OUYA: A New Kind of Video Game Console

I just put my $10 in (I'd have put $120 in to get one, if I could)

Strangely enough, I see a lot of negative comments about it coming from the Tigsource thread, of all places (though there are tiggers that are positive about it, too). I any place would be in favor of this you'd think it'd be the Tigsource community, but instead they are complaining about it being an Android platform. Bacially "why would I want to play mobile games on this thing?", which is missing the point entirely.

Considering how far along they seem to be in development, the slick video presentation and such, it's very possible that they do in fact aqlready have potential financial investors already. I'd wager that, like Kiyoshi said, the Kickstarter is more of a testbed for gauging consumer interest. If that is so, it succeeded spectacularly.

Now, there is still the possibility of failure. But I'd be lying if I said I wasn't hopeful at this point.

Some morons are saying : This will never succeed with some few million dollars ! These dumbs don't realize that the kickstarter campaign main objective is to analyze the demand for the product so that the surelly many investors can then inject the real money on the project. By now i'm sure they have a good enough view of the product demand :) It could yet fail terribly or win spetacularly. No one can know for sure.

Not to mention I would bet, only 25% of the general populous knows about Kickstarter. If this thing makes it to retailers then, I can see a strong market for a cheap affordable gaming console.

Ashley

I am super excited about this console.

Is it possible to contact them and figure out the specifics for implementing 'gamepad' controls to their games, so that we can get developing games for this using C2?

I understand that browser support for the gamepad is still up in the air a bit, but if we can get Chrome and Ouya to be on the same page, for example, we can start making games now with the Ouya in mind.

Anyways, more support for the Gamepad would be greatly appreciated, especially with Ouya on the way. This would include more tutorials on how to actually use the Gamepad in Construct2 (detecting axis directions, analog stick / dpag to 8 directional behavior, etc). This has been difficult for me to find information on.

Thanks!

You're able to send them a message either via the Kickstarter page, or via an email adress they put up on their updates page: ideaswvi@ouya.tv

I'm thinking about sending them an email talking about Construct 2, and such, but I'm still figuring out how to word it.

They've already got Unity on board, so Construct 2 compatibility shouldn't be much of a stretch I think. They're going to want as many people as possible developing for their system, and supporting game engines goes towards that goal. They said they're going to release SDK's and whatnot, so an Ouya gamepad plugin is most likely a possiblity. I wonder if an Ouya exporter would be doable. *scratches beard*

Edit: Actually, the FAQ contained a better email to send C2 specific questions to: devswvi@ouya.tv

Let's flood their inbox with C2 emails! :B

The crazy thing about this is that I had a similar idea and didn't think much about it until I saw this kickstarter page. My idea was like a chromebook laptop in a console. No keyboard and no screen, just a game controller and a GUI that allows you to browse the web and play HTML5 games.

It's not that crazy. During a presentation during my second year at university I talked about possibly developing games for sale online on the Wii (this was when it had been out for less than half a year or something).

About six months later Nintendo announced Wiiware (there were industry people at the presentation btw).

I'm still somewhat skeptical, and the reason for that is the hardware.

We've reached a stage where just about anybody can do something similar.

Take the raspberry pi for example.

Its close to the same specs running Linux, for 25 bucks.

Or The nD even. Touted as the indie handheld console.

You're going to see more and more of this kind of thing. So don't let the buzzword "indie" influence you too much, cause guess what, they are going to run that into the ground.

Anyway, if you want my money, you're going to have to have some modularity. I'm not going to buy it, and then have to buy another when they decide to update the memory. cough Apple

They said in the video that you're free to rip it apart and mess with it as you like, so...

newt I am not contesting what you are saying here is not somewhat true, however, the two examples you give here are completely different than what Ouya is trying to do. Raspberry Pi is a nice idea, but is *nowhere* near the same power as the Ouya specs. It is about 1/4 as powerful. A 500mhz ARM11 will never match a Quadcore Tegra 3. Memory is actually a bigger issue here. Raspberry Pi has 256mb to Ouya's 1gb (hopefully this will be raised to 2gb as many developers have been requesting).

As for The nD, it is vaporware. It will never come out. Even if it does, it will never have the momentum that the Ouya already has.

I have doubts too about the Ouya, but I also recognize that it also has the best chance to be successful when compared to the rest. It will come down to how they market it and if they can get developer support. The games will ultimately sell this thing.

They said in the video that you're free to rip it apart and mess with it as you like, so...

I really can't see this working out well, the manufacturers guarantee would be a tricky beast in this situation surely?

I look forward to the OUYA as an additional platform to make games for, but I would never buy one, the marketing shot itself in the foot, they're right, I do own a laptop, a phone, a tablet and a games console, and they all do more than the OUYA in either alternate tasks or gaming alone; why would shell out more money for something I already have?

That and slick corporate marketing really clashes against the raw bedroom programmer dynamic that not only seems to be the target of the console, but will also be responsible for it's survival after a few enticed devs ship their day one releases.

I really can't see this working out well, the manufacturers guarantee would be a tricky beast in this situation surely?

I'm not sure I understand what you mean.

I look forward to the OUYA as an additional platform to make games for, but I would never buy one, the marketing shot itself in the foot, they're right, I do own a laptop, a phone, a tablet and a games console, and they all do more than the OUYA in either alternate tasks or gaming alone; why would shell out more money for something I already have?

That's just the thing. The Ouya is something stuck in the middle. You don't have an open console. Wii, XBox and PS3 are not open consoles. But they are well established with large libraries of games. Contending with them is going to be an uphill struggle for Ouya.

In my opinion, Ouya isn't competing with phones, tablets or computers. So comparing it to them is pointless to me. It would be like comparing a 3DS to a laptop. They are not competing with each other, the comparison is useless.

Why shell out money for something you already have? People do it all the time. A lot of people own more than one computer. A lot of people own two or all three of the major consoles.

If it's cheap enough, people will get interested. If it's cheap AND have interesting games, people will buy it. Like with all consoles, the game library will make or break the console.

That and slick corporate marketing really clashes against the raw bedroom programmer dynamic that not only seems to be the target of the console, but will also be responsible for it's survival after a few enticed devs ship their day one releases.

The console actually has two targets from the way I see it. The target developer, which would be the smaller guys (i.e. us), and the target consumer. I'm not quite sure what the target consumer is, but it's not us (though to develop for it we need to have it *hands*). But the target consumer is likely larger in scope than the target developer.

In order to push the console on the general market, after the Kickstarter, they will need good marketing. From the looks of it, they have thought about that.

It's not the smartphone, it's the apps. Same for the Ouya I think.

I read the news about OUYA recently in a brazilian download site (I was going to create a topic about it, but fortunately it was not necessary <img src="smileys/smiley1.gif" border="0" align="middle" />).

Since, according the OUYA developers, the console is open-source, I believe it would be a great addition to the Scirra portfolio. I will be happy to develop games with Construct 2 and export them, in addition to browsers (PC, Mac, Linux) and mobile devices (Android and iOS), to a console.

Dude, game creation to a videogame console is my child dream. <img src="smileys/smiley4.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

A US$ 99 console can be a hit in poor countries like Brazil (here!), India, China...

If Scirra makes an Ouya exporter I'll find a way to get 99 bucks and buy one.

A US$ 99 console can be a hit in poor countries like Brazil (here!), India, China...

If Scirra makes an Ouya exporter I'll find a way to get 99 bucks and buy one.

It is true, "amigo do Brasil". A cheap videogame easily will sell in our country and others poors countries, plus a cheap game maker with many "exporters" will bring opportunities to all indie game developers.

HTML5 and indie developers will conquer the world. <img src="smileys/smiley1.gif" border="0" align="middle" />