Ouya On Sale for $99 in June, Already Up for Pre-order

[JMcEntegart]

Ouya is officially on the way, just in time for E3.

Ouya On Sale for $99 in June, Already Up for Pre-order : Read more

 

[casualcolors]

Ouya? Ewwno. For all the namedropping going on with this console and the upcoming Steambox, neither company has yet to justify the existence of either product to me as a consumer. Why is it that I am supposed to want these things? At the moment, roughly understanding the hardware and software platform of each console, I don't have any desire to use either.

 

[hixbot]

The D-pad looks to be similiar to the Xbox 360 D-pad (terrible).
It's too bad, because when playing retro games on emulator, a good D-pad is critical.

 

[Guest]

I am actually looking forward to this.

I wonder how well this runs a linux distro, would be great as a Steam For Linux Box

 

[brizzelsprout]

[citation][nom]casualcolors[/nom]Ouya? Ewwno. For all the namedropping going on with this console and the upcoming Steambox, neither company has yet to justify the existence of either product to me as a consumer. Why is it that I am supposed to want these things? At the moment, roughly understanding the hardware and software platform of each console, I don't have any desire to use either.[/citation]

Well first and foremost, the manufactures have not need to justify the existence of their product other than their desire to create them. If you don't want one then don't buy it. This doesn't mean that other people don't want one or that the device shouldn't be created.

To be more specific, the Ouya is important because it is the first ever open source console platform. This probably doesn't mean anything to you but to us aspiring developer types, that is very exciting.

 

[anonymous_user]

[citation][nom]brizzelsprout[/nom]Well first and foremost, the manufactures have not need to justify the existence of their product other than their desire to create them.[/citation]
Well if a company hopes to sell and make a profit off a product, they need to define their target audience and then convey the benefits of their product to them.
[citation][nom]brizzelsprout[/nom]If you don't want one then don't buy it. This doesn't mean that other people don't want one or that the device shouldn't be created.[/citation]
So who is the target audience for the Ouya? Is it only for developers?

 

[sundafyllir]

[citation][nom]anonymous_user[/nom]So who is the target audience for the Ouya? Is it only for developers?[/citation]

The OUYA, being an open source platform, will have a ton of games. They may not all be high-quality, but the point is that ANYONE can program for a TV-attached console. This is the draw of OUYA. For someone like me who has been programming for years, but hasn't ever gotten into game programming, this is a dream come true.

I have friends that aren't programmer that are excited about OUYA as well. First, it's a fairly beefy system. They have figured out how to mass produce and sell these things for $99. That means more people can afford them.

Another exciting thing about the OUYA is that they are REQUIRING that all games be FREE to download. To be in the OUYA store, at least some playable part of them game must be FREE. This is not to say that there won't be unlockable content that must be paid for, but at the very least every game will have a demo. (Getting a little nostalgic for the DOS shareware days here...) I don't know about you, but I really hate when I go and spend $60 on a console game, find out it's a piece of crap, then get $15 when I try to sell it.

 

[the1kingbob]

Not to bad, I am interested in it as a HTPC. 1080 playback and XBMC has started work. Not to mention rootable with android so yeah... can do mild gaming, emulators, stream from my computer, netflix, noiseless, tiny, and only 100 bucks.

If you don't have interest in the product then that is fine. If you do that is also fine. I don't really care for the original wii, but they sold a ton of those things. I doubt this thing will sell a ton, but it does have some awesome hardware for cheap.

 

[DRosencraft]

[citation][nom]brizzelsprout[/nom]Well first and foremost, the manufactures have not need to justify the existence of their product other than their desire to create them. If you don't want one then don't buy it. This doesn't mean that other people don't want one or that the device shouldn't be created. To be more specific, the Ouya is important because it is the first ever open source console platform. This probably doesn't mean anything to you but to us aspiring developer types, that is very exciting.[/citation]

It is absolutely necessary that a company justify the existence of their product. If not, then the product is simply out there with no definition. In that vacuum others will assign a definition to that product, and that usually doesn't turn out well. In the area of gaming consoles, which is notoriously difficult to find success in, a small company like this can't afford to let their product just sit out there and hope everyone understands what it is and why they should buy one. Their goal shouldn't be just to make a product, but promote it. So far the vast majority of the information on the Ouya has been through word of mouth, which while effective in come cases has not not really presented the case for this device. It sounds great if you're an Indie developer and want something to put your stuff on, but at that rate you'd be better off making something for the already existent Android platform or for PC.

For gamers neither the Ouya or SteamBox come off as all that impressive since the games are likely to be either crappy shovel-ware or otherwise available on the PCs they've already spent time and money building and up-keeping. Neither company has answered this question - what is special, unique about these devices other than they aren't a console by Nintendo, Sony, or Microsoft, and costs only $99. Why buy this thing for $100 and not just upgrade my PC graphics and/or CPU to play a wider range/better games? Why isn't this just a "me too" device? That what this seems like right now, me-too devices. Unless they tell the public otherwise, and convince us otherwise, that's the label they'll end up getting with he the broader public.

 

[mclovin2]

Saweet! I just got my order in on Amazon.

 

[hajila]

[citation][nom]MrInterested[/nom]I am actually looking forward to this.I wonder how well this runs a linux distro, would be great as a Steam For Linux Box[/citation]

The D-Pad has recently been redesigned you'll be happy to know. I'm reserving judgement until I get my console. Even if this console sucks, it was worth me spending $90 on kickstarter just to stir up competition and support innovation, but I'm really hoping it's good.

 

[kinggraves]

I find the pricing interesting since it comes with a controller. Does the unit itself only cost $50 or are they OPing the controllers at $50? If the former, does that mean the innards of a smartphone are only worth $50 or does the smartphone screen eat up that much of the cost?

Anyway, the prospect of "anyone can build a game" is not actually that promising to the consumer. What's your point, that the Ouya is going to be filled with everyone's crappy games with maybe one entertaining title in a million? I can already do that, it's called Newgrounds. No one cares and no one is going to play them. The majority of people buying these are looking forward to putting on an emulator and pirating old school classics. I don't see a mainstream draw, I see a hobbyist draw. They're cheap enough to fool around with and actually cost less than many "internet media players". I'd even buy one myself if I had a need. I don't expect it'll "change the industry".

 

[internetlad]

Android eh? So what are you supposed to play on it? Angry Birds?

Cheap, I'll grant you it's dirt cheap, but the specs aren't much to brag about considering the overhead a full android OS gives (so you can't counter with IT'S A CONSOLE IT DOESN'T RUN AN OS)

Just one more console on the market trying to hold PC games back.

 

[hate machine]

[citation][nom]kinggraves[/nom]I find the pricing interesting since it comes with a controller. Does the unit itself only cost $50 or are they OPing the controllers at $50? If the former, does that mean the innards of a smartphone are only worth $50 or does the smartphone screen eat up that much of the cost?Anyway, the prospect of "anyone can build a game" is not actually that promising to the consumer. What's your point, that the Ouya is going to be filled with everyone's crappy games with maybe one entertaining title in a million? I can already do that, it's called Newgrounds. No one cares and no one is going to play them. The majority of people buying these are looking forward to putting on an emulator and pirating old school classics. I don't see a mainstream draw, I see a hobbyist draw. They're cheap enough to fool around with and actually cost less than many "internet media players". I'd even buy one myself if I had a need. I don't expect it'll "change the industry".[/citation]

Typically high end Smart Phones have a BOM sitting around $150-$220. Digitizers sit around $10 and the panels can be anywhere between $20-30. This thing is also missing a Cellular radio which runs up the price considerably.

The Tegra 3 runs about $15 bucks. Flash is fairly cheap. I would say that about $50 is probably the combined BOM for the controller and the console. They are most likely making some very thin margins on the hardware with plans to make most of their cash through a % cut from their game store packaged with the console.

 

[dgingeri]

Personally, I can't wait to see how this changes things in the console market. Could it not change anything at all? Could it flop? Sure, it could, but I don't think it will. I think this is the big competitor for Nintendo. It'll mostly be for casual gamers, not hardcore gamers. It'll also get some smaller game studios in the market. This is the small business entrance for consoles. I think it'll have it's slice of things, and force the big gamer companies to take another look at how they do business and not abuse their customers so much.

 

[svdb]

[citation][nom]hixbot[/nom]The D-pad looks to be similiar to the Xbox 360 D-pad (terrible).It's too bad, because when playing retro games on emulator, a good D-pad is critical.[/citation]
Too bad you didn't follow this since the beginning. Pretty much everything this console has was driven by end user demands: the Kickstarter subscribers asked and voted for this D-pad shape.

 

[prince_david]

[citation][nom]the1kingbob[/nom]Not to bad, I am interested in it as a HTPC. 1080 playback and XBMC has started work. Not to mention rootable with android so yeah... can do mild gaming, emulators, stream from my computer, netflix, noiseless, tiny, and only 100 bucks.If you don't have interest in the product then that is fine. If you do that is also fine. I don't really care for the original wii, but they sold a ton of those things. I doubt this thing will sell a ton, but it does have some awesome hardware for cheap.[/citation]
I'm also a programmer that never programmed games but very tempted to give this Ouya a shot.

 

[NuclearShadow]

I hope it works. If it is successful a open source console is something we needed for a long time. Finally freedom is actually coming to the consoles.

 

[teh_chem]

[citation][nom]brizzelsprout[/nom]...the Ouya is important because it is the first ever open source console platform...[/citation]
[citation][nom]sundafyllir[/nom]The OUYA, being an open source platform...[/citation]
This won't be open-sourced so long as it uses Android, because Android is not open-sourced (and uses proprietary libraries that pretty much make it not open-sourced).

This is going to be as open as Android and Apple (iOS) ecosystems, which means to say, not much. While a developer can write whatever they want to run on their console, much like you already can for Android, the app ecosystem will operate in the same way as the app stores for iOS and Android, which leaves it not very open. To be honest, that's a good thing if you want this thing to get a reputation as a proper console vs. a crap system that everyone and their mother is flooding the store with junk apps. But despite the the inventor claiming that the "O" in the product name stands for "openness," it will be no more open than Android already is.

 

[law shay]

Probably you can't since Ouya would runs Android and the margin on the hardware front are supposed to be quite thin to support a full-fledge Linux Distro along with Android. However, with tinking developers, it is still a possible niche.

[citation][nom]MrInterested[/nom]I am actually looking forward to this.I wonder how well this runs a linux distro, would be great as a Steam For Linux Box[/citation]

 

[law shay]

They point is you can't upgrade your PC for $100.

[citation][nom]DRosencraft[/nom]It is absolutely necessary that a company justify the existence of their product. If not, then the product is simply out there with no definition. In that vacuum others will assign a definition to that product, and that usually doesn't turn out well. In the area of gaming consoles, which is notoriously difficult to find success in, a small company like this can't afford to let their product just sit out there and hope everyone understands what it is and why they should buy one. Their goal shouldn't be just to make a product, but promote it. So far the vast majority of the information on the Ouya has been through word of mouth, which while effective in come cases has not not really presented the case for this device. It sounds great if you're an Indie developer and want something to put your stuff on, but at that rate you'd be better off making something for the already existent Android platform or for PC. For gamers neither the Ouya or SteamBox come off as all that impressive since the games are likely to be either crappy shovel-ware or otherwise available on the PCs they've already spent time and money building and up-keeping. Neither company has answered this question - what is special, unique about these devices other than they aren't a console by Nintendo, Sony, or Microsoft, and costs only $99. Why buy this thing for $100 and not just upgrade my PC graphics and/or CPU to play a wider range/better games? Why isn't this just a "me too" device? That what this seems like right now, me-too devices. Unless they tell the public otherwise, and convince us otherwise, that's the label they'll end up getting with he the broader public.[/citation]

 

[law shay]

[citation][nom]teh_chem[/nom]This won't be open-sourced so long as it uses Android, because Android is not open-sourced (and uses proprietary libraries that pretty much make it not open-sourced). This is going to be as open as Android and Apple (iOS) ecosystems, which means to say, not much. While a developer can write whatever they want to run on their console, much like you already can for Android, the app ecosystem will operate in the same way as the app stores for iOS and Android, which leaves it not very open. To be honest, that's a good thing if you want this thing to get a reputation as a proper console vs. a crap system that everyone and their mother is flooding the store with junk apps. But despite the the inventor claiming that the "O" in the product name stands for "openness," it will be no more open than Android already is.[/citation]
Android OS is open source.

The drivers the OEMs make are not.

Android Ecosystem (the app-store model) is not open.

However, you can create a competitor app-store (if you have the ability) and make it available.

 

[teh_chem]

[citation][nom]law shay[/nom]Android OS is open source.The drivers the OEMs make are not.Android Ecosystem (the app-store model) is not open.However, you can create a competitor app-store (if you have the ability) and make it available.[/citation]
Start reading at page 15 here: http://www.visionmobile.com/rsc/researchreports/Open%20Governance%20Index%20%28VisionMobile%29.pdf

Making source code available is not what makes something open source. It has nothing to do with the hardware platforms. It transcends the app store/google play store.

And if anyone makes an official google play-rival app-distribution store, they'll get served with a lawsuit by google's lawyers in no time flat.