99$ android 100% open console

[karsten]

http://www.theverge.com/2012/7/2/313...-by-yves-behar

a console that is going to be completely free, and whose games will all be free too...

i wonder what extra can be done with it and what characteristics it has.

[DefectX11]

Yves Behar, eh? He seems to be doing quite a lot of industrial design lately.

I can't see it being too much more than something that runs emulators, and simple ones at that.

[7Force]

A Raspberry Pi seems similar but better to me.

[mairsil]

Do not want.

[Gamecheat]

A Raspberry Pi seems similar but better to me.

were did you get one?
all of them are sold out it sucks

[karsten]

pi's problem is the limited amount and (currently) no official plastic case

[splith]

and the fact no emulators run on it a decent speed at the mo

(source : i have one)

Haha 'decent speed', snes9x only outputs a black screen.
Plus ALSA audio drivers are alpha, at best.

[Mystical]

were did you get one?
all of them are sold out it sucks

had one a few weeks now, runs xbmc great, still waiting for my case to arrive but they have kept me updated about the progress which is good
used a phone usb cable to power it from the tv's usb port so it automatically switches on with when the tv does and off when you turn the tv off
only tried xbmc on it but very impressed, some shortcomings but they will resolved with software updates in time

[Shadowlayer]

What is the point of this? it will play smartphone games, why should I get one if I already have a smartphone?

The whole "hackeable" part sounds good but what about developers? would you make games for a console that can be pirated by checking a box?

And how the fuck you mod it if it's a SoC? you have to change everything, and how does that affect compatibility? some Android games only run on certain SoCs, and it sucks

IMO if its for emulators just buy a $99 appletv and jailbreak it to run iOS emus

[Shadowlayer]

"You can watch Starcraft 2 matches"



Seriously? are they using that as a feature? that you can watch other people play?

[Teancum]

I personally am pretty excited at the potential for this. I mean they have all ready raised almost $4 Million Dollars in 3 days. It sounds like a lot of developers are really excited about this too. I'm personally hopeing for some good platformers my self. I figure that even if this doesn't take off it will be perfect for netflix and emulators.

[Shadowlayer]

From another forum:

I think it's important to place their numbers in the context of mainstream consoles. In today's living room, you have Wii (95M), Xbox 360 (67M), and PS3 (64M).That's ~226 million consoles. The OUYA is selling well for two days, for sure, but it's a tiny fraction of the big players.
They've had 26k backers in two days. They could do 13k backers per day for an entire year and end up with ~5M consoles sold (8% of the smallest console, or 2.2% of all three). It isn't enough to get the attention of any big games. They best they'll do are Android ports.
It isn't enough to put out cheap hardware for Android. They need a seriously good storefront, a seriously good integration/account system, or a seriously good controller. They aren't taking any of these three seriously, as far as I know, so I do think pessimism is warranted.

[karsten]

What is the point of this? it will play smartphone games, why should I get one if I already have a smartphone?

The whole "hackeable" part sounds good but what about developers? would you make games for a console that can be pirated by checking a box?

And how the fuck you mod it if it's a SoC? you have to change everything, and how does that affect compatibility? some Android games only run on certain SoCs, and it sucks

IMO if its for emulators just buy a $99 appletv and jailbreak it to run iOS emus

you missed the point. it's going to be a freeware software driven console.

[Teancum]

The main point I see is that any game developer can try there new ideas on this system. I'm personally hoping for a lot of retro like games. This isn't meant to compete head to head with any of the larger consoles at the moment. The idea (at least the way I see it) is to make an open enviornment where everyone can tinker everyone can make games and get some fresh blood into the gaming industry.

I do see a couple of ways this can turn out as well.

Worst Case Scenario: The Ouya team has horribly underestimated how much work this will be. They don't even manage to produce consoles and "Ouya" will become synonymous with failure, and will scar future attempts to achieve this same goal.

Bad: The Ouya team manage to get the system out the door but no developers sign on, or every one simply ports there phone games to it and calls it a day. This would suck but i imagine it would still become quite the Emulator/Media box supported by the community.

Good: Console get's out the door and has a couple of good title to get us started. This catches the attention of skeptics of both users and devs and even more people join on. It never get's to the ridiculous level of the xbox 360 but manages to get half a million users with a thriving market place and homebrew community.

Those are my predictions I'm a backer now so I personally think this is going to work or at least I'm willing to take a chance on it in the hope that it does work. I'm so sick of tired for paying for things like xbox live, being expected to buy tons of dlc packs, the same games getting hashed out over and over again. This feels like a breath of fresh air and I'm personally willing to risk $100 to try to make it happen.

[Shadowlayer]

Ok time to destroy the dream: mojang already said there wont be a version of Minecraft for this thing, at best a port of the pocket version which is faaaaaaaaaaaaar from the PC version

An open platform? dude, seriously? you dont have to ask anyone for permission to develop for PC or Android, and it's not even hardware-locked like this thing is.

What I find really funny is that while retro/indie fans praise this thing retro/indie devs are tearing it a new hole:

“I’m skeptical of why people are so excited about OUYA,” Antichamber developer Alexander Bruce said. “If you want to develop a game for consoles with less gatekeeping than PSN or XBLA, I’m pretty sure that’s what XBLIG was supposed to be for, but people aren’t exactly going crazy over selling their games there. If openness is your main concern, I’m not sure what is stopping you from targeting the PC and selling games directly through your website. I personally believe that until you’ve got a high quality game on your hands, where you sell it or which gatekeepers you have to get past aren’t your biggest problems.”

I spoke with Robert Boyd, who has released retro-styled RPGs on both the PC and the Xbox Live Indie Channel, and he has harsh words for the system. He’s the sort of developer OUYA is trying to attract, but he doesn’t buy any of the system’s strengths. (Disclosure: Zeboyd Games developed On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 3, which is a Penny Arcade title)


“My main problem with the OUYA is that it’s selling a dream: ‘The Console for Indie Developers,’” he explained. “It’s primary selling points are that it’s cheap and developers can make games for it without buying expensive development kits. However, you can already get all that with a cheap PC and unlike the OUYA, the install base for the PC is already massive.”


He also rejects the idea that an “open platform” is the secret to independent success. “The reality is harsh; we’ve seen what happens with open platforms. Look at Xbox Live Indie Games, where very few developers were able to make a living off of it and now the platform is dominated by knock-offs of popular games and wannabe Japanese softcore porn,” he said. “The Apple App Store has been more successful than XBLIG, but even there, you either get in the top 10 and make a fortune or you ‘die in obscurity.’ And the Android is even more open than Apple’s and yet how many success stories do you hear for Android developers? Not many.” Keep in mind all of these platforms have an installed base many times that of the OUYA.


“It’s hard enough to make a living as an indie developer on a popular platform like Steam. Even on popular platforms, there are many games, both indie and otherwise, that fail to sell enough to support the developer. However, trying to make a living on a niche console like the OUYA feels like an even bigger gamble,” he continued.


OUYA is actually making these problems worse with its marketing. “Finally, the creators of OUYA are actively encouraging both free-to-play, all games must be ‘free-to-play’ although their definition is very loose and includes demos and purchase for full version, and hacking. Trying to get a significant portion of an audience like that to actually pay money for a game and not just spend all their time on free emulators for old arcade and video game systems could prove challenging indeed.”


The OUYA console will likely be the Android platform with the lowest installed base, and it will require the most work to get games looking good and playing well compared to the Android handsets and tablets that make up the majority of the market. Why retool your existing Android games to use a controller and look good on your television when you’re targeting an untested platform? Piracy will also be a major concern, due to the fact that rooting the device will be made as simple as possible. Developers already wrestle with pirated and cloned games in the Android ecosystem, and the OUYA prides itself in being open and hackable, both in terms of software and hardware. That’s attractive in some ways, but it also makes it very easy for piracy and other shady activities to thrive.


So not only is there no finished hardware, no service at the moment, no controller, and no games—although we’re being asked to take their word that they can create each of those things in eight months—but focusing development costs on an incredibly risky platform with a small installed base and features that make piracy all but given makes no sense for most developers who release games you’d like to play. It’s an environment that not makes little sense for commercial development, in many ways it’s actively hostile to people hoping to create games for it.

[Teancum]

Yeah honestly you probably could have just linked to the penny arcade article. Which I've all ready read by the way. Where did Mojang say that minecraft WON'T be on this? As far as developing for android or the pc I'm not a handheld kind of guy. Yes I know you can plug it into a tv a sync a controller but who seriously wants to go through that kind of effort to play a game for a few minutes? Honestly the article doesn't exactly go into why people like it. It's also criticizing the lack of information out there but it's seriously just been announced.

So dream not crushed lol. Although like I said there are a lot of things that can go wrong but still there are a lot of things that can go right.

[Keleris]

If everything is free then how will anyone make money?

[Teancum]

My Understanding is that there has to be some kind of playable demo to meet the free requirement.

[Shadowlayer]

Yeah right the entire article, it's just a section dumbass, did you even read the whole thing?

If you did you would have seen something interesting: some people did a similar project a few months ago for a plug&play android system for TVs. They got half a million bucks.........to repackage a $50 chinese android dongle.

All the ouya believers out there do nothing but repeat the same crap ouya itself gives to the press, but developers? they say ouya hasn't tell them shit, not even which android libraries will it support, a BIG detail specially if they want to add controller support

And read again, there will be minecraft but the crappy limited pocket edition, notch's words not mine

[HEX1GON]

Great another system Angry fucking birds is going to pre-installed on...