OUYA

[Dae314]

Forgive me if this topic has already been created, but when I did a quick search nothing came up for OUYA so I assume I'm the first.

OUYA is a game console that's currently in the early development stage. The principal of OUYA is to provide an open, affordable, and easy to use TV gaming console to people. Their project is up on kickstarter, and they've been extremely successful (there's even donors at the $10,000+ range which you rarely see). In less than 12 hours they were already over their goal of $950k, and at the time of this post they've gotten over $2m in pledges. You can read/watch to learn more about the console yourself. The projected shipping date is March 2013.

What you can do right now is basically pre-purchase this console for $99 (since most of the other categories were limited and have sold out). Why should you purchase this console or not purchase it? That's what this thread is for. You still have about 28 days to make a decision, but IMO this console could be a much needed open and affordable competitor in the largely closed console market. Honestly, depending on how this console fares in the future I can even see the PC gaming master race losing a few members. It's way early to speculate the impact that the console will have on the market though. My personal view on this is that this is a $100 console. You don't see those very often unless you're buying like an old gamecube or something. Given what it is I think that's a pretty good deal, and if you have money laying around it's worth a shot investing in it.

What do you think?

Edited July 12, 2012 by Dae314

[lolrawr]

Alright I'm going to be a little pessimistic here for a moment.

I'm not really interested in this console to be honest. First off is the controller. They made a big deal about it in the video and showed it a lot, but it's extremely generic! It's your typical game pad. This is why I love Nintendo. They innovative with the controller ever new system iteration. So really I'm better off just sticking with PC in that regard since the game play won't be any more immersive than before.

Second thing is the graphics. This thing is based off of Android and smartphones. Every year cell phones get more and more powerful. What does this mean for me? Will I have to buy a new system every year to keep up? Will all the games that come out in the future be playable lag free? At least with the big 3 you never have to worry about the games not running properly.

All that aside, the concept of open source sounds neat, but there are some flaws that I see that make me question the thing.

[† ballard]

This console has sparked my interest. I found out about it last night while browsing around youtube. I personally think that this thing has great potential for indie developers. Being able to release their game so easily and freely is definitely a big plus for them. With that being said though, I don't play too many indie games, but the ones I have played have kept me interested longer than a lot of big name titles.

I think it's great that it's getting so much support from the community. This just goes to show how much people want change in the console market. Speaking for myself, I am definitely one of those people that want change in the gaming industry. Right now, I feel that developers are afraid to try new things. Playing it safe all the time is somewhat holding back innovation. Experimenting and the willingness to at least try... not caring if you might lose a little money in the long run... is what will make gaming in general grow even more so than it already has. I have other thoughts on this, but I feel I'm starting to get off track so I'll keep them to myself for now. XD

This could be the rise of the indie developer era... or maybe not... only time will tell.

The link you posted doesn't seem to work for me. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-video-game-console

Edited July 11, 2012 by ballard

[Bindy]

In my opinion this looks like a great change of pace from the current generation consoles and even the next generation of the consoles. It is relatively cheap and all games developed for it are looking to have demos free to play at least. I don't think that this will take away from the current consoles though, I think it will just take away from mobile gaming. The console is running off the android system and doesn't look to be powerful enough to play the quality of games (that everyone is use to on a console) on a large screen. I feel it does have a lot of potential to bring back old school platform gaming though.

I do think that this will be a hit for the gaming industry though as many new and exciting ideas will be coming out with the release of this console and all the indie developers jumping on the new cheap console and starting to develop new ideas for games. It might force the current big developers to take risks and put new ideas out there. The last big game that I can remember that had a good new concept was valve's portal which was like nothing I had ever played before. If the OUYA can bring more great concepts like that to the gaming industry, I am 100% for it but I will be waiting until it reaches stores and is successful enough to warrant the money for it before I get one.

We will just have to wait and see how it goes though, we will find out how good it is in due time (Probably when the developers get the console early to start developing games for release is when we will hear if it is going to be a success or not).

[† Emotional Outlet]

Dang, look at that pledge total! That's like $130 per backer!

It sounds really neat and I'm glad people are continuing to advance gaming like this. I'm sure there'll be problems, but what console doesn't have problems? Indie gaming has been making great strides and people seem to be looking less at who made the game and more at the game itself, allowing them to take chances on something new, which I think is great. I mean, a lot of people didn't take smartphone games very seriously, but look at the quality and innovation of games now that games like Draw Something and Angry Birds are so big. An indie console was the next logical step, really, haha.

Most of my indie games are on the PC, so it'd be cool to play them on the couch at some point because I'm a lazy daisy.

[Dae314]

Here is an article about OUYA. It highlights most of the problems people have already seen. I'm inclined to agree with the article (and most people) mostly. I'd love to see the OUYA succeed, but I'm not sure that it will

[Bindy]

I dunno about that article. I mean it seems to me like another way of playing smart phone games but on your big screen (It is run on android 4.0 so maybe it will link in with all google play store purchases?). If those games are available it will be a cheap way for people to get there favourite android games to play without paying the hefty fee of a smart phone. And with all games being made of the device having to have free to play content (even if it is a demo), I don't really see piracy as an issue.

There is still a long time until the console does get released, but I can see it taking off quite easily, especially seeing as 4.4 million dollars have be raised in a short 3 or 4 days and around 30,000 consoles have already been claimed. Plus all the developer specials have been claimed as well, so if all those people that have claimed them are in fact developers, there is 400 potential developers having consoles and creating for the launch 3 months later.

[superdemon]

I feel that no one can compete with Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo at this time. Sony and Microsoft were big enough to survive the big loses they took when entered the console race. Ouya is just to small to take that kind of hit and prosper.