The OUYA might just be awesome

OS: Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean)

System-on-Chip: Nvidia Tegra 3

CPU: 1.7 GHz Quad-Core ARM Cortex-A9

Mem: 1 Gb SDRAM

Graphics: Nvidia ULP Geforce

Right now this is less powerful than some smartphones but that isn’t really the point. In the last six years there have been crazy advances in mobile GPU tech. When you watch some of the benchmarks such as Epic Citadel you get a sense that things are a moving very quickly past Angry Birds. In the next 3 -4 years it is fair to say that what we consider to be a “tablet game” is going to be much more sophisticated than current examples.

It is $99.00 USD and this might be a perfect price point. I think going lower would communicate to people that this thing is a piece of shit and all the games for it suck. It needs to be expensive enough to justify its existence, but cheap enough that every single fucking person in the world should have one of these for Christmas.

Right now it seems that most major studios and publishers are only starting to consider OUYA. It seems the likelihood is that there are going to be a lot of AAA game spin-offs and prequels. This would be stuff like Dead Space (mobile). In terms of ports, there are obviously many options for older games. A lot are being updated and re-released such as Carmageddon and Baldur’s Gate.

As for exclusives, Broken Age and Human Element are the two more high profile ones right now. This is already a totally different situation than The Phantom or any other vapor console. It’s really all about games, and this thing has already garnered interest from major developers. None of them would go near this thing if they didn’t think they could turn a profit so if this works out, you’re going to see many more devs become interested.

Independent game development is an emerging trend that started in earnest at the start of the seventh hardware generation. This is only going to grow over time and not everyone is going to be able to have a game on the major consoles. Not simply because of quality control, but because there are only so many games that can be released per quarter. However, digital distribution has changed that a lot. There are going to be more games coming out and at a quicker pace. I am not talking about shovelware, I’m talking about smaller games that take about a year or two to make.

The hobbyist can buy a rooted developer OUYA for about $1200 USD. This is not a lot of money, and in comparison to the cost of dev kits for other consoles it is laughably inexpensive. Professionals can buy the exact same thing, at the same price and churn out a game for $2.99. You get 400 sales and you’ve made your money back. Obviously it is more complex than that, but you get the point.

The significant thing here is that self-publishing a successful game on a console is out of reach for many but they can do it straightforwardly on the OUYA. What will happen when a generation of novice developers have access to the OUYA marketplace?

Over the next five years, if the OUYA is even a modest success, we can expect hardware revisions. Nvidia are going to keep designing Tegra tech and it is going to get better and faster. This isn’t about closing the gap between big consoles, it is about enabling independent devs to push increasingly more polys and textures on small scale hardware.

Android is also growing. It is almost ubiquitous at this point, and has arguably toppled iOS’ reign of terror. Although Android is still very much a cellphone platform, that doesn’t mean anything for the future of the OS. It is clear that Android has broader uses especially for tablets that lack 3/4G receivers. This means there may be an update down the line that adds a significant amount of functionality that has little if anything to do with phones.

Will there be a stand-alone Android OS and a separate Android phone OS? Probably.

It may seem like the OUYA has no chance against the big 3 consoles but I don’t think it is even competing for the same dollars. You can get plenty of Angry Birds and Plants VS Zombies on PS4, WiiU and XboxONE to be sure. But if devs start making games specifically for the OUYA, even just timed exclusives, than that can be a huge amount of leverage for the tiny console.

...wow.

Why would Devs develop exclusively for this pile of rubbish though? They have no incentive to.

http://www.polygon.com/2013/7/18/4534338/ouya-supporting-new-developers-with-1-million-fund

Because it connects to Nvidia's GRID cloud servers which has the potential to put out graphics that surpass the PS4/X1 as long as you're ok with 30fps/720p. Next-next-gen graphics for $99?

Why NOT?

Plus it can be accessed by a whole bunch of other devices, so why wouldn't developers make games for that platform...and use the Ouya to play it on your TV?

Less powerful than some smartphones? Try most smartphones released in 2012.

lol

I would like to quote my good buddy arthur gies. For once i agree with him

With the Nvidia Grid announcement, it doesn't really matter how powerful it is. Kepler GPUs own. It's the first practicable device that I know of(other than a laptop if you call that practical) which can bring streaming cloud gaming to your living room TV.

More and more developers are going to want to make games for that considering it's cross-compatible with any device that can display a video, accepts a controller input and connects to the internet. And the Ouya seems to have a jump on the competition.

It's definitely 1000000000000000x more appealing to me after seeing Borderlands 2 on it. Might be the reason I won't jump in to next-gen right away.

rofl, yes, because onlive totally worked.

@alexglass: so it's basically OnLive, nothing new here and it's not Ouya exclusive. Why care about Ouya again?

@animasta:

I play Onlive. But I hope you realize comparing one cloud service to another is no different than comparing two consoles. Comparing OnLive to Nvidia's GRID is like comparing a Saturn to a Playstation. Get informed.

@alexglass: That's almost a reason to develop for it but not in any kind of exclusive way. It's also going to struggle since 90%+ of it's games are going to be Android, IOS games and illegal roms so hi-spec games aren't exactly going to appeal to the main market this thing barely has which means it's financially risky. It has no market share on top of that.

@sooty: @animasta: The Ouya doesn't offer much right now, but it isn't just OnLive. OnLive used a completely different infrastructure than NVIDIA is using for the Ouya. It's like saying a house made from sticks and a house made from brick are the same because they are both houses.

@popogeejo:

Well when it comes to developers, that's the beauty of cloud gaming. Kind of hard to do illegal roms on it. I don't care about Android or IOS games, but Nvidia's GRID on my TV for $99 sounds awesome. It just needs more games. Sure I could plug my laptop into it too, but that price makes it worth it since then I can just plug in an ethernet chord into the Ouya and not have to worry about wireless lag.

Broken Age isn't an Ouya exclusive.

I doubt this very much.

But it's the same principle no? Online streaming for games, this isn't really new and certainly isn't a reason to buy an Ouya, especially with that pos controller...

Cloud lag + controller lag? Sounds like a train wreck waiting to happen to me.

I remember onlive, i got it on my computer once but it wouldn't play HD if you weren't wired and it all depends on how good your connection is. Also had some lag.

I guess it'd be cool to stream stuff straight off your pc like that nvidia system that's coming out? if the lag isn't to bad

Not really the same thing. One offers more powerful hardware, rock solid 720p@30fps, and very little lag. Grid promises <100ms ping which is not much different than your typical online multiplayer game. It basically fixes most of the things wrong with OnLive which has also improved. Just finished trying out the Darkness 2 actually on Onlive. It's nice to be able to play something like this on a $400, 3 year old Toshiba laptop that doesn't even have a dedicated GPU.

Basically: 1st generation cloud gaming vs 2nd generation cloud gaming.

I have an Ouya. It's so stupid.

You'll see how good it is when I make a dope wars clone for it.

I have one, it is not awesome.

Yeah man the OUUYEAH has such amazing games. The next gen doesn't stand the slightest chance.

The quality of these two games doesn't even compete with the Wii U, Xbox One, and Ps4. Its unfair for the next gen consoles to be at such a disadvantage.

Why are you comparing $99 hardware with $400-$500 hardware? The Ouya costs the same as a PS2.

And there's a very good chance games released for cloud gaming services 3-4 years from now could easily surpass next-gen console offerings with the exception of resolution and frame rate since they will all most likely be PC ports. You can already play PC versions of current gen games on OnLive and some look better than their 360 or PS3 counterparts. Heck The Witcher 2 runs better than a lot of people's PC, including mine which can't even run it at all, as it can barely run a PSX emulator.

It would be just as unfair for me to compare the Xbox One or PS4's GPU to Nvidia's Kepler GPUs which run their GRID servers and Ouya would have access to. $3,000 GPU vs $500 console. Yeah I fully expect that cloud service to smoke both of them once developers decide user base is at a point where it makes it worth developing AAA games for the platform.

Don't count the Ouya out just yet. It's pretty freaking neat to be able to have access to any and all types of Android games as well as current and next gen PC games through services like OnLive, Agawi and GRID for $99 on your living room TV. And it's completely open source.

The OUYA is the reason Kickstarter sucks.

@falserelic: I'm sorry next gen is gonna be good. :(

Also, Google is making a gaming console.

(Just to let people know I was being sarcastic on the first post)

Anyway its not so much that I'm comparing them, but how long will people stick with the Ouya. I hardly dought people will be talking about the console once next gen arrives. The only real advantage ouya has is that its cheap.

Yeah, it is a cheap alternative as a stop gap system. And if cloud services like OnLive or GRID happens to get superior versions of games like GTA5, it's a nice cheap stop gap for some of us that have issues jumping in to next generation right off the bat and have already ditched current gen consoles. Especially if they start getting next-gen games. I mean...$99. I can get a Ouya, still get an upgrade over current gen in some cases, and wait a year to possibly get a cheaper Xbox One. Likely for the same price. Not a bad deal. And will probably be home to some unique indie games as well.

Personally I hope it does well enough to at least establish a niche user base.

Biggest caveat and bottle neck for the GRID: Availability of reliable high-speed internet.

Another big caveat is that it'd be incredibly frustrating to play real-time, competitive games against people since that is entirely dependent on your internet connection. It'll be interesting though if they'll be able to pull it off but like OnLive has before it, I'll continue to be skeptical until I'm proven otherwise.

Even though I may have sounded negative towards the Ouya. I do hope the console can succeed, and finds something that can make it standout more, but in my personal opinion what it has going on now, won't get to many people to buy the console.

Won't matter shit if people won't buy a damn thing on it. Dan Teasdale seems to be saying that the conversion rate for total customers vs. sales is around 3% right now. The Ouya people think that's good somehow but Dan Teasdale rightly points out that's crazy talk. Long story short, it's going to be awkward at best in terms of incentive to develop if these are the kinds of numbers people are pulling in.

It's basically good for an emulator box and XMBC, assuming you've got another controller.

iPad > OuYa.