

Ouya tops $8.5 million as Kickstarter campaign comes to a close - khangtoh
http://www.joystiq.com/2012/08/09/ouya-kickstarter-end/

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randomdrake
While everyone seems to be commenting on the impact this will have on hardware
manufacturers, I'm more excited about the impact this will have on the big
software distributors. I would love to see a disruption to the likes of EA.

The console video gaming world has become, mostly, stagnant; full of sequels
upon sequels. Current games are chocked full of DRM for overplayed, non-
innovative titles. The market has become less about making great games that
people love, and more about making executives money. It's terribly depressing
and is directly responsible for me stopping my, over 25 year, love of gaming.

I, along with others, have doubts about the platform. However, I would
absolutely love to see it affect some change in what the video gaming market
has mostly become. I would love to see more independent developers making lots
of money and pumping out cool, fun to play, games on a system that is
accessible beyond the PC.

~~~
angersock
EA and Activision are the heroes gamers deserve.

Honestly, when your target audience are people so devoted to a frivolous
activity that they willing buy devices with no other purpose than to consume
carefully curated content, it becomes hard to see them as anything other than
a paycheck.

~~~
Sumaso
I suppose we should throw out our TV's while were at it

~~~
Semaphor
Not a bad idea imo. Just get a big PC screen:)

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unimpressive
Android is giving me hope for the future of general purpose computing.

With the nexus 7 finally bringing a non-sucky open tablet to market, and Ouya
proving that users and developers want open (Or at the very least that open
products have a chance in the market.), I'm feeling more comfortable with a
technology landscape full of tablets, smartphones and purpose specific devices
like gaming consoles.

~~~
GFischer
Well, Android IS the long awaited "Year of Linux on the desktop", only it's
not on the desktop, because the desktop is no longer the center of the
consumer digital world.

I'm also happy that an open-source based operating system is becoming the
mainstream. It's an exciting time to be a developer or an entrepreneur :)
(these technologies becoming mainstream enable so many things, I don't know
where to start!).

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shadowmint
47126 Ouya

7755 Ouya + Controller

2500 Ouya + 2 Controllers

826 Ouya Dev Kits

By April 2013. Good luck guys~

It's interesting to note some figures; if you assume $50 US per ouya that's
$2,910,350 or 33% of the collected costs to make the hardware; double that to
a guess of $100 per unit and you looking at ~68% of the collected Kickstarter.

Realistically the hardware is probably relatively cheap to manufacture in
bulk, and it'll probably end up towards the $50 rather than $100 mark,
especially if they decide not to upgrade to newly released hardware.

Just interesting numbers.

~~~
polshaw
>47126 Ouya

>7755 Ouya + Controller

I thought that sounded odd. All have a controller, the second is 'limited
edition brown'.

As for costs.. i am guessing they will probably make an order for 100k? (They
have the cash, plenty of time for more pre-orders, and surely expect to sell
some after launch, and they are tiny so easy to store). At those quantities my
guess for a cost breakdown; SOC; $15, nand $3, wireless radios $6, case $5,
power $4, controller $10, battery $2. So i think $50 is realistic, they will
need FCC certification etc. Keep in mind they are (planning) making them for
almost 9 months out, tegra 4 will no doubt be out, nand prices will be lower,
tiny case, low power, cheap looking controller (sorry).

~~~
freehunter
Limited edition brown... Microsoft already tried that with a consumer
electronics device. And that's all anyone remembers of that line of hardware.
I gotta wonder, why brown?

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marknutter
I really hope this silences the naysayers. The negativity around here has
gotten out of hand lately. I personally want this project to succeed.

~~~
pwny
The "naysayers" as you say, bring up a lot of valid points that have nothing
to do with the OUYA's ability to raise kickstarter money so this will probably
not silence anyone.

If anything, the money raised only proves the fact that over 60k people jumped
in on the bandwagon of a non-existent console with no controller design that
plans to ship in an almost unrealisable timeframe.

I want people that try bold things to succeed as much as the next guy but my
(and others') concerns about the OUYA are far more elaborated than their
ability to raise money.

~~~
sp332
Even if this fails (I don't expect it to but of course it could), I'm willing
to throw some money at serious research into what's so hard about making tiny
$99 consoles, and how to address those problems in the next project.

~~~
illuminate
"I'm willing to throw some money at serious research into what's so hard about
making tiny $99 consoles"

Generally, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economies_of_scale>

~~~
Wilduck
Could you clarify? Do you mean that it's harder to make these things smaller?
Because that's not what "Economies of scale" refers to.

Even if you are trying to make a point about the long run average cost of
console production, I still don't see the direct connection and I'd like to
know what you're getting at.

~~~
sp332
Xbox 360s were sold at a loss until years after launch. (MS made their money
on license sales from games.) At a production run of a few tens of thousands,
the Ouya is not much better off than a full-custom hardware build, and it's
difficult to make such a box for ~$100.

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Keyframe
$8,580,682 (from 63,277 backers) - keep perspective guys. 60k - That's like
one week of sales of one of the consoles in Japan only. And those aren't even
pushed units numbers. Not to mention amount of money that rolls in the likes
of EA titles. It's all nice and all, but nowhere near disruptive word.

~~~
jgroome
Woah, let them actually make the thing and bring it to market before you write
them off. It's grossly unfair to compare their fundraising efforts to the
total sales of established console games... At this point, anyway.

~~~
eropple
Why is it unfair? They (despite claims that, honestly, just don't make a lot
of sense) want to be treated seriously. This is treating them seriously. Their
platform, which by the way is not a "quick port" from Android if you care
about user experience, has a tiny user base compared either to consoles or
phones.

I'd like to see them do well, but I'm personally not going to treat it as
something special until they show that it is. So far it sounds like a shovel-
ware conduit to the TV and that gets people nothing.

~~~
praptak
> Their platform [...] has a tiny user base

A platform. That does not even exist yet. Has a tiny user base.

We have a genius here.

~~~
eropple
That it hasn't yet released doesn't mean we don't know what we're looking at
in terms of a market. 60,000 committed users is a _spectacularly tiny_ user
base.

I'd bet money (and am in fact betting my own time, which isn't entirely
dissimilar) that the userbase of modern Android devices--say, from as far back
as the Nexus One phone to the current Nexus 7 tablet--is so much bigger that
if even one in twenty users care about games it's a more viable market.

~~~
surgeterrix
60,000 pre-orders for a completely unknown company months before launch is not
small. Usually they sell more once the thing is actually in stores, and they
already have the best kind of marketing they can get, hype and people putting
dollars into it before a physical product exists.

Yes, the big console makers sell that many every week, but they are not a big
console maker, so they don't need lots of numbers to sustain themselves,
that's what growth is for, and they are showing better indications of it then
Nintendo or Sony when they first got on the market, assuming they actually
deliver the product they will see more. and their price point puts them in
closer competition to a PS2 or Roku.

~~~
eropple
For them, the hardware order isn't small, no. _However_ , they're pricing it
so low that they're almost certainly making very little money per-unit, so
they're hoping to make money on their app store.

To make money on their app store, they need games.

Not many developers are going to write games for a platform with around 1/16th
of the user base of your average front-line Android phone. (Please don't say
"it's an easy port"; it's not and the Ouya people's claim that it is is
_fucking dishonest_.)

A few companies have committed to bringing their products to the Ouya. I am
interested in seeing how many of them follow through. Of those who follow
through, I am interested in how many just push shovelware because doing a real
port to a platform with 60,000 guaranteed users, many of which are probably
going to be hacking the shit out of the thing (and making software security a
non-starter), is not economically viable for most people.

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kayoone
What we can take away from this, and i hope the major console makers do this
as well is, that many people (especially developers of course) want a more
open and friendly console market. This basically embodies what the rumours
wanted Valve to do with their own pc-based console.

~~~
megablast
Not that many people, only 60,000. This is nothing.

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xam
Very impressive! If I were Google, I'd buy the company immediately. With
Google's backing, they could go into production with more speed, maybe even
using the Nexus Q's USA-based manufacturer. I think once they've release the
first Ouya, Google should start working on putting in more Google TV and Nexus
Q features.

~~~
tomflack
That's exactly what I don't want to see. Yet another device tied in to Google.
For me, all the promise of the Ouya is in doing things independently, not tied
to the mission of a corporate behemoth.

If corporate behemoths want in, they can do the same thing as everyone else
and write SN app for it.

~~~
xam
I understand what you're saying, but I don't think Google would do much of
anything to tie the Ouya to its 'corporate behemoth' mission. Besides, I
believe that Google's immense power could improve Ouya's standing by backing
it thoroughly.

~~~
tomflack
They would, 100% absolutely try and make it the new Google TV.

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Rygu
Some people are concerned about the hardware, whether or not the specs will
start to get outdated when the product finally ships (Q1/Q2 2013).

Another point is the openness, it being so open for not only software hacks
but also hardware hacks, will it also produce a lot of cheaters in online
multiplayer games?

I pledged, and personally, I can't wait to get my hands on it! I think the
media player capabilities and Android compatibility will make the product
succeed anyhow. Certainly, the campaign (904% of Kickstarter goal) already
has.

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bogdand
Kickstarter Ouya: [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-
of-...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-video-
game-console)

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benackles
While I backed this project and think its sorely needed to allow software
developers access to the console platforms, I think the design of the
controller was rather disappointing. I figured if they were going to create a
new hardware platform it would have a more revolutionary form factor.

The controller hasn't changed since the mid-1980s. Almost all the game console
makers make the same damned controllers with exception to the Wii there's been
almost no innovation.

It's about time to rethink the standard controller design. I'm not talking
about game-specific controllers, like the gun or joystick. I think there needs
to be something more attached to actual human body movements.

I know this project was about an open game console, but I think this creates
the opportunity for innovation in hardware accessories (i.e. the controller).
I think we could do a lot better than the same old formula:

Up+Down+Left+Right A+B+X+Y R1+R2+L1+L2 Select+Start (ALL BUTTONS)

~~~
gte910h
When you're doing a project like this, you want less, not more risk.

Changing controller design would be a foolhardy adding of risk. Something very
familiar is a great choice for it

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chucknelson
Hmmm...I think this probably will make it to completion, but not on their
aggressive timeline. Prove me wrong Ouya!

Also, not sure how many Ouya-specific games will make it out, but it should be
great for emulation and media streaming.

~~~
mtgx
The nice thing about OUYA being based on Android, is that developers can
either make a game for "Android" and then just tweak it to run well on OUYA
and with the controller, or they can make a game "specifically" for OUYA, and
then just port it to all Android devices. So either way they can get access to
a huge user base for the same game, regardless of how big OUYA's base is.

Google could've had this advantage as well with Google TV, but they never
cared about making Google TV a console, or better yet, a "console platform".
Too bad. I'm hoping OUYA succeeds, although I still can't get myself to buy
one unless it has a 2013-worthy mobile chip inside.

~~~
eropple
With respect: if you think it's as simple as just "tweaking" to go from a ten-
foot viewing distance with a controller to a touchscreen at no more than
thirty inches, you have a crippling lack of perspective on games.

This "just port to our completely different model out games, no big deal bro"
messaging is actually what the Ouya people have themselves said and it's a
major reason I'm convinced they're not competent or want cheap, bad games. If
they bothered to study what has come before,they would have looked at the
difficulty of a good port from the 360 to WP7 via DNA. But either they didn't
our they did and want is to pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

Oh--and they want to release for April 2013 and have zero developer
documentation. Reminds me why these guys are seen as being on the up and up?

~~~
potatolicious
Because people are desperate for this to be realistic, the same way people
pumped money into Diaspora, even though it was backed by a team that's never
shipped product before, that all just recently left college.

I want Ouya to succeed, but I just don't see how it can happen. They are
extremely aggressive both on schedule and pricing, and more than that, the
team has no experience shipping consumer electronics - and hardware
manufacturing is a _huge, huge_ expertise in and of itself.

So you have a very, very inexperienced team trying to ship a consumer
electronics device faster _and_ cheaper than pretty much any other experienced
manufacturer who have been doing this for decades.

I'm not sure if most backers realize _quite_ how big of a leap this is.

~~~
sp332
I'm not sure the people behind Ouya are as inexperienced as the ones behind
Diaspora. At least they somehow got Yves Behar to help with the industrial
design.

~~~
eropple
Perhaps not _as_ inexperienced, but Ouya is also a much harder project.

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vannevar
So what would happen if they simply walked away with the money? Or put a
million or so into a show of good-faith effort and walked away with the rest?
Is there any recourse for the backers?

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esolyt
I am really excited about Ouya. It has the potential to become a game changing
(pun intended) product. I hope they can live up to all the buzz they have
generated.

~~~
praptak
I hope that even if they fail this will be one of those failures that expands
our collective knowledge.

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swalsh
I wonder if the Oculus Rift will be compatible with it. I'm really excited to
see where indie developers go with these two devices.

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Graham24
So, how the hardware specs on this thing compare to the consoles? Is this PS2,
PS3 or better levels of performance?

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tzaman
This kind of money is clearly a message the world needs a product like this.
Hopefully existing players (Sony, M$) will think about it a bit. I hate the
fact that my PS3 is still considered the latest generation of consoles and is
now more than 5 years old.

~~~
pwny
I personally stop reading anything whenever I read "M$". Like, I literally did
not read the last half of your post.

~~~
andybak
ha! Just realised I did the same thing unconsciously.

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stewie2
all i hope is that they can use tegra 4.

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mtgx
It seems you can still pre-order from their official website:
<http://www.ouya.tv>

