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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?
That's got to be a serious contender for the record of fastest funded project on Kickstarter in the category of nearly a million dollars... But anyway, I hope this means we'll get to see what they come up with - a 99 dollar console is just about in the range of 'sure, I'll bite - see what it's like' in terms of risk to the consumer.
>after all the wisdom of crowds is never wrong
Really? Or was that sarcasm?
Here are the problems I foresee:
1) They're either selling the hardware at cost or taking a loss at $99. Big console manufacturers make it back on $60 games. It will be really tough to make it off 30% of 99c games.
2) Storage, 8 GB(minus OS space) is really low, and you don't want to be downloading from the cloud all the time. XBox gets away with a 4GB model because it has a DVD drive. Throw in a SD card slot atleast or a cheap SSD.
3) Hardware: The hardware seems woefully inadequate. Tegra 3 is okay for now but in 2013 when they actually launch? Also, it's not a good thing to upgrade hardware even every year because that will fragment the games, so that hardware at launch is a very important baseline.
4) And the last big thing: PATENTS. The big players and patent trolls will be all over this company by the time it even sees minimal success. With the controller looking very similar to the existing ones, expect a huge patent attack.
Anyway, nice to see an underdog coming up in the console games, but it's hard to understand why Google can't make something like this. They already have Google TV and they release something like the Nexus Q at $299?
$2 million all for the price of a flashy presentation. Let me say this again, they just made $2 million in DONATIONS with 0 requirements to actually bring this device to market. Show of hands, how many people remember the Phantom console?
And people wonder where their money goes and why they are in so much debt...
I agree that the console market needs to have more open source contenders, but guess what, they HAVE contenders! There are plenty of open source / open hardware solutions that you can even build yourself! These solutions come with a variety of software options including Ubuntu and Android. Heck there are even a few portable handheld open consoles available. The difference is that these are actual devices for sale and not a list of shiny specs with no solid strategy for being profitable, especially at the $99 price point they mention.
One of these days I need to make a flashy shiny kickstarter presentation with a lot of loaded promises just so that I can cash out and retire early...
This is sort of a recurring theme in a lot of Kickstarter projects -- why did this particular project need to go to Kickstarter?
If you look at their pitch video, clearly no expense was spared getting the Ouya to its current point. Fancy office space, dozens of designers/developers, Macs for everyone, etc. Somebody has pumped serious cash into this venture. So why do they have to beg common people for a mere million bucks to get this thing off the ground? Were they just going to give up if they didn't get the money? Somehow I doubt that.
I've never seen anyone raise that particular question about this project. They obviously have some deep-pocketed investors, so why do they have to beg for money from a bunch of regular Joes who will certainly feel the financial impact if this thing never comes to fruition?
I posted as AC by mistake... but yes I am an independent game developer (not hard to find these days with mobile devices).
And I am not trolling or stupid... I just need to Google my games to know they are available for free and being copied. I have data from my transactions and number of what countries buy or download my games. I can tell that although Americans buy a lot but this is not true for other countries. For instance, one of my games has sold almost less copies than there are download sites with cracked versions of it. The fact some people don't do it don't mean it won't be the main attractive for most people (specially outside us)
So what?
I mean that seriously, you are not losing money, it is no different than if someone did not buy the game. I know that sounds harsh, but the reality is every minute you spend worrying about people like that is one less you can spend getting actual customers. To an indie dev, I would suggest making a version to post on such websites. Change some models/sprites/backgrounds to pirates or zombies or something, and leave out the ending. This way it will at least be harder for people to find the pirated full version and you will get free advertising.
Spend more time making it worth me buying and less time worrying about what broke folks do. Some people will never give you their money, don't worry about what you can't change. Worry about getting those of us who might give you money to actually do so.
Please also tell me what game it is so I can go check it out.
All of your points are completely sensible and on the money. But if we're being kind to them, you can justify some of them:
- Every game must have free-to-play content: they're basically demanding that all games must come with a demo, or follow the old Shareware model. Not that unreasonable.
- Android- it's only a buzzword if they're not using it. Android is a fairly sensible choice for what they're setting out to do, so it's not that weird that they've picked it.
- "Rooting"- they're just using the lingo. It seems what they really mean is "we'll support users being able to get root privileges on their device, in a Linux sense". Which is fair enough.
- $99 price point- there are already Android smartphones with or near a $100 price tag. A lot of the expense in a smartphone can be given over to the screen, the battery, the general miniaturization. If they're happy with a bulky box which runs of the mains (which they are), then $99 isn't completely insane (although it's still pretty unbelievable).
Much else (unrelated screenshots, appeal to "fringe culture", general buzzword frenzy) can be put down to an over excitable marketing team. Which is something many of us are familiar with...