OUYA Android Game Console Available In June

An anonymous reader writes "The WSJ reports that OUYA, the $100 Android-based gaming console, will reach retail availability in June. The makers have partnered with Amazon, Best Buy, GameStop, and Target for distributing the devices. The console will come with a controller (which has the traditional thumbsticks, D-pad, buttons, and triggers as well as a built-in touchpad), and additional controllers will be sold for $50. OUYA CEO Julie Uhrman said, 'For the last year or two years all we've been hearing is that the consoles are dead. The reason is there isn't new, innovative intellectual property. It's expensive to develop on it. You're seeing a major shift of games being developed on the television. Our viewpoint has always been that console gaming isn't dead, the way we think about it hasn't changed. We're bringing the best screen and the best device to interact with that by creating a platform that is open.' There was a recent 'Game Jam' to create game prototypes for the console; you can browse the 166 entries."

Comments

Ouya was more relevant, before.

[Seumas]

I withdrew my backing after the first day of hype -- and I'm pretty easy to lure into your Kickstarter (I've backed about 450 of them, so far). I think the only value in this product will, ultimately, be in its conversation value as something sitting on your shelf in fifteen years. With the PS4 and the next Xbox coming out this year as well as the various Steam Boxes and the next round of high end GPUs for PC about to drop, the Ouya's brief appeal seems even less relevant. Most of the excitement at the time had been that it was touching on this mass appeal for *some* sort of new hardware in a world of aging seven-going-on-eight year old consoles this cycle.

Worse, the whole "we will support Ouya" thing became a plague on every single game related kickstarter afterward. And if you didn't say you were going to port your game to Ouya, people would spam your comments non-stop about "hey, you should contact Ouya and consider porting your game to it". Because when you're trying to produce a game on the cheap that is iffy to begin with, the best thing to do is hitch that wagon to an unreleased piece of hardware that will probably have little success and certainly not offer you anything remotely near the existing platforms that you're already developing the application for, like the PC. Blech.

Re:Ouya was more relevant, before.

[exomondo]

I reckon a good amount of them will be bought just to be used as a cheap XBMC box.

Re:Ouya was more relevant, before.

[ZiakII]

Eh, I backed. I think it will be fun to fool around and program on due to the following: Android SDK, Connectable to my TV, Interface that does not require touch.

Re:Ouya was more relevant, before.

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I'm far from certain that they'll succeed as some sort of bold new flavor of console(as you say, the console incumbents are gearing up for a fresh spin, and PC gaming is pretty cheap, at least for undemanding titles, when you consider that you probably own a PC already); but I'm in for one on the hope that they'll be a version of those little Android 'stick PCs' or "mini PCs' that might actually remain stable long enough to get some firmware that isn't total shit.

I've played around with a few of the ebay special ones(which are cheaper, 50-80 dollars) and they are much more convenient than a PC to have sitting by the TV; but the firmware is pretty dreadful and there is such a mass of cryptically branded models flying around that the Cyanogenmod-and-similar brigade isn't too much help. Paying a little bit more to get a somewhat more powerful, and quite possibly better supported(1st and 3rd party) implementation of the idea is pretty attractive.

I doubt that it'll replace my PC for actual gaming duties; but media frontend and similar duties are handled in a different room entirely, so there is enough space to share.

Re:Ouya was more relevant, before.

[jdastrup]

I think the idea of "cheap console games", if it exists, will happen with this console. We can get $0-$10 games on our smartphones and tablets, but those are almost always 1-player games on a tiny screen. If this offers a cheap marketplace for console-style games, I think it's great.

Re:Ouya was more relevant, before.

[jxander]

While I agree that Ouya probably won't set the gaming world on fire, it does have a few major benefits over the existing consoles : Price and release date

The current generation XBox and PS debuted in the $300 - 600 range. Rumors have the next gen starting around $400. Meanwhile, neither of those two have a set release date. Sony has a press conference in a few weeks, and XBox is said to be targeting a holiday release schedule. Given those two factors, the only real competition for the Ouya is the WiiU. Of the two, Ouya is still cheaper and won't be as gimmicky as Nintendo's consoles.

The only wild card here is the Steambox. But that, too, has no set price or release date... and it'll mostly be banking on people who have Steam libraries already setup, and just want to play in their living room

If nothing else, Ouya will be a nice toy to tinker with... their intent to keep it 100% mod friendly certainly sets it apart from the other players.

Re:Ouya was more relevant, before.

[jdastrup]

sure, XboxLive, with a $50/year fee.... You can't even watch Netflix on the Xbox with a paid Netflix subscription without XBox Live. As for the cheap/free game selection, I haven't looked in a while, but wasn't very good. I was under the impression that the dev fees for XBox were to high for most of the small game devs.

Re:Ouya was more relevant, before.

[tepples]

PC gaming is pretty cheap, at least for undemanding titles, when you consider that you probably own a PC already

Consoles have two noticeable advantages over PC gaming. First, using one doesn't interfere with another household member's use of the family PC. Second, console games are more likely to support two to four gamepads because consoles are far more likely to be connected to screens big enough for two to four people to fit around. I don't imagine that many people, other than the comparatively small population of Slashdot, AVS Forum, and other geek hangouts, already own a second PC just for the living room TV.

Re:Ouya was more relevant, before.

[Kethinov]

With the PS4 and the next Xbox coming out this year as well as the various Steam Boxes and the next round of high end GPUs for PC about to drop, the Ouya's brief appeal seems even less relevant.

Since none of those are open platforms, I think Ouya's appeal will remain quite relevant.

Re:Ouya was more relevant, before.

[Moses48]

I pre-ordered my OUYA. I was torn between an OUYA and Ras-Pi with controller support. I decided to go with the OUYA for something quick and easy to get running, and faster mod time if I want to mod it. I want a system I can play my custom nes/snes/genises/n64 roms. oh, and I watch netflix. I also like creating my own interface for some of my media. So that leaves me with a few options: modded xbox/ps3, htpc, RasPi (modding for controllers), or OUYA. The htpc option is too expensive. The modded-ps3 is pretty good as it doubles up as a blue-ray player, but it's expensive. The modded-xbox is pretty weak (technically), but is x86 which gives me more support for my old pc games and better emulators, but not sure it can handle n64 emulator. The RasPi is fun to tinker with, I would do this if it wasn't on back-order. The OUYA comes good to go and i just have to root it and put my android emulators on it. It supports both xbox and playstation controllers. For me, it makes sense. (Although at $50/controller I would definitely prefer to buy a ps3 dualshock controller, I pre-ordered when the controller was $30)

Re:Ouya was more relevant, before.

[SomePgmr]

I'm using one of the common Android-on-a-stick hdmi dongles, and I've played with others. They're not very good.

The Ouya out-specs most of them, the software ecosystem sounds promising, and the controller that works will be nice. Not all TV's do CEC and the gaming function of the controller is nice.

I really hope these work out to be good devices.

Re:Ouya was more relevant, before.

[Anonymous Coward]

Every console system made has been reduced to conversation value or less in 15 years. Oh, sure, there's the retro market, but that's miniscule compared to the main market. The next sentence is what people said about the original Wii.

There's a lot of people that don't have a lot of money these days, and if they can get games for $10 on one system, but they cost $60 each on the other, that makes a huge difference. Kids might want the PS4, but if all the parent can afford is the OUYA, that's what they'll get. Even if they can afford a PS4, it'll look pretty attractive. If the PS4/XBOX720 comes out at $300 (probably higher), you can either get a console with one controller and one game, or, for about the same price, the OUYA with a two controllers and 21 games. If the kids want another game, it's not something that needs to be budgeted. This is a huge difference.

As for adults, well, 85,000 bought one and it hasn't even been made yet. We'll have to wait until it's actually built before you have any reason to call it a piece of junk that won't sell.

As for comment spam, who cares? It's irrelevant. And also rides on the assumption that this will be both be successful and remain in peoples minds, in which case they should be asking to port games to OUYA, and simultaneously not successful to where this would be annoying, in which case it will be forgotten and the comment apocalypse will be averted.

Kudos to you if you didn't understand the financial aspect, you're doing pretty well for yourself. A lot of us aren't, and yes, $60 needs to be budgeted. Sometimes $10 does.

Re:Ouya was more relevant, before.

[cayenne8]

Geez, I was thinking of buying one just to get and keep laying around for when someone comes up with a neat 'hack' for using it for something besides games.

I was thinking of doing that just because it was so cheap...hell, I've had many bar tabs over the years that were more than $99...

Re:Ouya was more relevant, before.

[interkin3tic]

Worse, the whole "we will support Ouya" thing became a plague on every single game related kickstarter afterward.

Not really Ouya's fault, and doesn't really change anything about the finished product though.

Re:Ouya was more relevant, before.

[Optic7]

You forgot the main, traditional advantage of consoles over PCs: that they're generally much less of a hassle to configure, use, and maintain.

Re:Ouya was more relevant, before.

[jxander]

But the Ouya isn't trying to compete with PS and XBox. That's the point I'm trying to make. It's priced significantly lower than the *current* price for the nearly-decade-old XBox 360 and PS3.

Seriously... and that's the 4gb model ... half the storage capacity of a Ouya, without the USB Stick expandability. Maybe being in a different market will relegate it to the "checkout line of best buy," but I kinda doubt it.

BTW, I have checked out the specs, and Ouya is roughly on par with the "base" level Wii U, while being 1/3 the price.

Re:Ouya was more relevant, before.

[jxander]

Even compared to the Wii U, this is still a toy.

WiiU

CPU : 1.24 GHz Tri-Core IBM PowerPC "Espresso"
GPU : AMD Radeon "Latte" @ 550 MHz.
Storage : 8GB / 32GB (depending on model)
RAM : 2 GB total (4x 512 MB DDR3-1600) 1GB reserved for OS.

Ouya

SoC: Nvidia Tegra 3 (T33)
CPU : 1.7 GHz Quad-Core ARM Cortex-A9
Storage : 8GB
RAM : 1GB

Look roughly in the same ballpark to me. If you want to benchmark the WiiU's tri-core Power processor vs Ouya's quad-core ARM ... or if you have an Ouya, I'd be happy to learn what kind of overhead the OS takes... but to call the Ouya 2+ generations behind is simply incorrect

Re:Ouya was more relevant, before.

[RazorSharp]

The Ouya is little more than a toy

Are you implying that other game consoles are not toys?

Re:Ouya was more relevant, before.

[oGMo]

Err, you're comparing GHz between a SoC ARM and PPC64 with a dedicated GPU? Let's put it this way: the WiiU is compared favorably to the current generation consoles (PS3/360) in terms of performance, edging them out in a number of ways (and given they're half a decade old, we should hope!).

The Tegra3 was used on numerous devices last year. Go find one in the same class, performance-wise, as the PS3 or 360. Or even the PS Vita, which is a few notches below the PS3, with its 2GHz quad-core ARM and its quad-core PowerVR GPU.

Re:Ouya was more relevant, before.

[arf_barf]

I was just looking for hardware to replace my original xbox and run xbmc on it. OUYA seems better than anything that's available on Amazon or Newegg. The best thing that I found was the "official" hardware for xbmc (XIOS DS), but at $120 it more expensive and doesn't have a game controller.

For me the primary use will be xbmc, everything else is just a bonus....

If they come through and make this thing open to 3rd party development, this thing is going to be a big hit and will be around for quite a while....like my original xbox....

Re:Ouya was more relevant, before.

[Namarrgon]

XBMC will actually support the OUYA specifically, including full hardware acceleration. Also, it has an ethernet port, for more reliable video streaming. Oh, and it has better games too.

Re:Ouya was more relevant, before.

[bfandreas]

Also I dare you to build a PC for 100 bucks.

Re:Ouya was more relevant, before.

[kiddygrinder]

consoles generally interfere with someone else's use of the tv though, which is generally more of a big deal in my experience.

Re:Ouya was more relevant, before.

[kiddygrinder]

and the good thing about this one is you can still use it as a computer

Console gaming dead?

[Anonymous Coward]

They've been hearing that console gaming is dead? It it backwards day already?

Re:Console gaming dead?

[AwesomeMcgee]

I don't know, if I say Yes, does that mean it is or isn't?

I don't know...

[Dahamma]

Their console design looks a little retro to me.

http://www.ouya.tv/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/photo-1-e1359051832288.jpg

What's up with the lack of start/select button?

[grumbel]

Does anybody know why they left away the start/select button? Those seems rather fundamental to a whole lot of modern game designs and not having them will probably be a rather big annoyance. Do they have anything planed for the GUI that will address this issue?

no thanks, too little for too much

[frovingslosh]

I know if I saw anything unfavorable about kickstarter I'll get modded down no matter what merit it has, but I sure can't get excited about this. There are extremely hot Android tablets for $200 with their own high resolution screens. Take out the GPS, the NFC, the bluetooth, and other features and you can build a decent tablet for a hundred bucks complete with a screen and HDMI out. Why should I spend that amount for an Android device without a screen that can only be used for a limited subset of games when I should be able to buy a tablet that can do so much more?

Is it me or....

[Orleron]

do most of those game trailers from TFA look pretty bad?

Re:Is it me or....

[tepples]

Does this video necessarily look like 1999 UT/Q3A?

Input device for Android-on-a-stick?

[tepples]

An Ouya controller includes physical buttons and a trackpad, and games will be designed and balanced around this input device. What input device comes with the RK3066 Android stick? Sure, there's a USB hub, but there's really not much standardization in the button layout of USB game controllers. I'm not fully convinced that all users will have the time to sit through control calibration ("Press up, down, left, right, jump, shoot, in that order") for each new game that they install.

OUYA: Free To Play PITA.

[VortexCortex]

IMO, everyone misses the biggest deal with the OUYA: Its payment API stinks.

In the OUYA developer API: All programs must be down-loadable for free. There's no option to charge for the game first. There's no option to have a free version and a paid version -- It's got to be an in-app purchase if you want that, it's more complex and harder to get right, esp. from a security standpoint, esp. when trying NOT to annoy your customers. The payment API has re-occurring subscription payments, it has replenish-able items that can be bought multiple times (think Zynga Energy Bars, or game currency), and it has one time purchasable items (like unlockables). This means I just say NO to OUYA.

This means developers who just want to sell you the whole game once and you have it and that's it, really only have one option: Game Demo -> Try Out -> Purchase Rest of Game -> Wait for it to download the rest of the game. Otherwise, OUYA games really will be the most hackable: Download full game -> It's got locked features -> Run the keygen / crack. -> You've got the full game -- I wonder what the Venn diagram looks like for people to which a $100 console price point is compelling vs people who've ever ran a game keygen / crack... I bet it it looks pretty much like a single circle.

I've done research on the try-before-you buy "game demo" method in my own apps. What happens is that players impulsively download the games. Some forget about them, then delete them without ever playing the games. Most play the game first, feel their curiosity is mostly satisfied, then they forget about it and delete it later. A rare few will download the game, play the demo, then after that impulse has passed, return to the game and buy the "next episode" or "full game".

So folks like me who actually love making and playing games, and have no interest in being nickel and dimed to death or doing so to our customers see the OUYA as a non-starter. Less Choice Is Bad. OUYA gives devs LESS CHOICE about how to sell their game, they're betting big on the Free to Play (read: Pay to Win) model that I will never buy into. There's some controversy over whether or not game demos actually hurt sales, so IMO it's foolish to leave no option other than to have game demos, or free to play. Additionally, I've done all the research I need. I've seen our sales numbers much lower for apps released with trials vs those without trials. A better method is to not do trials and simply reduce price slowly until you discover the impulse buy amount.

The OUYA dev platform didn't have all the payment and registration services even working to test games against when I checked a couple of weeks ago. As a developer: Screw OUYA. I'll release some of my 100% free games there if I remember. This console has "cheap" selling point that targets people opposite to the ones that will actually buy the games. The folks that have disposable income are the ones who unlock the full game after playing the demo. They're the ones that spend $60 on "energy" to get some in-game artificial delay, rather than the poorer sap who'll grind away tons of time to achieve the same. Protip: these non-in-game purchasing grinders are the bigger fans; The grinders will buy the next game, or nearly anything new you ever make -- esp. if it's not free-to play.

I'm not seeing WHY people will buy the OUYA (other than all the damn hype). Having a portable game system (smartphone / tablet) that can optionally hook up to the TV and use wireless gamepads, or having a portable game system / tablet and also spending an additional $100 non portable OUYA that you must hook up to your TV, uses a gamepad, and doesn't run all the games your smartphone / tablet will. Folks are not going to say: OUYA! Great! Now I don't need a SmartPhone! No, they'll buy those, and then see the OUYA and think either: "I've got disposable income, so I'

Backed down from initial vision

[Anonymous Coward]

I watched the kickstarter video and they promised that all games would be "free-to-play". That'd be great for children and poor students who have plenty of time to grind but no money to purchase. I see that they pulled back that promise and turned it into "free-to-try", meaning that every game should have a crippled demo you can try before you buy. Just like all the other consoles. So much for revolutions. I guess getting $7M from the kickstarter made them forget revolutions and to look forward for the next opportunity to squeeze money..

Other than that, yet-another android platform. There's a remote possibility that nvidia could produce working complete-linux drivers, so ouya could be used for general purpose stuff. For a demo of this, refer to Ubuntu on Nexus 7.

Sold

[Mike Frett]

I didn't do the Kickstarter deal, I was reluctant but it's OK. Me and my brother will be buying one, I don't know why he is buying one but I am buying one specifically as a kick-to-the-face to Sony and Microsoft. I don't support their 'I'm a DRM'ed PC pretending to be a Console' Ideas. I've said this twice before, but my brother owns a soon to be outdated 360 whom is tired of the "Nickel and Dime me to death" game that Microsoft plays.

If they can get Netflix, Hulu, XBMC and etc...

[future assassin]

on and its not a slug fest like my WD Tv Live's they could potentially corner the media player market also. I just spend $1000 on building two HTPC's and one requirement was to play video games. If this can do it at $150 I and everyone I know will have 5 of them in their house.

Lack of vision on the part of detractors so far

[Optic7]

I have to say that I'm kind of amazed by the lack of vision on the part of so many posters here so far. Most of the complaints that I've read so far are either petty or short-sighted. I think this thing will take off pretty well.

What is there not to like about it?

Price: one third the price of other consoles. About the price of a top Roku model or Apple TV. If this thing takes off I can actually see it eclipsing Google TV in the media apps arena too. If the games are in the $1-$10 like some people predict, that will also be a bonus.

Openness: more open than any other consoles.

Ease of developing and releasing for it: great - Android, no expensive licenses or development platforms, etc.

Ease of use and buying games: great - looks like it will be well-designed. All games have some free element to them so you can try them first. All games are downloaded. Not having to go to a store or wait for shipping, combined with the anticipated price of the games should make for lots of game sales.

Power: fine. It will do 1080p. Sure, you won't be playing the latest Crysis or whatever on it, but look at where the money is going in gaming nowadays - casual games and mobile games. Imagine some of the better casual and mobile games running in 1080p and this thing will kill, especially if the price of the games is in the $1-$10 range.

Internet buzz: pretty strong. I keep reading about this thing constantly. If you're into games, you've heard about this.

The only ways I can think of this thing failing is if there's some major flaw with the hardware or software, or if patent trolls gang up on it and kill it, or if the game prices get inflated to significantly over $20.

Really, I have not yet read one single legitimate concern out of the other (early) posts so far. Sure, you can complain about the low hardware power, but for the price and the category of games they're going for, that shouldn't be an issue. It would only be an issue if they tried to run AAA FPS games, etc.

Ouya so far seems to be doing fairly well with the opportunity to coalesce the whole indie, casual, and mobile gaming markets on to one affordable device, and could build a significant library of games pretty quickly.

So again, what is there not to like about it?

Re:166 entries?

[bfandreas]

Oh do come on! It's nice bit of fun!
May I interrupt your little conspiracy theory here and point out that adding controller support to existing games is rather trivial? Also I happen to play a couple of games on my Tegra 3 pad with a stock PS3 sixaxis controller. No rooting, no hassle.
For newish games that are not developed around touch controls(so irritated poultry is excluded) you will find that they very much support controllers. You get the usual crop of arcade racers, twin-stick shooters, supersonic hedgehogs, 3rd person shooters, dungeon defend thingies, pinball, the lot.

The Ouya people have been very clever. They hopped on a bandwagon that was already rolling. nVidia has bribed, begged or threatened a lot of serious mobile developers to optimize for their chipsets. They also pressure for controller support where applicable. The library is there. They only needed to sell it at a second shop. The real question is if they get it in quantity into Tys-R-Us and Wallmart. At that price people will buy it at a whim. I know i will.

This is not the Phantom. 166 titles all of them having a free to play/extensive demo portion to them is nothing to sneer at. For 100 bucks not only do you get some nice kit, you get more games than the XBox could field on release. You also get a fairly open system.
I have yet to read that sideloading will be not possible.
One of these things has been preordered by my company. We might be using it to monitor our network traffic but knowing our admins I have my doubts. I've granted them my approval provided the "demo" it to me regularly. This is a serious bit of kit and needs management oversight.

Re:Stop overrating this please

[bfandreas]

...then you haven't looked very hard.

The Android market place is notoriously disorganized. You need to look for dedicated Android gaming websites. There are quite a lot.

Just a couple of days ago I read about Max McMann, bought it on a whim, played it and found it was the small hours of the morning. There's also Machinarium for your classic point&click pleasure. Zen Pinball is one of the best pinball games I've played since the Epic ones from the 90ies. Sonic has been superbly ported. There are a couple of nice twin-stick shmups, Ikaruga has been ported(can you believe it?) and if you feel like it you can set up DosBox for GoG classic DOS games and there are is a rather nice Amiga emulator.

Do not go for whatever currently tops the Google Play charts. It's children downloading the usual fart apps and nothing else.

Lately I've played a lot of Max McMann, Riptide GP, Asphalt 7, Sonic, Bard's Tale(a remake, the purchase includes the originals which I haven't yet tried out), Machinarium, Sector Strike(touch controls done correctly), Zen Pinball, Dark Meadow(Unreal 3 engine!!!!), Expendable Reloaded(a Dreamcast port), World of Goo, Osmos and Puddle. Mind you, all of these games have a LOT more to them than the ubiquitious Angry Birds. These are games for real gamers. Not stuff granny would play while on the toilet. I don't like ShadowGun because 3D shooters are obviously stupid.
A couple of them will propably be not be available on non-Tegra devices. nVidia has consulted(bribed) a lot of mobile dev studios how to "optimize" for Tegra 3. They are going guns blazing for the mobile market.
Guess what the Ouya is using?

Re:new tvs can "run" netflix and amazon

[Omestes]

Why would you buy a full new TV, when you could buy a $100 box?

Also TV OSs are generally locked down crap.

Re:Sounds about right

[Omestes]

I think the appeal will wear off, and people will set aside for their existing game consoles and phones.

I hate gaming on my phone. I do, but only games that are very quick and casual, and only when I'm someplace without anything else to keep me amused. My 10" tablet is a bit better, but still not as useful as a PC or console, touch controls suck for 90% of games. I generally use my phone of tablet for games, not because they are good, but because they are there.

Having a good, big, screen and a proper input method is what is attractive.

You can get that with a console, but I'm probably not going to spend $400-500 for the next generation, hell I can't even justify spending $200-300 for the current 10 year old hardware (why bother, I have a good PC already).

I'm getting one so I can emulate old games, on my actual TV, with a real input method. Also for streaming via Plex and Netflix.