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Ouya Game Console Retail Launch Delayed Until June 25
PC Mag is one of several outlets reporting that the Kickstarter-funded Ouya Android game console has been delayed by a few weeks; the new target date for launch is June 25. Says the article "The delay does not affect early backers, who are still on track to receive their devices by month's end.
Helping to meet that demand will be $15 million in funding, led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers." Also at CNET.
I for one welcome a cheap console that has demos available for all games. No need to pirate!
the games aren't PS4 quality like shadowgun, but the console is $99 and the games are only a few $$$ each. does it really matter that you can't see the individual droplets of blood flying off dead people? who cares?
I would say "First", but my post was delayed by a few weeks
does it really matter that you can't see the individual droplets of blood flying off dead people?
Of course it matters, what kind of gamer are you?
I have high hopes for this one. But the more delays, the less confidence I have.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
For $99, how can it go wrong?
Also, why are you even looking at the consumer grade PS4? 8 way SLI with Geforce GTX Titans for the win. You can power a whole wall of 4k monitors with it.
The casual kind.
For some reason, developers are going to flock to build cheap games for this substandard performing platform. Furthermore, gamers are going to use this for some reason because...
This thing has cue:cat scale flop written all over it. We won't hear about it again after the media hype dies down, as, simply, except for people who find that they can repurpose the hardware, nobody will buy the thing.
/ just like linux on the desktop.
Maybe your karma is broken. It should be for bitching in an unrelated post as AC.
Here is where you express issues with the website:
feedback@slashdot.org
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
My Local Target has this for per-order. I was kind of shocked to see it. This may be a lot bigger deal than I had originally imagined. $99 really brings it down into a reasonable birthday/Christmas present for the kids.
(posting OT as AC)
Well, there's your problem right there: Operating Thetans should know better than to deprive the free service of its ad revenue.
Whoever'd use that for gaming is a moron. Much more profitable to mine some bitcoins on your neighbours electricity
CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
Unless they're confident that Nvidia's Project SHIELD will slide past its Q2 release window, this is a really bad idea.
Would you prefer your Android gaming console permanently tethered to your TV on Tegra 3 or would you prefer a handheld console on Tegra 4 with the option of going mobile?
The 1980s called, they want to know why you're playing games on your phone and not on your TV.
When I want to see my reflection in the flying splatter of blood, with full bokeh depth-of-field, bloom, and ray-traced lighting, I have a PC. Two, actually.
But I'd have no problem buying one of these, if it had some good games I couldn't get elsewhere. If the Ouya can play regular Android games, that would be perfect - I don't have a phone able to play any game more advanced than Chess, so I've been missing out on some of the higher-quality Android games.
As it is, I don't think it's *quite* worth it, but only for lack of software, not hardware. And even then, if it fails and you can find them being sold for $50, I'd snap one up instantly for XMBC and emulator usage.
the console is $99 and the games are only a few $$$ each.
I can already get "only a few $$$" games on a phone/tablet/Steam. The benefit for an Ouya over those is the convenience of a console (i.e minimal setup, easily plugs into TV, console controller), but then as a console it will be compared to the existing big boys, and people will complain how it doesn't have the (expensive) things that the other consoles offer.
Hey, I'd love to be wrong, but the Ouya looks more like a niche than a paradigm shift.
Yeah, but the Nintendo Wii is also only $99. You can soft-mod it to do all sorts of stuff, but there's a bunch of used games out there for really cheap. There's also the WiiWare store which has a bunch of games for pretty low prices. I'm not sure how the Ouya is a gamechanger. It's basically the same as buying last generation's console.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
When I want to see my reflection in the flying splatter of blood, I remember that I can only gib my annoying neighbour once. Saving him for a special occasion.
This is pushing the definition of "console" and not in a good way.
It has a nVIDIA Tegra 3 CPU in it. (I guess AMD gets all the real consoles...)
Which is slightly better than a smartphone that's processor was released in 2010 (Galaxy S3, Snapdragon S3).
So the think is going to be powered by cellphone technology that is 3 years old on launch.
Even the price point isn't that great. At launch the S4 will be available, how much do you think a no contract S3 will be then? 100$? and it will have more features.
About the only thing it does have is a controller.
Anyway all this is a older cellphone gaming on your TV with a controller. I am not sure I would qualify this as a console.
In the Ouya you can swap out the CPU. Next year if you don't want to buy a Ouya2 you could just pop in a Tegra4 (or 5?). Replace the industry standard fan (4 screws) and you're good to go. I'm sure if it takes off there'll be aftermarket controllers for it.
Of course you need to pirate, otherwise the games will constantly be asking you to buy things in-app. The easy hackability of the console is the point, you'll be able to download a big suite of games off piratebay or something, along with a few emulators.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
Well, I guess I'll be crossing another item off my fathers day gift list! Bummer! :-( I hope this thing works out. I'm looking forward to buying one. I think that this will be a big deal. The hardcore gamers pooh pooh it, but the device isn't meant for you. There is a market for a device like this that is incredibly flexible and versatile. It goes beyond gaming. It can run all sorts of software, such as media software and emulators, and allow you to really take control of your TV experience and do whatever you want with it. That is what I think the Ouya's core appeal is--it's creative potential for users. It's fun, inexpensive, and full of potential. What's not to like?
And I haven't received mine yet. :(
I'm betting part of the delay is to ensure that all early backers get theirs BEFORE it hits retail. That was promised from very early on.
AirSpeak - http://itunes.com/apps/AirSpeak
I'd delay it too and take in more VC money while I can and before it's exposed that consumers think it's cheap junk.
Of course you need to pirate, otherwise the games will constantly be asking you to buy things in-app.
Why constantly? I envision games laid out like the first Doom, where the first of four episodes ("Knee-Deep") is without charge and the second ("Shores"), third ("Inferno"), and fourth ("Consumed") are one block of paid DLC.
Also, why are you even looking at the consumer grade PS4?
Because not all games are FPS or RTS. Games in several genres would benefit more from a gamepad than from a mouse and keyboard, such as platformers and fighting games. And when major video game publishers have published games that don't require a mouse or similar pointing device, they have historically tended to do so on consoles far more often than PCs.
If the Ouya can play regular Android games, that would be perfect
As long as an Android game doesn't heavily rely on pointing and clicking, it should be trivial for the game's developer to port it from Google Play, which expects a multitouch screen, to Ouya, which expects a gamepad. Any game that currently supports Xperia Play, iControlPad, iCade, or keyboard control would probably take a day or two to port the input handling and possibly no more than the rest of the week to work out in-app purchasing.
as a console it will be compared to the existing big boys, and people will complain how it doesn't have the (expensive) things that the other consoles offer.
Despite such complaints, the Wii printed money for the first few years. I don't see how it'd necessarily stop the Ouya.
There's also the WiiWare store which has a bunch of games for pretty low prices.
Doesn't a WiiWare developer still have to have "relevant video game industry experience" (that is, several commercial titles on another platform) and a "secure office" (which until very recently explicitly excluded home offices)? Restrictions on developers limit selection, and that's why Bob's Game has taken so long to come out. In the 1980s with retail shelf space and print magazines, limiting selection may have been desirable to filter out the crap that was flooding stores late in the Atari 2600's life, but in the 2010s, we have download stores and online reviews to do the filtering for us.
That or the standard library would abstract out the difference between the Dual Shock 3 and the Xbox 360 Controller (wired or with PC adapter), and by default, games would support both. Does anyone know whether the Ouya OS supports enough of Bluetooth and USB input to get these controllers working for, say, player 2?
When I see that it can be modded so I can run an android apk I'll surely buy one.
To load homemade software, it appears you just have to turn on USB debugging, much like with a tablet or phone. Fire up Eclipse and get going.
All my Atari 2600, 5200, C64, MAME, SNES, NES, Genesis, N64 and PS1 game roms
PS1 CDs and PS2 DVDs are relatively easy to dump, at least in my experience using background music extraction software. But how do you plan to connect your 1541 drive to your PC to dump C64 games, dump your arcade PCBs for MAME, or dump your cartridges for the other systems?
Yeah, but the Nintendo Wii is also only $99. You can soft-mod it to do all sorts of stuff, but there's a bunch of used games out there for really cheap. There's also the WiiWare store which has a bunch of games for pretty low prices. I'm not sure how the Ouya is a gamechanger. It's basically the same as buying last generation's console.
Nintendo is still hostile to homebrew and still releases updates which break HBC. If you want to keep your Wii modded, any time an update comes along you have to tell it no and go run the hackmii installer again. That's pretty easy (stick it in a directory on the SD card and launch it from the HBC) but it's still an annoyance and if other people are using your console there's the risk they'll accept the update since it's required for whatever they're doing and it's goodbye HBC, and maybe a bricked console too. Ouya isn't going to be trying to prevent you from running your own apps, that's how it's a game changer. Also, it has a whole lot more balls than the Wii.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
one of the things which makes ouya feel overhyped to the max is that android running tv boxes have been available for ages
Have these Android-running TV boxes had a standard button layout for the user controls? In my research, just about no two brands of USB game controllers had the buttons in the same order. In one of my games, I've decided to store recommended configurations for all controllers that I happen to own, including Xbox and Logitech controllers, and default to whatever matches the connected controller's make and model.
And has one been able to try or buy them in brick-and-mortar stores? I imagine that a lot of parents are unwilling to buy toys from Amazon or eBay that they've never seen.
I see two differences between CueCat and QR Code. First, people bought Internet-connected cameras of their own accord, needing only an application distributed without charge to translate the QR Code matrix into a URL. Second, Denso licenses QR Code patents to the public without charge, whereas Digital Convergence went all DMCA on CueCat hackers' behinds.
The Wii would be selling in droves if casual games with last gen graphics were the biggest market.
And Wii did go on to sell 100 million consoles, compared to 77 million each for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Perhaps the appeal of the Ouya is that it could be the YouTube of gaming on TV, compared to the other consoles that are like the more tightly curated Netflix.
Why would it need HDMI connection? I can already wirelessly stream video to my TV.
Were you were referring to DLNA? As I understand it, that's more designed for noninteractive video, which doesn't value low latency nearly as much as gaming does. Something with latency on the order of a single 16 ms frame would need a specialized protocol, which probably means a new box to receives the wireless stream and forward it to the TV.
However the one problem with playing retro games on a big HD wide screen TV is they look extra terrible.
Then the emulator needs to simulate the electron beam spread of an SDTV, on which bright scanlines spread more than dark scanlines. I'm pretty sure that that's doable in a pixel shader. Or the emulator needs to use Scale2x or hq3x or something to smooth borders of things, which ends up making 8-bit game graphics look like cartoony Flash vector graphics. Scale2x has also been implemented in a pixel shader.
The one problem I have with the Android Market place is that it is very difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff if you will.
And Nintendo Power used to say good things about every licensed NES game. Aren't there other sources of reviews of Android games?
So the think is going to be powered by cellphone technology that is 3 years old on launch.
Flimflammer mentioned the Wii, a 2006 die-shrink of the 2001 GameCube with about twice the RAM and a Bluetooth air mouse. It sold 100 million consoles.
About the only thing it does have is a controller.
That's the entire point. Seventh-generation consoles' download stores are tightly curated like Netflix. There's still a space for something less curated like YouTube.
Not quite...the CPU is soldered to the main board; you'd have to replace the whole board. you'd basically be buying an ouya sans-case, which would cost almost as much as a new ouya.
Not quite...the CPU is soldered to the main board; you'd have to replace the whole board. you'd basically be buying an ouya sans-case, which would cost almost as much as a new ouya.
Have you never used a de-soldering bulb before? From that iFixit link below= Step 7
With the fan out of the way, we're (temporarily) slowed in our journey to the center of the Ouya—the heat sink is soldered in place, obscuring the processor.
According to an Ouya engineer, solder was chosen over clips for mechanical strength, as they were (rightfully) worried about such a small console being knocked around or dropped. Soldering the heat sink to the motherboard proved a much tougher design, better at surviving drop tests.
No trouble for us, we pulled out our trusty soldering iron and desoldering wick and quickly freed the heat sink.
There is no in-house Ouya equivalent of Shigeru Miyamoto
When the PlayStation 2 first launched, the only first-party game was FantaVision, a cross between Klax and Missile Command that a reviewer on tetrisconcept.com called "a steaming pile of tech demo and nothing more." The PS2 had to rely on third-party games at launch, but it still won the fifth generation in sales. Does Apple develop its own games for the App Store or Mac App Store? It's been a long time since Brick Out on the Apple II Plus.
shocking incompetence at even creating their own private app store and reskinning Android for the Ouya
Incompetence in what way, specifically?
Or that a key element of their Big Plan to "return gaming to the TV" is to be a conduit for low-effort tablet/phone game ports which will never play well on a big screen with a real controller.
Never? A lot of these phone and tablet games already have to use an on-screen gamepad to implement gamepad-style controls on a flat sheet of glass, and players end up missing buttons with their thumbs because they can't feel the buttons' edges. Pixeline and the Jungle Treasure, for example, would play a lot better on an Ouya than it does on my Nexus 7. There's also a community of hobbyists still creating games for the NES (yes, the NES), and someone's creating an emulator wrapper analogous to Wii Virtual Console to let NES game developers sell their NES games in the Ouya Store.
That's the heat sink, AC. "Wed128" is correct, you would have to swap out the mother board completely. Or buy the Ouya2, Ouya3, etc. Engadget covers that issue... http://www.engadget.com/2013/02/07/ouya-annual/
When I said "tiny screen", I was not referring to resolution in pixels as much as the physical size of the display in centimeters or inches. It's hard to have two to four players holding gamepads looking off one 4" phone screen. Yet the Nintendo Entertainment System supported two players in the era of 240p low-definition television, with a "Four Score" hub to expand to four, because living room TV monitors are physically large enough for two to four bodies to fit around.
As for buying a PC instead, most PCs are also limited to about 21" for desktops and practically 13-17" for laptops. Other Slashdot users keep telling me that two to four players holding gamepads can't even fit around that, despite that people used to play N64 on bedroom TVs even smaller than that. Even though some people are aware of the ability to plug a PC's HDMI out into a TV's HDMI in and willing to do so, most aren't. One reason is that they'd have to haul the PC back and forth between the desk and the living room.
You asked for an example of a game that might play better with a controller than with a touch screen. I tried Pixeline and the Jungle Treasure on my Nexus 7 tablet, and I kept "whiffing", or accidentally pressing outside the on-screen controls' active areas.
Like many Android phones and tablets, Ouya can also use USB and Bluetooth controllers, and Ouya games are likely to support them for players two through four. But what makes Ouya's controller so special is the fact that it's bundled with the device. With very few exceptions, such as Sony's Xperia Play, an Android device with Google Play doesn't ship with a controller or even the USB OTG adapter to use one.
You mentioned porting to PC/Android. But Ouya is Android. So I'll assume that by "Android" you meant an Android phone or tablet with Google Play.
A PC doesn't come with a gamepad. An Android device with Google Play doesn't come with a gamepad. Ouya does. Games relying on an expansion controller haven't done well unless the controller is bundled with the game, such as the Wii Balance Board with Wii Fit or the plastic guitar with Guitar Hero, and that isn't possible with a download store. So a PC game needs a control scheme designed around the mouse and keyboard that players already have, and a game on Google Play Store needs a control scheme designed around the capacitive multitouch screen that players already have. If you can convince me of how (say) a platformer or fighting game would work well with a pointing device, I'll be more likely to stop being an Ouya fanboy.
A game console is a thing only sold to play games.
The seventh-generation consoles, especially PlayStation 3, are also sold to play movies. Likewise, Ouya is going to come with clients for several video streaming services.
you need to [...] guarantee that great games will be made by others, including some exclusives.
If the major console makers reject a developer, but the developer's game becomes successful on Ouya, you've seen an exclusive among consoles. I guess your thesis is that such a situation is unlikely to occur.
The game content itself is tuned to be fun in spite of clumsy control schemes and thumbs obscuring part of the screen.
You are correct that I have lacked the opportunity to gain experience in commercial game design. I'm still working a "mundane" job to build up enough money to live on while I eventually move to Austin or Seattle or somewhere to seek employment. Until then, what are the typical steps to tune a touch-screen platformer "to be fun in spite of clumsy control schemes and thumbs obscuring part of the screen"?
By your "Call of Modern Battlefield 42 starring Master Chief" comment, it appears you're trying to say "M-rated first-person shooters sell. E- and E10+-rated platformers and T-rated fighting games don't." And by your comment about modern multiplayer, it appears you're trying to say "Gamers are expected to live alone. If a household has more than one gamer in it, and they want to play together, too bad." What did I misunderstand?
No, Virtual Console doesn't run on the Wii Mini. That model was specifically designed to run disc games and not to connect to the Internet. Were you thinking of the Wii Family Edition?
PC is capable of running platformers, as is an Android device with an external controller. The difference is that until now, nobody has offered a retail package of an indie-friendly TV gaming device and a controller. For an analogy, think of the difference between Netflix and YouTube. The major consoles are like a video streaming device that streams only Netflix, not YouTube and Dailymotion. Saying people only want to play Mario and Mega Man is like saying people only want to watch major-studio feature films and major-studio TV series.
I grant that the controller itself isn't special. If you already own an Android phone and a compatible Bluetooth controller, you don't need Ouya, Shield, Archos GamePad, or similar devices. Ouya games should end up on Google Play Store anyway. What is special is the retail package. "Almost any retailer" could bundle a controller with a tablet, but they happen not to as of the first half of 2013.
You claim that people will play a good game despite next-to-unusable controls. It took me about five seconds to put "ruined by bad controls" into Google and find counterpoints.
What did I misunderstand?
Pretty much everything, to be blunt.
Then thank you for clarifying.
there are titles for that on existing consoles
Almost all of which are from major labels. This leaves startups no platform on which to release something in the same genre. Or do you argue that these genres are so saturated with games from the incumbents that gamers don't need indie games?
A PC can do netflix and youtube and all that.
True. But let me rephrase: Netflix is to YouTube for video as the console app stores are to what for TV gaming?
You can always sell to indie film lovers, but that is a niche. I've been repeating this many times, and you have so far avoided to address it.
At one time, personal computers themselves were a niche. I guess we just disagree on what niches can prove profitable.
A well designed game will have a good UI in the software that overcomes the hardware.
I agree. I'd appreciate examples of good UI in a well-designed platformer for Android phones or tablets that overcomes the lack of a controller.
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