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Ouya Dev Consoles Ship, SDK Released
An anonymous reader writes "Earlier this year, the Android-based Ouya game console project raised over nine times as much funding as they initially asked for in their Kickstarter campaign. Now, Ouya developer consoles are starting to ship, and folks on the Ouya team released a video showing what the developers should expect. As explained in the video, the console currently being shipped is by no means the final hardware, but promises to give developers everything they need to start developing apps and games for Ouya. The only surprise is that they decided to add a micro-USB port to the hardware, making it easy to hook up to a PC. The Ouya team has also released an SDK for the device (which they call the ODK — Ouya Development Kit), and have provided most of the source under the Apache 2.0 license. They wrote, 'We think we’ve got a great team of developers here at OUYA, but there’s strength in numbers and a wealth of passionate, talented people out there. We want you, the developers of the world, to work alongside us to continually improve our platform. It’s our hope that releasing a more open ODK will help foster such innovation.'"
Well, I said it couldn't be done, I was wrong. Very well done to them!
"There there, ship." *pats the hull*
This is not a "dev" box in the sense that if you are a developer, you need one of these boxes. These are boxes that were specifically awarded to backers that wanted to do development. The only difference between these and the retail boxes is that these are early versions and therefore available earlier than the retail boxes. Also these are in "special edition" cases as a thank you to the devs for their support.
Surely it wouldn't have killed them to put a photo of the production verson *somewhere* in the post...?
- Giant fan in a sealed box. Why?
I'm guessing there is a vent opposite the fan, but being clear plastic its hard to tell the details. I'm not sure, it could be a completely boneheaded design decision, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt (no one who could actually produce a functioning bit of hardware could be that stupid, right?)
- I know the xbox dev box comes in clear plastic, but doesn't make it look any less cheap.
I rather like it. I miss the clear plastic trend of the mid-80's. I would love to see the guts of my gadgets, just to be reminded that they aren't "magic boxes". I doubt I'm cool, or my sense of style is accepted (I'm a nerd, so the latter is probably an oxymoron), but I like it. This also isn't release hardware, so I'm guessing the final consumer version will look like it does on the marketing materials.
- D-Pad from hell (another x-box transfer)
They pretty much said that the controller isn't the final version in the video. I admit, though, that so far it looks sort of like a crappy "Mad Catz" cheapo controller. If it has bluetooth, nothing will stop you from using a 360 controller, or anything else.
- Have they done any software to support their games? Didn't even see Jelly Bean load up.
This is a bit hazy. Looking at another video on their channel, it looks like they might be using a modified version of Android, as their game browser is rather "unique" looking. I'm not sure if you can actually use Android normally, and if you can how, since using a controller is very different than the standard touch. But it does look like they did make it more "game friendly", since it has an actual game browser. Everything else is a mystery, which is sad, since my decision to purchase one would be somewhat based on its functionality beyond games.
I can play games on pretty much everything these days. So having another gaming device isn't terribly attractive (3 computers (one hooked up to the living room TV), a phone, 2 tablets, 2 consoles, 5 retro consoles, a DS, etc...), but having a very small, low power, computer allowing basic functions to replace my aging, loud and hot, HTPC would be nice. Even as a gaming device, I'm somewhat skeptical, since 90% of Android/iOS games don't really excite me, they are generally shallow, gimmicky, crap; good for playing on the bus, but horrible for holding your attention for over 15 minutes. If it had "real" games I might bite, but is the hardware capable enough to handle anything beyond the typical iOS/Android fare?
- Awkward video full of awkward comments. Ouch.
I wish I knew what it was about Youtube that brought out the largest possible selection of absolute morons of any other form of media.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
I already have a phone in my hands that has more CPU power than the Ooya, it has an HDMI port, and I play games on it all the time using my PS3 controller. Why would I buy this device?
The fact that not enough other people connect PS3 controllers to their phones is enough to discourage game developers from targeting Android phones with PS3 controllers. If I were to develop a game targeting Android phones with PS3 controllers, how big could I expect my market to be? Are there even published sales figures for the iCade or iControlPad to reassure developers that the market for gamepad games on Android isn't entirely unprofitable?
All you need is a CONTROLLER.
And only one Android phone has ever been bundled with one: the Xperia Play by Sony.
the PS3 controller solution is great when you have it working but is a bit convoluted for a newbie to set up
And Android 4.2 broke the Wii controller solution.