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Ouya Android Console Blows Past Kickstarter Goal
mikejuk writes with a winner for quickest follow-up in a while as the Ouya console managed to raise over $2 million in a mere eight hours. From the article: "On the surface it all sounds like a really good idea. The OUYA games console is planned to be an open competitor to the likes of Xbox and PS3. It seems so good that it has been crowd funded to the tune of $1 million — but why exactly is it needed? There must be a good reason — after all the wisdom of crowds is never wrong. The simple answer seems to be freedom. The company claims that you can do what you want to the machine. A CyanogenMod port would allow you to do what you like to the OS and it wouldn't void your warranty. You can hack the hardware or software. However, it is important to note that this isn't open hardware. ... In the same way the software seems to be open and yet controlled. ... The Kickstarter page says 'When we say, "open" we mean it. We've made many decisions based on this philosophy:..' But it isn't Open Source. And yet it is so much better than the alternative. Perhaps this is a sign of just how desperate we all are to get away from the control of the big console manufacturers, that we will fund anything that sounds even slightly reasonable. The walled gardens of Apple, Sony and Microsoft no longer seem the warm and welcoming places they once did (if they ever did)"
Issues not raised on yesterday's post; the console will require a significant number of binary blobs just to function, and it's really unclear whether or not it will actually be DRM free. Anyone remember Indrema?
This is the equivalent of hooking a tablet to your television. You'll have access to the same Android games that every smartphone and tablet has, assuming that the app even supports a controller.
There's two flip-out reactions about this console 1) It's a Kickstarter scam to steal money and always be vaporware or 2) It's an underpowered box that will be laughed out of the market because It's so underpowered and stupid that any Phone will be better than this box by the time it's released and AAA developers won't make any games for it.
Gamers are notorious armchair analysts who usually have no idea what they're talking about. (See: Xbox360 vs PS3 hardware power arguments when they were launched) Gamers should be cautious, mostly due to Kickstarter's sketchyness, but I don't see why this Kickstarter is any more suspect than other Kickstarters.
Whether or not there is some sort of god, I'm not supposed to say/god is a word and the argument ends there-Smog
Promise of "killer" opening price-point of $99.
This one I don't see as being as big of a warning sign.
No screen; there goes a huge chunk of the cost of a typical Android device. No battery, no cell radios. No cameras. I think it's actually completely feasible to get a decently-spec'd piece of hardware running Android out for at most somewhere in the $150-$200 range, and quite possibly even sub-$100. This is going to be basically a CPU/GPU wired up to bluetooth, wifi, storage, and AV out. You can already get things like that for really cheap.
I mean think about it -- the Wii shipped for $200ish in Japan and had far more custom hardware than this will have. That was 6 years ago.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal