
Ouya Android console up for pre-order on Amazon  - hdgam3r
http://www.destructoid.com/ouya-android-console-up-for-pre-order-on-amazon-244071.phtml
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jtchang
Congrats to everyone on the team for shipping this.

You guys are missing the point with the content argument. Developing for
consoles has generally been a ridiculously expensive endeavor. This breaks
that mold. Also what makes you think that someone won't buy a console just to
play one (really good) game?

~~~
eropple
_Developing for consoles has generally been a ridiculously expensive endeavor.
This breaks that mold._

No, it doesn't. This shows that you can do some consumer facing and software
development around an outdated commodity platform and release it. That is
nontrivial and the Ouya team certainly deserves credit for it, but it is not
on the same level as what Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo do to produce their
consoles. And it shows in the final product.

 _Also what makes you think that someone won't buy a console just to play one
(really good) game?_

I feel like you're wishcasting, which seems to be commonplace in Ouya
discussions. What "really good" game is going to be a killer app for Ouya? The
platform has very small reach and I can't see anyone with a truly promising
title making it an Ouya exclusive.

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frendiversity
Nintendo has always released low end commodity hardware.

~~~
eropple
Not in the sense that I mean, sorry. The Ouya is barely more than a Tegra 3
reference board with some furniture around it. The internals of the Wii are
custom to the Wii, and that's orders of magnitude more daunting of a project.

Which does not mean that the Ouya cannot be good. (Basic microeconomics has a
lot more to say on that topic.) But breathless cheering about this project
"shattering the mold" doesn't really reflect reality.

~~~
frendiversity
That's true, yeah, but comparisonwise power doesnt mean much. Get one quirky
multiplayer 'angry birds' hit and this thing will smoke ps4 in sales.

~~~
eropple
I find that extremely unlikely, because the Ouya is a parasite platform--it
exists to suck up ports from other platforms (chiefly Android phones and
tablets). This makes it very easy to port away from as well, and I find it
much more likely that any game with significant potential is ported away from
Ouya as soon as possible to reach a platform with more extant users--removing
the drive to purchase an Ouya at all.

It is a problematic situation for Ouya, because they have no compelling reason
to stay on the platform once you sniff the slightest success.

~~~
sp332
Android games are (so far) touch-oriented, whereas the Ouya has a console
controller with analog sticks and triggers, shoulder buttons, d-pad, etc. It
may be easy enough to port Android games to the Ouya, but it's also easy to
make a game that doesn't port back well.

~~~
eropple
Sure, that's true. Now the bigger question: who'd bother writing those games
primarily-for-Ouya in the first place? You've got Windows PCs right over
there, Macs and Linux PCs accessible without _too_ much more work, and if you
play your cards right, you can even deploy to the 360 (yeah, XNA's EOL'd, but
it's still viable for XBLIG, and that's a lot better of a controller-based
platform than Ouya is).

In the rare, doubt-it'll-happen case of a hit game coming out first on Ouya, I
would bet we'd see it on Steam, for cheaper, within six months--because
porting will, by necessity, be That Easy.

Ouya could, depending on tech stack get a _port_ in that situation (and I've
considered it for my own project because I'll already have a gamepad API for
the Windows/Mac release), but it will never be a leading platform that people
actively target because the market share is infinitesmal. There are too many
better options in front of it.

EDIT: Also, bear in mind that Ouya isn't doing anything groundbreaking with
their gamepad stuff - the gamepad APIs already exist in Android 4.x. The only
Ouya-specific stuff I have seen is in their purchasing layer.

~~~
sp332
PC's are not very living room friendly, cost more than $100, and don't come
with console controllers. 360's are more expensive to develop for, are
prohibitively expensive to push frequent updates to, and are heavily censored.
They also cost more than $100.

~~~
eropple
About half-true; the 360 is not expensive to develop for if you're doing
XBLIG, which is probably the top speed of most of the "Ouya developers" I've
seen out there. It is if you're an XBLA dev, but most of them are not.
("Censorship" is bizarre; I would hope we're not pushing RapeLay here.)

But it is purely a numbers game: if you've got a chance at 0.05% of Steam
consumers you've blown away the 25% or even 50% of Ouya owners who might be
interested in your game and it's not even close. And that means that nobody's
going to write exclusives for Ouya and so the value prop for buying one,
outside of a small perfectly-targeted segment that _doesn't have a console_
and _wants to play games in the living room_ and _doesn't care about
established franchises_ and _is really really cheap_ , dies on the vine.

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frozenport
This is not a game console it is a cellphone!

I am thoroughly disappointed by this project. Part of the vision was to offer
console gaming, but with a weak GPU and highly latency IO it is impossible to
write any games that resemble the quality of a console game.

Unlike the Wii there is no compensating feature like motion sensing.
Additionally this makes it impossible to write games such as the Just Dance,
which are extremely popular with casual audiences.

Ultimately, I think Ouya compromised by pushing a technically simpler and
underpowered design. This will bite them when they realize that nobody will
write real games for a platform that can't handle it.

It is not clear why anybody would want a $100 console that plays no real games
when they can get a $150 Wii.

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hkarthik
I am most interested in the Plex/XBMC support. I have been looking for a small
footprint XBMC box with enough power and this seems to fit the bill.

~~~
untog
Me too. My real pet peeve with the PC/Multimedia world is that I can't watch
TV on anything other than Windows Media Center- all the channels coming
through my cable connection are locked.

It's fantastically annoying, because MythTV+XBMC would be a perfect TV
watching solution. As it is, my best option for a set top box is to buy an
Xbox 360, and I don't particularly feel like doing that.

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kunai
Nice, but does it have the cojones to keep up with Microsoft and Sony?

Doubtful. I think this will be a niche console for geeks, because of one
reason: Content.

It's a vicious cycle. With no content, customers won't want it, and with no
customers, content creators won't create any games or apps for it.

Still, it looks very promising, I'm just unsure if developers will get content
onto this thing.

~~~
wlesieutre
On the other hand, developing for this is a lot cheaper than the PS3 and 360.
Much of its software is going to be ports of Android phone games, so developer
adoption isn't the huge hurdle that it's been on other new ecosystems.

The mobile appstores are so saturated that it's impossible to get noticed, at
least at the start that will make Ouya attractive to developers even if it has
a smaller customer base.

~~~
kunai
But most of the Android games are optimized for mobile and touch. It's like
having a 400K sportscar with a 55mph speed limiter. The capability is there,
but then there's nothing that really takes advantage of it. What value would
developers find in porting their games to the Ouya? Not much, I suppose,
unless there's a saturated market. Companies like Rovio and the guys who made
Temple Run can afford it, but the small-time devs like Andreas Illiger may not
see much of a market with the Ouya.

Don't get me wrong, I would buy one of these anyway, but I just hope to see
some developers hop onto it, which seems unlikely at this point.

~~~
nextparadigms
I think there are quite a lot of those games that have virtual buttons on top,
and those can be easily ported to the console. Many of them are RPG's or
MMORPG's, which use the same free-2-play model OUYA is interested in, and are
actually some of the top grossing games on Android.

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3amOpsGuy
"Every game on OUYA is free to try. We believe you shouldn't have to buy it
unless you love it"

That's pretty cool. Count me in.

~~~
creativityland
Would be interesting to see how this affects the current console gaming
markets..

~~~
greyfade
I wouldn't expect it to. I don't see how anyone _can_ expect it to compete
with the major consoles. It won't (not to say it can't, just that it simply
won't) run any huge AAA game titles, so it's completely irrelevant on that
level.

I think it sits in its own niche. Budget gaming. A competitor for Nintendo's
offering, perhaps. But certainly not a competitor for either Microsoft's or
Sony's offering.

I think you're more likely to own an Ouya or _both_ it and a "major" console.
It would not replace them.

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Sunlis
I backed Ouya because the idea of being able to "easily" publish the same app
on phones and a console was too good to pass up. I'm just a Computer Science
student tinkering with Android development in my spare time, and I can publish
a game for a console. That's pretty amazing.

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jianshen
Ouya is running a Game Jam for its first generation of games:
<http://www.killscreendaily.com/create/entries.php>

My impression is that they want to become the center of Indie Game
development.

~~~
kevingadd
A game jam with a $99 entry fee. Imagine me making a really loud, really
dismissive noise for about 3 minutes.

But yeah, that does seem to be their objective. Hopefully they get their stuff
together and put out a solid SDK and set of dev tools and simulator (their
current release is at least a start).

~~~
kevingadd
Hi downvoters!

If you downvoted me because you object to my complaint about the entry fee,
allow me to educate you. If you downvoted me because you think Ouya is awesome
or you own Ouya shares, more power to you.

Anyway, a company like Ouya co-opting the game jam phenomenon (not to mention
the term) for pure commercial, money-making greedy purposes is offensive.
Allow me to explain in detail:

The events normally associated with the term Game Jam are:

a) free

b) not about prizes or competition

c) intentionally inclusive

For a few examples, just google 'game jam', or check out these pages:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_jam>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludum_Dare>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Game_Jam>

The whole spirit and philosophy behind game jams is to encourage anyone and
everyone to creatively participate in the creation of video games, regardless
of commercial viability, tools used, race, gender, age, or creed.

In comparison, the Ouya game jam:

a) Required a $99 purchase of an Ouya console to enter - EVEN THOUGH - Ouya is
supposedly an Android based platform and any functioning Android game should
be able to run on the Ouya.

b) Included prizes and judges being handed out at the discretion of Ouya
and/or Kill Screen

c) Required all games to be Ouya games, not Android games or simply 'games
that can run on the Ouya'.

These are not minor distinctions. This is important. This is a corporation
feeding off the efforts of the community without giving anything back (unless
you count the pittance of a few prizes to be handed out to the 'winners').

The Ouya 'game jam' is a contest. And I have no problem with contests: They
are a good way to promote interest in your platform. Microsoft ran multiple
successful contests for XBox Live Indie Games called 'Dream Build Play' that
produced lots of great games.

~~~
greyfade
> a) Required a $99 purchase of an Ouya console to enter - EVEN THOUGH - Ouya
> is supposedly an Android based platform and any functioning Android game
> should be able to run on the Ouya.

The Ouya runs an additional API that provides a game menu similar to that of
the Playstation's XMB or the XBox 360's Guide, as well as support for its
controllers and hardware-specific features. Games _for_ Ouya need to be able
to support that API. Games not targeted directly to Ouya may not be able to
adequately support the controllers and hardware.

(I do not have a dev kit, so I don't know the specifics.)

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jiggy2011
I think this is really a competitor to something like Roku rather than
XBoX/PS/Wii.

I imagine most of the buyers will be people who already have consoles or
people with no real interest in consoles or hackers wanting to repurpose it.

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undergroundhero
For those curious about the games and software confirmed to release on the
Ouya, they have a list on their site:

<http://www.ouyaconsole.com/ouya-software/>

This Amazon discussion has a mirror of the list in case Ouya's site goes down
(it's loading slowly for me):

[http://www.amazon.com/Games-availables-from-day-
one/forum/Fx...](http://www.amazon.com/Games-availables-from-day-
one/forum/FxZ1FGCSFR71ST/Tx2Q57W9DLJ4JPJ/1/ref=cm_cd_naredir)

~~~
jonny_eh
That's not an official OUYA site.

The official site is here: <http://www.ouya.tv/>

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bane
I'm actually pretty excited about the Ouya as an emulation platform.

In a similar thrust, those here who think that because it's an open and easy
to develop for platform don't remember the lackluster sales of many prior
platforms that lead into the market with emulation (which gave them huge
libraries).

Most of the non-emulator software was quite frankly, lackluster. Those
consoles counted their sales in the tens of thousands of units, not in the
millions.

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Macsenour
Will Game Stick be far behind? I think both are viable platforms. Actually,
I'm not sure "platform" is the right word there since they both run Android.

~~~
DanBC
the gcw zero seems interesting ([http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gcw/gcw-
zero-open-source...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gcw/gcw-zero-open-
source-gaming-handheld))

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savories
$100 for games, XBMC, plex, pre ordered. Will probably get Netflix on there
too right? Nice little media center and controller with the bonus of
multiplayer games. So worth it.

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xradionut
I wouldn't mind having one of these with a "real" Linux distribution instead
of Android to use as cheap terminal/workstation.

