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With $8.6M In Kickstarter Funds, Ouya Opens Console Pre-Orders
Chameleon Man writes with an excerpt from PC Mag: "Early this morning, the Android-based Ouya console ended its run on Kickstarter with nearly $8.6 million in user donations. In recent weeks, the company has secured a number of content partners for the device, but now it's time to see if Ouya can really deliver. Interested buyers can now pre-order an Ouya on the company's website. In the U.S., one console and one controller will cost $109, one console plus two controllers will be $139, and one console and four controllers will be $199. All orders include a $10 shipping charge."
Adds Chameleon Man: "Here's to hoping that an open-source console can gain a foothold in an already competitive market."
I'm hoping its something that can beat the Wii at its own low-end game. A cheap console with cheapish games without Nanny Nintendo watching all of the games that get released on it to make sure they're fit for our eyes would be fantastic.
Why doesn't the text talking about preordering actually link to the preorder page rather than to a blog to drive up their page hits? Lame blog spam is lame.
But the Wii has the fun movement controller.
seems to be on time,
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-video-game-console?ref=live#AndHowFarAlonAreYouInBuilOuya
I asked developers whether Ouya will run games sold outside the official store (without having to root the device, like with to Android's "unknown sources"), but they never replied. Until they do, I don't consider this a particularly open console.
Have we reached an era when even those who advertise openness won't release commercial platforms that aren't like walled gardens?
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
Me too. Thank god someone is finally making a piracy-friendly console platform.
I suspect that you saw the potential BECAUSE you're not a gamer. All I hear from gamers is how underpowered the Ouya is and how no one's going to want it because the games will suck (not unlike the Wii arguments, before everyone's grandma went out and bought one). To me, that lack of power is a VERY good thing because it means the developers will be forced to make their games fun rather than pretty.
Also, XBMC is great, and a ~$100 media center? Sign me up!
Unless they are going to pop out of thin air, no.
Show me a physical prototype, running actual software, connected to an actual TV (in HD), and then we'll talk.
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To me, that lack of power is a VERY good thing because it means the developers will be forced to make their games fun rather than pretty.
Or just like with most third party Wii titles, they'll be both ugly and unfun.
I have to admit, I'm probably going to get one of these eventually, if everything goes right.
But that's the key - it has to work. It has to have at least two games I want to play that I can't play elsewhere, it has to function as a half-decent media player, it has to, you know, actually exist as a physical thing.
Right now, there's just too much a chance of this never even being released for me to pre-order. And even if it does come out, there's a large chance that it won't have any good, interesting games come out.
Now, if it does come out and live up to its promises, I'll buy one. No problem there. But I'm just still too apprehensive about it to commit to it until it's solid.
o me, that lack of power is a VERY good thing because it means the developers will be forced to make their games fun rather than pretty.
And who is going to bother to make games for it when they can just continue to make games for platforms that sell far more (iOS?)
I don't mean to rain on this parade because I think efforts like this are fantastic generally, but I have serious reservations about this being able to go anywhere...
One last issue is how will Ouya address Android piracy? If developers are experiencing high piracy rates on Android already, how will this diminish in an Android based console? That question alone is vital to address to get strong and sustained support for the platform.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Only reason I buy a console is so I can play games like Final Fantasy and RPGs in general.
http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/07/31/final-fantasy-iii-launching-on-ouya
Any other reasons?
This would have been a worthy kickstarter in and of itself. I will save my $100 until Allwinner releases their drivers.
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The video on their website is pretty cool. It shows them making the controllers by hand, out of wood. Talk about craftsmanship.
The Wii actually has a pretty weak processor.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadway_(microprocessor)
To me, that lack of power is a VERY good thing because it means the developers will be forced to make their games fun rather than pretty.
I -know- there are some people on here who remember that there were games before ansiotropic filtered bump mapped motion blured LOD textured polygons.
I even seem to remember enjoying a few of them. Super metroid anyone? Final Fantasy II and III (4j and 6j)? mario kart, ice hockey, bubble bobble, zelda(s), sonic(s), punch out, tecmo bowl, come on how long do I have to go?
there are a ton of good 2d sprite games on the android market. 2d doesn't -need- to be dead.
Not to mention that "underpowered" is relative. This thing is roughly as powerful, give or take, as the original xbox or ps2, and I'm pretty sure there were some good enjoyable 3D games for them as well.
galaxy s3 = $599
ouya = $109
If it had access to Google Play Store *AND* another market for even more souped-up games (or even some exclusive stuff) it would be irresistible. But from everything I have seen/heard so far, it will probably be limited to some proprietary marketplace with much less selection and potentially much higher priced stuff.
You might ask what is the point for full Google Play Store access? These:
1) There are countless thousands of games, right off the bat
2) There are countless thousands of LOW PRICED games
3) There are many thousands of FREE games
4) Anything YOU ALREADY PAID FOR on Play will run on the Ouya too
5) You might want access to some apps that are not games
6) You might want to do all this in the comfort of your chair, using a great controller, a great sound system, and a great display
Without full Google Play Store (or maybe even Amazon Marketplace) support, I don't expect this thing to be anywhere NEAR as attractive as it would be with it.
Also quite possible it won't have analog sound out, making it not possible (or difficult and expensive) to connect many people's audio/visual systems.
At first I misread, didn't notice the second C, and I was all over that idea. Then I realized it said clicking, and that just seems unrealistic.
Anyone else notice the odd markup on the extra controllers? It's $20 per controller when you go from one to two controllers, but $30 per controller when going from one to four. Are they going to sell controllers separately or if you buy the 1 or 2 controller box, that's it, no adding on?
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So you don't understand what kickstarter is? Or are you having difficulty wrapping your brain around the idea of a pre-order?
It's fine if you don't want to be an early adopter. But acting like you have the superior position seems ludicrous.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Only if they can put out the same quality First Party development that Nintendo does. Which is no. They lack the quantity and quality of tallent to pull that off. They might be able to squeeze out of it just enough to justify a second run. Otherwise they'll just be like the Sega Master System or Turbo Graphics 16.
If you examine the datastream from a wiimote, it is actually pretty well pre-crunched by the controller.
There are a few pairing-related oddities(bluetooth can be a bit eccentric on its good days, and Nintendo didn't excatly feel a strong pressure to be helpful to random 3rd party bluetooth devices); but you get all the accelerometer data, and the IR dot following, handled for you in hardware and sent, along with button states, as relatively trivial output data. There are a few other oddities with the onboard speaker and similar bits; but it isn't a computationally expensive peripheral to deal with.
i kinda feel the same way about the Oculus Rift i backed it at a lower level, mostly to help them and wait till a stable consumer product is out.
Make an Ouya game that links up over ad-hoc Wi-Fi with a client on a Nexus 7 tablet. Instant Ouya U.
Um, developers that aren't interested in supporting clumsy touch screen gaming for one. Developers that make stuff for iOS and Android and who's games with a minimal amount of trouble can be ported to the Ouya who figure "why not?".
But all of those people depend on revenue being there to pay for the effort.
The "clumsy touch screen" guys developed Doodle Jump and countless other games that worked just fine with touch screen controls...
Uh, the main reason iOS doesn't have as much piracy is you have no choice but to either buy from the App store or root with no in-between like real computers have.
Of course.
And the Ouya people haven't said they will allow side-loading
It's on Android. It can be rooted.
they've already said rooted consoles won't be able to access the Ouya market
They said rooted consoles would gain no ADVANTAGE over non-rooted consoles. Which I take with a very big grain of salt indeed.
There is also the option of encrypting downloads with a device specific key like Google put into Jellybean.
So is Ouya using that???
You can't just provide a laundry-list of things they COULD do. What ARE they doing?
The fact is no matter what you do, some people are going to pirate.
Of course, just as there is piracy on iOS. But is the rate on Ouya 9 or 90%? That is the key to understanding if it might become a viable platform.
I have nothing against the platform but I'm smelling a whole lot of if coming off the plan.
Also of course, you have to wonder what happens if Apple opens up the Apple TV to apps.... that seems like it would suck the alternate platform air out of the room pretty quickly. On the other hand it could serve to validate what Ouya is trying to do, and give the platform more games just from iOS / AppleTV ports (since they would also be focused on running on a TV and not on the device directly).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'm not convinced that first party development is necessary at all. You can get launch titles to bundle via licensing if that's your thing. A lot of people are still playing the smush and the pc engine, and there were a lot of SMSes around when I was a kid... but not TG16s, because they cost too much. If Ouya makes a major mistake, it will at least be different from the mistake NEC made. And of course, Sega put out several more generations of console before being boned by Sony. Why they chose to help Microsoft gain console experience is beyond me.
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