Jump to content

OUYA: A $99 Android console meant to open up console gaming


Arcana
 Share

Recommended Posts

http://kotaku.com/5941793/valve-is-bringing-steam-to-your-tv-today-watch-out-consoles

The comments bring up a lot of good points about the logistical challenges involved in getting the best experience from a living room PC, including

1) Still have to deal with all the regular PC hassles like driver updates, incompatibility, upgrading hardware, finding graphics settings that are tolerable to look at while still being playable, etc.

2) The noise/lack of privacy from being in a main activity area.

3) PC games are designed to be played with the screen a couple feet from your face, so often text and smaller details become indistinguishable at a greater distance.

4) TVs actually have slightly different resolutions from PC displays, so overscan becomes an issue.

5) And this one is from personal experience: you can't get surround sound to your existing home theater receiver via your motherboard's SPDIF. It only supports stereo PCM. So either you need to have a set of PC surround speakers alongside your home theater ones, or you need to buy a sound card that will encode the output to a Dolby or DTS signal.

The issue with receivers did used to be a problem in the past, but with modern receivers, it is no longer a barrier. Almost any receiver sold after 2008 supports HDMI input, which can take 7.1/24/96 in raw PCM. HDMI 1.4a can take 3D along with Master Audio or TrueHD. Even low-end $200 models now include these features.

I have a PC running Windows 8 connected to an Onkyo TX-NR1009 and it works great. I can play DVD-Audio discs and watch 3D movies no problem. The only issue is that you need to buy something called an "HDMI detective," or else AMD's and Nvidia's drivers reset the display when you turn the TV off. If you want the PC to run all the time to host a server for web development, as I do, you need to buy one of these devices so that you don't have to restart every time you turn on the TV.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

A little news. Nothing really that exciting, but looks like things are moving along!

1000 devs and 50 distributors sounds like a start at least. Also big name on board sounds less and less like a scam everyday! We'll see!

Edited by Crowbar Man
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 months later...

Well, now that the dev units have shipped and people are busily working on their games and apps, I think we can safely say the OUYA wasn't a hoax. :<

In fact, not only were they able to get the console out in a year, they're saying they'll be releasing one every year.

I'm a little worried, since it introduces the risk of fragmentation, but I suppose developing for a few versions of OUYA is still better than trying to be compatible with hundreds of phones.

Still, as long as it does

, I'm happy.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, now that the dev units have shipped and people are busily working on their games and apps, I think we can safely say the OUYA wasn't a hoax. :<

But any intelligent person is a good skeptic, and any good skeptic openly dismisses anything he/she doesn't get their hands on, so while I read some words on a website and saw some pictures, I have no seen no empirical evidence this supposed "system" actually exists, and therefore it does not exist and anyone who believes otherwise is irrational and believes in fairy tales.

THIS KIND OF THINKING MAKES ME SMART DERP. /pointlessrantdirectedathardcoreskeptics

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think the skepticism around this was warranted, honestly. I ended up backing it (after unbacking it) for a few reasons:

A) Julie Uhrman has an industry record, she isn't just some random person.

B) There would be no way anyone could get away with a scam of this magnitude with so much public exposure.

C) They finally offered a Kickstarter-exclusive special edition console. Otherwise there was no incentive to not just wait until it was actually released.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

But any intelligent person is a good skeptic, and any good skeptic openly dismisses anything he/she doesn't get their hands on, so while I read some words on a website and saw some pictures, I have no seen no empirical evidence this supposed "system" actually exists, and therefore it does not exist and anyone who believes otherwise is irrational and believes in fairy tales.

THIS KIND OF THINKING MAKES ME SMART DERP. /pointlessrantdirectedathardcoreskeptics

I have one of those dev ouya consoles, and my game is playable on it ^_^ it IS real

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

The Verge just posted their scathing review of OUYA today.

The lack of games seems to be his biggest criticism, but honestly the 3DS launch lineup was almost as bad and I didn't see anyone giving it a 3.5. Also dev kits went out less than TWO MONTHS ago, so I'd say what they have is pretty impressive considering.

Mainly though he seems to miss the point. It's not supposed to kill the 360 or PS3. The big question is "can you do better at this price?" The answer is "yes" for many people, but for those who don't already have an HDMI tablet and don't want to plunk down $200+ for emulators, there's really nothing else out there that can do the same thing for $99. Yeah, Wii homebrew works great...if you're fine with 480p.

Of course, retail buyers aren't gonna care about all that, and I've never had high hopes for the console really taking off, but for my own needs, I can't wait to get mine.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This comment stuck out to me:

But true. For the price of the Ouya, especially with that $50 controller, you can get either a Wii, Ps2, or 3DS, each with a large library of games…

The Verge review is pretty fair - I like that site quite a bit in general. In fact, can't you get a Gamecube for cheaper and have a better overall experience (amount of apps available from hacking is probably not as broad though)?

As far as that thread on Ouya goes, if that's the case, then that's their fault for not marketing their product properly. It comes off as pretty defensive (and from the looks of it, from one of their forum admins, if not one of the team members of the company), and does not refute much of the gripes except for the complaint about limited software availability.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A brand new console is never going to ship with a huge NEW library ready for it. That's going to take time just like it has with any other major console that's been released. Until we start seeing more of these consoles in the public eye, a ton of games are not going to start flooding the market. Right now the Ouya has potential just like any other new console. You can't compare the size of its library with anything else out there yet. If you start doing that, you might as well just buy one console and play that one forever or just stick with PC gaming.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Wii and PS2 aren't HD, and the 3DS is definitely not $100. Regardless, that criticism is honestly pretty silly since it can be applied to ANY new console. "Why are you paying $600 for a PS3?? It doesn't have anything and you can get a PS2 with tons of games for $200!"

on the other hand, a ps3 will guaranteed have big games coming out on it. if you loved god of war in the previous generation, you know it's coming. if you love final fantasy, you know it's coming. if you love any ps exclusive that didn't bomb, it's probably coming.

there's no guarantee that anything is coming on ouya, or that a stream of releases will even 'eventually happen' like it did for ps3, or 3ds, or (most likely) wii u. it'll probably even happen for the vita.

but nobody really has ouya's back. it doesn't have any guaranteed games in its back pocket further down the line, like a halo that will make people want it, or a smash brothers, or anything at all. if it doesn't sell no one's gonna bother making or porting games for it, even indies. i can't think of why they would.

on a different note sending them out this early was a big mistake. because anyone who's casually initiated is going to see it, say 'well that wasn't as good as i had hoped' and isn't going to recommend it to friends. and considering really all they've got is word of mouth (unless they have a huge hidden marketing budget somewhere) it's not going to travel very far i wouldn't imagine.

it's also fairly telling when the company itself puts out a post saying 'no you guys just don't get it!' to respond to a bad review. so yeah.

Edited by The Derrit
Link to comment
Share on other sites

if you love final fantasy, you know it's coming

Coincidentally, one of OUYA's featured games right now is a Final Fantasy title. :)

there's no guarantee that anything is coming on ouya, or that a stream of releases will even 'eventually happen' like it did for ps3, or 3ds, or (most likely) wii u. it'll probably even happen for the vita.

True, it's probably more like the original X-Box in that regard, which also had no established franchise exclusives. It also didn't make money until towards the end of its life cycle, while Microsoft threw money at it in the meantime.

Obviously Julie Uhrman has thought about this, which is why she's made deals with people behind games like Portal, Papo & Yo, The Ball, Journey, etc. to make exclusives. They're not Final Fantasy of course, but it might help build momentum and attract more developers.

That said, I don't see the OUYA library ever offering anything that will make anyone buy it because they just HAVE to have that game. On the other hand, I do see it potentially becoming the preferred platform for devs who want to port their PC and mobile games to console and don't want to expend the time, effort, and resources to put it on one of the big 3. So over time it will build up a collection of games that will be exclusive to it in the CONSOLE space. You'll probably never see Final Fantasy III on PS3, so if you want to play it in 1080p without touch controls blocking the screen, OUYA is the only way you're ever going to be able to.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As I've stated numerous times:

OUYA is not for your AAA big budget games. It is an open platform for smaller devs with smaller budgets to flourish in a console space. It is an indie console. I do not get why there is a disconnect here

However, I should note if a dev DOES make something of a larger project for Android, it would make no sense to NOT make an OUYA version as it uses the same dev tools and environment and is better suited for console-style games than most phones. Also anybody making a game using cross platform tools that support it (like Unity) would be silly not to release an OUYA version. There is a huge possibility here for easy cross platform titles being put on the console because of its Android architecture.

If you are not interested in indie games, or the concept of an indie focused console do not buy an OUYA. Simple as that, no?

But if you are interested in indie games, and wish to help OUYA for their cause, why not? Its cheap

Dhsu/Lyrai:

Like Dshu said: PSP version is definitely not 1080p, even worse it is in a tiny letterbox and sub 480p (480×272 to be exact) on a TV. and the PSP STILL costs more than the OUYA (the unit and even the game cost more)

Edited by Crowbar Man
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...