'm not sure it is all the reasons outlined by the article.

------
drivebyacct2
This post is so bad, I have a paragraph response to each one and I'm too damn
lazy to type them. The only one worthy of discussion is the first one. It
seems like this publicity could be an easy way to help solve this problem if
they do it right.

------
saket123
Common posters..lighten up..this is a start-up trying to be really bold and
are making some cool stuff. Isn't that what's a start up is about. For me this
post criticizes sprit and innovativeness and hence is a bad one.

