First Ouya reviews are in. And they are...

If you like to buy because of guts instead of reason its a fair posture, But then why would you care about what a review says?

Personally, I like to buy stuff that I have use for, specially with consumer electronics.. there is no scarcity of good ones. Why buy the bad ones? there is no even time to use them.

Seems like it's exactly what it claimed to be, if that's not what people wanted why fund it at all?

i'm not sure i quite get it... at its best what is this supposed to be doing? a roku box that runs emulators?

Platform reviews are stupid.

Wow. That's pretty fucked. I wonder if someone's impatient/a young kid and hits the button multiple times will it charge multiple times?

dismissing a good thoughtful review with plenty of arguments to support its judgement is no less stupid.

They don't have to, it reviews itself! O_o

No no no. It's TELEVISION EXCLUSIVE. You had it backwards.

Ahh stupid me, but hey if they're locking down T.V exclusives I only see one direction for this console...

Going souther then Antarctica.

Haha well at least the WiiU will have some company now

All the way to the top baby. Because a TV EXCLUSIVE port of a 6 year old remake of a 23 year old game is the kind of muscle the Ouya needs to be competitive in this market!

I forsee a battle coming to determine the king of penguins.

The idea that anyone could make a console for that little money has always been ridiculous to me. All three major console manufacturers spend hundreds of millions of dollars over the course of half a decade or more designing their systems. They then spend hundreds of millions more making exclusive games and securing deals with software companies. Getting a Xbox/PS level console into the market will cost probably around $1 billion before a single console is sold. Over the course of a console's life cycle these companies spend upwards of $10 billion making, marketing, and developing for the system. Microsoft lost something like $5 billion on the first Xbox. They lost an additional $1 billion or so in the first couple years of the 360. They finally became profitable in 2007 or so. In the five years since they've made back the money they spent on the 360. Point is, making a true console competitor requires billions of dollars of capital that a company is able to blow on the chance that they will find success. There are really only three companies out there right now with the know how and the money to make a new console - Apple, Google, and Samsung. The latter is in a tougher spot speaking that they have much less experience making software. But those are the only three electronics companies with enough money in the bank and enough technical knowledge to do it. No small company will ever make a real dent against the big three. There is just too much money that needs to be spent to make a good system and secure enough games to make the system worth buying.

Pretty much how I feel. I think most people shitting on it are expecting it to be something it's not trying to be.

Well, without knowing much about what games will be available launch, this obviously isn't the full picture, but as I understand it they are reviewing the hardware itself. The hardware is not going to change, so it's perfectly valid to review it. As someone else said, they gave the Vita an 8.5, which makes sense given what an impressive piece of tech it is. However, if you were to take the available game library of the Vita into consideration, I am guessing few people would agree with the 8.5 score, so it goes both ways.

Reviewing a piece of hardware with the game library taken into consideration would be a very tricky (and extremely subjective) process, so reviewing it purely as a piece of hardware with ever present caveat that all consoles have at launch of "the success of this machine will depend largely on the games" is about the only thing that can really be done.

Never was interested in the Ouya (Wii emulates fine and Roku handles media fine), but exactly are people expecting this thing to do? Feels like they are setting the bar way too high for this.

And now I finally know what this thing is.

Who could have predicted that? What a shock

8 Million? Microsoft and Sony spend that much on toilet paper while taking dumps between engineering their next gen console. It's pretty surprising they got a working product out the door in such a short time. I don't need one, I don't want one, but I am sure there are people where this thing will be a nice cheap alternative for.

As time went on, it became more and more apparent that this thing would not live up to expectations. It's an Android console without the Android ecosystem. It's not a competitor to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. It plays mobile games on your TV.

The real bummer is that it doesn't even seem to do that very well.

This doesn't make a lot of sense. Ouya doesn't come out for another two months. Who reviews a beta?

To be clear, everything listed under "bad stuff" on the Verge review is software related, not hardware, and could change by the time the system is actually released. I'm not saying it will, or is even likely to, but to put out a review (not a preview) at this juncture seems like sloppy journalism to me.

Has nothing to do with how thoughtful or good the review is... They could have 2 million great points full of facts and strong arguments and good support and yadda yadda yadda don't care still think it's really stupid.

I'm not dismissing the review. I wish it never existed because it's pointlessness makes my brain hurt. If there was no number attached to the stupid review I would accept it as worth existing in some way but assigning a value to the Ouya (or Vita, or whatever) is...

*whispers*

stupid.

This is really a matter of industry perspective. An open source console rooted strongly in the relatively new mobile / social market just doesn't make an easy comparison. Trying to review it against traditional offerings just doesn't make any sense.

I'll see how the emulators go on it. Personally, $99 for an HDMI connected interface and wireless controller is a pretty good deal compared to having to buy a smaller PC for the same purpose.

As far as larger viability and integration into the mainstream, it really just depends on the device's interface and feedback system. If it somehow has a really robust marketplace that drives commerce and allows people to find good offerings, then it'll move some units. Then again, like most puck sized media hub deals, it may just end up being useless and sucking.

I like the way you back up your point with *whispers*, you sure the thoughtful kind.

So was the only appeal for this console was so you could play emulator games on it? Was playing them on a computer just unappealing to people?

@donpixel: Thanks duder!

What's most worrying about this whole ouya fiasco is that people PAY to get scammed basically.

I wasn't strictly referring to the reviews, but more the general response to this thread and in the gaming community about how awful the Ouya is going to be.

I still think it could be cool. All you hyenas need to give it time before you bash it like it's the biggest piece of shit.

@mattyftm: Fair or not, if you don't take your launch seriously and make sure to have killer apps, why should anyone expect them magically do so later on? A weak start doesn't bode well for the future. Who will want to develop for it with such a poor start? Will it be able to stick around long enough to improve significantly? But the idea of giving a numerical score to a platform seems weird to me. Give me an editorial with your thoughts, but refrain from the numbers because that just seems strange to try to give an all encompassing score to a platform.

Honestly though, who didn't see this coming?

That's the only appeal for some people, but not everyone. Emulation wasn't even mentioned in the $8M Kickstarter campaign.

Can't say I'm really surprised. It takes more to make a successful, quality console than the zeitgeist of a Kickstarter campaign.

Honestly its a bit silly to be bashing on the hardware when it hasn't even hit retail yet. Hardly a proper way to review.

Sounds like the big problem is that it's still a beta. Which, well, it certainly seems to be. The Engadget review does a good job explaining that it has potential, if only it can refine what it's doing and improve the complete package.

Though, the free-to-play thing is still nuts, and I'm not sure how they're going to get around that.

i'm not surprised with that. usually kickstarts are horrible things that people give money to.

@8bit_archer said:

@brodehouse said:

Wait people are reviewing consoles now? What does the PC get? A 10?

They don't have to, it reviews itself! O_o

I love you.

I still have no idea why people were jumping onto this console as if this would compete in the current pool of video game platforms or as if it would create a whole new paradigm for video game hardware. It's Android (a shitty OS for video games when considering the entire spectrum - e.g. actual consoles and PC - of things that people use to play games) on cheap hardware.

Other than being a viable option for old system emulation on the cheap, there is nothing redeeming about this product.

No shit.

To be fair, it is really inappropriate to start reviewing the Ouya at this point. But performance was bound to be limited by the setup they chose - the new Tegra 4, Qualcomm 8064T and Enyxos 5 SOCs would have been much stronger for a June launch. A second one will probably afford earlier access to new hardware (assuming eventual success here) though.

Anyone that invested in the ouya should invest in my new handheld game. All it require is a hand and a pen. And then you write stuff. And then its a story. Do itttttt

im insanely confused about the ouya, a lot of people on the gaff thread and the internet as a whole say they'll use it as a cheap emulation device.... whats stopping nintendo, sony, sega or any company that's games are being emulated from suing and shutting the whole thing down?

@vicrattlehead: They can't, because Ouya does not officially support emulators and I don't think they will ever sell emulators in their store. But you can install any software you want, even emulators. How can a company sue about an open platform? If they could, every developer of an OS that supports software without checking (like Windows, Linux, jailbroken iOS, modded PSP, even Raspberry Pi (which is Linux)) could be sued.

Sony tried two different methods in Sony v. Connectix and Sony v. Bleem and lost both. I'm not aware of any attempt since then.

What's the problem here? You get a 100$ small console that runs on Android and can be hacked/modified and can load roms. It was advertised as such, and that's what people backed it for, and that's what people are getting.

So it's a Roku or Apple TV with a two handed remote and a worse interface. Plus some phone games.

I've been dying to play Cannabalt on a TV with a controller.

/sarcasm

There are better phones out there. A way of hooking your phone and a controller up to the tv would have made more sense.