13 ms·

Ouya Breaks Kickstarter Records

215 points by sethbannon 14y ago

mindcrime 14y ago
Oh, this is way cool. Not so much because I care about a gaming platform per-se, but because it shows that people care about hackable / open hardware, and that crowdfunding is a viable way to fund development of such hardware. Given the sentiments expressed in articles like "The Coming War on General Purpose Computing"[1] - and the debate over UEFI / Secure Boot - it's very encouraging to see this kind of thing happening. The availability of things like Raspberry Pi[2] is also encouraging on the same front. Here's to the continued development of general purpose computing hardware and open/hackable systems that anyone is free to use as they see fit! [1]: http://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html http://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raspberry_Pi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raspberry_Pi
- Sayter 14y ago
  I impulse purchased one because it's a $100 Android console. The "hackable / open hardware" aspect was honestly irrelevant in terms of the purchase decision, as a $100 closed hardware console by Sony (Android-based) / Apple (iOS-based) / Microsoft (WP7-based) would have received the same "shut up and take my money" response (at least in my case, and that's said as a person with a Galaxy Nexus phone). It's likely that this view is not unique, so be careful about mistaking the market as validating a "hackable open hardware $100 gaming console" and not simply a "$100 gaming console."
  - bradfa 14y ago
    It's a $100 gaming console _WITH_ and SDK! I'm a huge fan of open hardware, but honestly, it doesn't matter if this thing has open hardware or not, if the SDK is available and they encourage independents to build games, that's what matters. It's like the Raspberry Pi, it's open in the sense that they tell you a little about it, I doubt you'll get schematics and data sheets on all the parts, but that's not the point. The point is the price and the SDK and the attitude of the company promoting independent developers.
    - pyoung 14y ago
      I think RPi released schematics, see link. On a side note, I bought two of em, not because I have any idea of what to do with them, but because a)open, and b)cheap. Just got my first one today! http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/1090 http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/1090
      - bradfa 14y ago
        I said I doubt you'll get schematics and data sheets on all the parts Was in reference to OUYA, not Rasp Pi. Regarding Rasp Pi, you don't get a data sheet on the SoC though, as you do for Beagles or Arduino. So, calling it "open" is a bit of a misnomer. Rasp Pi is only "open" till you want to know what all the register addresses are or similar, then you need an NDA which is rather "not open." But now I'm digressing from the point. Being open doesn't matter for OUYA, just like it doesn't matter for the Rasp Pi. Even without schematics, Rasp Pis would sell like hot cakes, it's a $30 computer for crying out loud. Same thing with the OUYA. It's a $100 game system _WITH_ and SDK. That's an unheard of price the same way $30 for a computer is.
makmanalp 14y ago
This one is screaming for a google acquisition, especially with the new google play brand. The support from indie devs is pretty nice too, since people have proven they'll pay for quality indie games with the humble indie bundle, and sony's co-op with indie devs on games like journey (http://thatgamecompany.com/games/journey/ http://thatgamecompany.com/games/journey/) is a big vote of confidence. Ultimately, what draws people to a platform are the games, so it's good to have a bunch of proven games already, and more coming. Now, all it needs is a few killer exclusives.
- msie 14y ago
  I would be afraid of Google or any other big company acquiring it since it would result in locking down of the system to satisfy the lawyers. I remember when certain Little Big Planet levels were not allowed to be distributed because they contained copyrighted materials: http://www.1up.com/news/big-planet-levels-deleted-due http://www.1up.com/news/big-planet-levels-deleted-due I want the freedom to load any content from anywhere I want.
  - adgar 14y ago
    > I want the freedom to load any content from anywhere I want. This is completely compatible with preventing the distribution of material which infringes copyright.
    - msie 14y ago
      Please enlighten me with more detail.
  - tikhonj 14y ago
    On the one hand, yes that's a potential issue. On the other, hasn't Google been very good with making sure their Android devices (e.g. Nexus *) are pretty open? That was my impression. Of course, I don't follow this super closely. Moreover, all this is relative--and relative to Apple, even Microsoft seems open. So Google has a rather large spectrum of openness where people would think them open just in comparison to Apple and Microsoft.
maxko87 14y ago
Just bought one. The technology listed makes it totally worth the money alone. Not to mention that if this thing has as many developers making (partially free) games for it as does the Android market now, it seems like this won't be outdated for quite a while.
Cushman 14y ago
I wonder if this will light a fire under Apple's ass to finally pull whatever Apple TV play they've been planning.
zdw 14y ago
I'd love to know which Tegra3 variant they're using - some of them (T33 specifically) have much higher clockspeeds and memory bandwidths: http://www.anandtech.com/show/6036/asus-transformer-pad-infinity-tf700t-review/3 http://www.anandtech.com/show/6036/asus-transformer-pad-infi... As it's a plug-in device, battery life isn't an issue. Going with the fastest memory/CPU combination would likely be quite attractive to gaming developers dealing with HD resolution screens, assuming that it would fit in the budget.
- napillo 14y ago
  They don't have to be stuck with a Tegra3. Arm Mali such as the T658 could offer an even better experience than the Tegra3. The beauty of Android development is that any OpenGL supporting graphics chip would work.
- mtgx 14y ago
  Since they are planning on launching in the first half of 2013, I would love for them to go with Tegra 4 instead, or at least Samsung's Exynos 5, both of which have new GPU architectures with unified shaders and support for OpenGL ES 3.0. Tegra 4 is rumored to have 64 GPU cores compared to the 12 Tegra 3 has, and it should have "Kepler DNA". If the GPU cores are at least as good as the current ones (and they should be), then we're looking at a 5x+ graphics performance increase, plus the extra features of Open GL ES 3.0 over the 4 year old OpenGL ES 2.0. Plus, it will have a quad core Cortex A15 CPU. It would be great if OUYA could start directly with these new GPU and CPU architectures, especially if they don't plan on renewing the console every year (although I think they should). Exynos 5250 would also be a great alternative that should be available as early as this fall with a dual core Cortex A15, and a new architecture GPU Mali T604, which should also be at least 3-4x faster than Tegra 3, and should also support OpenGL ES 3.0.
  - JackC 14y ago
    It's worth noting that, essentially, they committed to supply a machine with the given specs if they reached roughly 9,500 preorders. They are currently at roughly 23,000 preorders (adding up the different donation levels) in the first two days. If they end up with, say, 95,000 preorders, I imagine they might be able to swing better hardware prices than they were counting on.
asher_ 14y ago
I've ordered one, even though I only do occasional casual gaming on my phone and don't even have a TV plugged in. I'm wondering how they are able to put all this stuff in a box, with a nice controller, for their price point. It seems like it would be really hard to make money on this.
- bradfa 14y ago
  At $100 each for just the systems, I doubt they're making any money from the Kickstarter. They will make a few $100k from the higher levels, though. What they're doing is funding the initial build (fixtures, test rigs, plastics molds, etc) and build hype / excitement. I assume retail prices will be higher, probably in the $150 range, when they'll make decent margins on the hardware. Their volumes will be much higher (probably 2 orders of magnitude) than Panda / Beagle boards (Pandas sell for $182, Beagle xM for $150, both are profitable). They'll also probably offer "services" consulting with developers to help them get the most out of the SDK which will be an alternate revenue stream. No screen, no battery, no mobile phone radio, no requirement for physically small size. All allow quite lower hardware BOM costs than equivalent phones / tablets.
  - waterlesscloud 14y ago
    It's something like $90-$95 after the Kickstarter and Amazon fees come out of it, right?
  - learc83 14y ago
    Their money is going to come from the 30% they're taking from all games sold in their game store (at least that's the plan).
- TillE 14y ago
  You can get a Raspberry Pi for $25. Use better components, add a plastic case with buttons, and that's it, right? No screen and no battery saves them quite a bit.
- funkaster 14y ago
  The way I see it, they're not trying to profit from the console, but from the App ecosystem: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-video-game-console#ImAGameDeveIdLikeToTalkWithYouAbouPublMyGameOnOuyaHowDoIDoThat http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-... IMO, The kickstarter campaing is to raise enough money to produce a lot of consoles already sold (close to cost, maybe loosing a bit?), creating a big-enough mass of players so that developers can start thinking in actually creating games for the platform, and make money from that. At least, that's what I would do :)
olalonde 14y ago
It's interesting to note that Kickstarter openly admits that 20000 people ordered the console. I was under the impression that all the money going into Kickstarter projects were officially donations due to legal concerns.
- shawnc 14y ago
  My thoughts exactly. With that wording, why did Ouya need Kickstarter to do this?
  - cdmckay 14y ago
    I think the difference is, Ouya doesn't have to actually deliver a product.
  - mikeash 14y ago
    I think part of it is the escrow model. If you preorder something directly from the creator, but not enough other people preorder it to make the project worthwhile, everybody could be in a sticky situation. With Kickstarter, you don't pay until enough other people also sign up to make the venture workable. There's no doubt also some psychological stuff going on. Donating to Kickstarter in exchange for a finished product is probably much more appealing than directly preordering. In both cases you take risk, but in the former case you acknowledge it up front, and can feel good about helping the project even if they somehow fail. In the latter case, you'll just feel ripped off if they fail.
- TillE 14y ago
  You really don't want to pay tax on $1M+ in gifts.
  - olalonde 14y ago
    I am not very familiar with tax law, care to explain?
    - learc83 14y ago
physcab 14y ago
This post says just as much about Kickstarter as a platform as it does about Ouya. It looks like the time required to raise $1m for a worthy cause is quickly approaching zero now, which is simply astounding. If I were a VC, I'd think long and hard about what value proposition I can offer to entrepreneurs over just raw capital. Because in the (near) future, it doesn't look like money will be the differentiating factor.
- MattSayar 14y ago
  I don't think VCs should be worried about Kickstarter, at least in the near future. A VC can see the long-term value of a business idea, whereas Kickstarter supporters are just excited to get their hands on a shiny new toy. I think it's a lot harder to get crowds of people excited enough about your unreleased social app to raise significant capital than it is for a handful of VCs, who will then have a vested interest in your subsequent success.
  - maratd 14y ago
    > A VC can see the long-term value of a business idea > Kickstarter supporters are just excited to get their hands on a shiny new toy. Every kickstarter project I've supported is always about a product in the future. Including this one. Frequently, that shiny toy is years away. The only difference between kickstarter and a VC is that consumers are deciding if the company will eventually deliver a product they want. You just cut out the middleman. The VC.
    - Florin_Andrei 14y ago
      So, the VCs, who often are funding disruptive technologies, are now facing the new kid on the block, pretty disruptive himself. Oh, the irony.
    - randomdrake 14y ago
      >The only difference between kickstarter and a VC is that consumers are deciding if the company will eventually deliver a product they want. You just cut out the middleman. The VC. I don't know if that's necessarily true. The biggest difference is that VCs have an interest in the continued success in the company because they are looking for a return on their investment, not just the product in question.
nicpottier 14y ago
I hate to be a hater, but can we start taking odds on how big a disappointment this will be? I am just going to come out and say that the vast majority of the backers are going to be really disappointed, this is far too ambitious a project for that budget, even three times that budget. If I was Kickstarter I would actually be worrying about this type of project actually damaging the brand itself.
- shortlived 14y ago
  To paraphrase mindstab [1] from the previous Ouya post, "you just don't get it". http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4226753 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4226753
  - cube13 14y ago
    The problem with mindstab's entire point is that there already is a platform for interesting, independently published games. It's called the Personal Computer. Everyone has one, and it has several distribution platforms, lots of people working on it, and even can utilize a 100% open source stack.
    - bradfa 14y ago
      The problem with PC gaming is that it's hard to get 4 people all gaming on the same computer in the same room for under $300 investment (versus console + 4 controllers). It's easy to do this in the living room with a Wii (and will be with the OUYA). Sure, you can have a LAN party. But it's going to be a lot harder to find people to come to that than to come over and play Wii bowling. Sure, you can game online, but the you're not all in the same room hanging out. Physical presence is still a big deal in console gaming.
      - deleted 14y ago
        [deleted]
      - ryanklee 14y ago
        It's far easier to get 4 people into 4 separate rooms than it is to get them all into the same room. In other words, physically proximate group play is the exception; the rule is remote group play.
eropple 14y ago
I was one of the earlier folks to put down a pledge for this thing, because it seems like something I'd like to develop for. However, I pulled it back today because of the lack of a dev story for it. I was told by the Ouya official twitter account to just "develop on another Android device", which is a very shallow answer given the huge differences in gameplay between a touchscreen device and a gamepad device (and that gamepad-api isn't really viable yet). That suggests that they don't take the craft of game development seriously, and to me that doesn't bode well for the platform. When they have development resources that show me that they're taking developers seriously, I'll revisit it (and doing so is fairly cheap for me; I'm using the always-awesome libgdx, which has Android support already). But my initial experience has been pretty bad, and I'm questioning their competency right now to the point where I can't give them money.
- lnanek2 14y ago
  You can use an Xperia Play, which has slide out game controls, although ICS + Bluetooth controller would be a better route. Almost no games will ever be written for Ouya alone anyway, they'll just be written for Android in general and if Ouya is lucky have a few small tweaks for them like hiding the on screen controls. I've seen games ported from gaming handhelds to Android and the porting company didn't even add support for the D-Pad buttons on some Android devices. Just tossed in on screen touch controls and that is it. Game developers just won't, in general, put much time at all in customizing the game for a specific Android device.
  - eropple 14y ago
    Without further information about their controller (and the rest of their environment, really), I'm hesitant to just jump right in. And, sure, most developers won't put time in to customize a game for a specific platform, but I'd personally be ashamed if I didn't make it good on every platform I say I support. If it isn't done well, I'd rather not do it, know what I mean? I'm not even sold about supporting the Nexus 7 I've got, because I don't know yet whether I can make it awesome enough. Trash-flood games ruined XBLIG and make finding worthwhile games on the iOS App Store and Google Play way harder than it should be. I won't contribute to the pile of crap.
danso 14y ago
> With all our technological advancements, shouldn't costs be going down? Gaming could be cheaper! Costs are going down. Does anyone remember plunking down $50 to $60 for an 8-bit NES game in 1980s dollars? You don't pay much more than $60 (in highly inflated dollars) for any game today, and yet you get so much more technological advancement for your buck. Whether you get more value is up for debate, of course.
JL2010 14y ago
Is it mentioned anywhere that the actual planned pricing (after the product releases) will be $99? The "$99 Android console!" headlines are great for publicity, but I wouldn't be surprised if the actual product (if it ever goes on sale) might be in the neighborhood of $250-$300 while the pledgers are the only ones that will actually get a $99 console "sold" as a loss for the sake of generating interest.
- learc83 14y ago
  They've moved up to 80k consoles available at $99, so either they have serious funding to cover the loss or they are selling them at cost or with a bit of a profit. They are taking 30% from all games sold, so it is in their best interest to get as many consoles out there as possible. I would bet that the retail price is at or very near $99
jhuckestein 14y ago
Can somebody give an example of a complicated electronics Kickstarter project that has shipped successfully? I don't mean to imply anything, I always enthusiastically back these things. I'm just curious. In one year of Kickstarter pledging history I've only received two T-shirts (for well over $1000 worth of "purchases"). Some pens I ordered a year ago are on their way now ;)
- waterlesscloud 14y ago
  Could you give examples of Kickstarters you've backed that never shipped? How far behind are they? Do you believe they ever will? My little project today is researching the Million Dollar Kickstarters, seeing how they're doing. The Elevation Dock has had some production issues, seems to have some QA issues. Has a few very vocal critics. But then anything of any size does. It looks like their main mistake has been lack of communication. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hop/elevation-dock-the-best-dock-for-iphone/ http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hop/elevation-dock-the-b...
  - jhuckestein 14y ago
    Come to think of it most of them are in the last 6 months and aren't much delayed. There's Pen-Type A, Ubooly, Pebble, Remee, Blink/Steady, Hickies, Backpacks by MHM and the Bosavi Headlamp. The only one with a real delay is Pen-Type A.
- mbell 14y ago
  > Can somebody give an example of a complicated electronics Kickstarter project that has shipped successfully? I'd challenge defining this as complicated, you can more or less copy the Tegra 3 dev board and repackage it. Making sure the software (drivers, UI) are smooth will be much more challenging.
larrys 14y ago
It seems that even though kickstarter will not fund companies (only "projects") this is an example of how a company could spin off a stealth division to organize around a project to get it funded and to prove the market and pre-sell. The video done here is very professional and the whole thing just has to much shine on it. I'm wondering if projects like this will end up clouding out the original intention of kickstarter. The founder (Julie Uhrman) has nice credentials but is described as a "digital media executive": http://www.linkedin.com/in/julieuhrman http://www.linkedin.com/in/julieuhrman Added: And at least on linkedin ouya is presented as a company and it appears from here background that that is what she is building.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  You could also pitch to a VC , "We need $X million to make an awesome video with an all star cast. We will use this video to raise the remaining $Y on kickstarter"
scribblemacher 14y ago
Ouya = Indrema 2012?
tristan_juricek 14y ago
Doesn't it seem like a group might be able to use Kickstarter to "speedup" the something like the process Github used to get to it's Series A? You know, start a generally profitable business and then work with a very knowledgable investor to take on a huge piece of pie? Just seems like a VC might even prefer a group that knows what it wants and how to get things done. They might be more ready to disrupt. And they might have a great culture with the right priorities. I wonder if we'll ever see "Pixar in reverse". A company that can deliver an entertainment product turn into some kind of revolutionary hardware product manufacturer.
- veridies 14y ago
  If a Steam console does come out, we'll get to see that for ourselves.
emehrkay 14y ago
Did this thing just shut down any interests with the Nexus Q? I would assume that it can do just about everything the Q does except the NFC stuff right
jiggy2011 14y ago
I wonder how successful this will be beyond the kickstarter. I think this will partly depend on who has been donating. How many of these are developers who want this to develop on, how many are hackers who want some nice open hardware to build something else on top of and how many are general gamers who just want a new console? It's possible that they ship the kickstarter units once they have finished development but that is more or less it and actual orders0 drop quickly to almost nothing. The incumbents have several advantages over this: They have deep wallets and are able to subsidize their consoles heavily (and already do). For example they could offer a sale price for an XboX at around the time that this is released so that the price difference becomes negligible. They have retail space, even though many would say that retail is dying. Walking past a high street shop that advertised a particular product will certainly increase the perceived legitimacy of that product in the public eyes. They can also use this hook to wrestle things like this out of the physical retail space. It's going to be hard to persuade AAA developers to develop for this, partly because it is so "hackable". If this does gain some popularity then it's likely that neighbourhood teenage geeks will do a nice business in taking these consoles, putting custom firmware on them to bypass whatever DRM and installing hundreds of torrented games on them, for some ridiculously cheap fee like $30. XboX gets around this problem by deliberately making this difficult and risky (having to do a hardware mod, risking loss of XboX Live service , voiding warranty on a device with perceived reliability issues). As an example of this a PayTV service was launched in the UK some years ago but the hardware was made very easy to hack so it was possible to make it able to subscribe to all premium channels without paying for them. They eventually went out of business because the majority of their customers had hacked boxes. All the titles they are gunning for appear to be indie titles, the problem is that most successful Indie titles will end up on Xbox etc anyway since MS , Sony etc are enabling digital distribution. Unless this can get a massive install base it's likely that Indie devs will only target it as a secondary platform and will concentrate on XboX etc first. It's difficult to think of a way to sell this device on it's merits to an "average consumer" beyond being slightly cheaper than an XBox (but not cheaper than a second hand one). The only pitch I can think of would be "you can run pirate games on this". Piracy is also a big part of the reason that the PC was such a successful games platform, I remember the arguments at school between console and PC gamers and one frequently trotted out in favour of the PC was "the hardware costs more , but the games are free because we just copy the disks".
akmiller 14y ago
Maybe I'm missing something, but wouldn't it be possible for Google to take the Q, add more of the Android experience including the full Google Marketplace, create a nice bluetooth controller for it, and completely squash this thing? They'd probably need to come down in price about 100 bucks, but I bet that's doable.
Aloisius 14y ago
Am I the only one who doesn't own a TV anymore? It isn't because I'm pretentious or don't believe in TV, it is just that when my television broke, I realized my laptop had replaced it for almost everything already. I can easily imagine a day when other people won't own one either for the same reason. The idea of buying a television just to play games strikes me as... expensive. That said, I do know of someone who bought a TV just for her xbox.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  A TV now is more like a large monitor to hook other things upto, whereas in the past the TV set itself was responsible for decoding the broadcast stream etc. A TV still has it's advantages however, they are cheap for their size because the resolution can remain relatively low (imagine how much a 42" retina display would cost). There's also a big social aspect that a laptop does not address, you wouldn't want to bring your friends round for a movie or a friendly game of wii sports and all crowd around a laptop would you?
  - obtu 14y ago
    A TV is actually worse than a monitor for most purposes, especially if you want their output to match a video signal: http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/8705.html http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/8705.html
- veridies 14y ago
  I own a 32" TV 720p that I bought for only about $230. It's nice to be able to recline on a couch and watch shows with a larger screen. I watch everything from a computer running XBMC, though.
nhangen 14y ago
Look at how long it took them to actually talk about the product...wow! Kickstarter has an amazing ability to talk about themselves as if they create everything that sells there. I pledged the $99 level on this one, with limited expectations. I hope they deliver.
waterlesscloud 14y ago
I note some enterprising soul added "ouya" to their KS description today so they show up in searches for the word. Hop on the bandwagon! http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wizardbox/fall-of-eternity http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wizardbox/fall-of-eterni...
dsirijus 14y ago
I don't really see how their hardware is at all better than the modern smartphone. Any manufacturer targeted at the same user base and a phone device designed to support its gaming needs to boot will beat this. The only way they can spin this is by creating a gaming community around it which, admittedly, is what they're trying to do. Successfully for now.
jwildeboer 14y ago
They are lacking credibility IMHO. Where's this company located? Whats its name? Who are the initial VC/Angel investors? Who is on the board? In their video they show shiny, happy developers, sitting at nice desks etc, showing prototype boards. This logically means there was a first financing round to get this far - develop hardware, rent offices, hire people. The official domain name (ouya.tv) is anonymously registered via dreamhost - again, no information on the company backing Ouya. I understand the stealth part of startups, but publicly asking for money withot any background information is a risky proposition IMHO. (I did order one though, call me crazy ;-)

215 points by sethbannon 14y ago

Oh, this is way cool. Not so much because I care about a gaming platform per-se, but because it shows that people care about hackable / open hardware, and that crowdfunding is a viable way to fund development of such hardware. Given the sentiments expressed in articles like "The Coming War on General Purpose Computing"[1] - and the debate over UEFI / Secure Boot - it's very encouraging to see this kind of thing happening. The availability of things like Raspberry Pi[2] is also encouraging on the same front. Here's to the continued development of general purpose computing hardware and open/hackable systems that anyone is free to use as they see fit! [1]: http://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html http://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raspberry_Pi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raspberry_Pi

Sayter 14y ago
I impulse purchased one because it's a $100 Android console. The "hackable / open hardware" aspect was honestly irrelevant in terms of the purchase decision, as a $100 closed hardware console by Sony (Android-based) / Apple (iOS-based) / Microsoft (WP7-based) would have received the same "shut up and take my money" response (at least in my case, and that's said as a person with a Galaxy Nexus phone). It's likely that this view is not unique, so be careful about mistaking the market as validating a "hackable open hardware $100 gaming console" and not simply a "$100 gaming console."
- bradfa 14y ago
  It's a $100 gaming console _WITH_ and SDK! I'm a huge fan of open hardware, but honestly, it doesn't matter if this thing has open hardware or not, if the SDK is available and they encourage independents to build games, that's what matters. It's like the Raspberry Pi, it's open in the sense that they tell you a little about it, I doubt you'll get schematics and data sheets on all the parts, but that's not the point. The point is the price and the SDK and the attitude of the company promoting independent developers.
  - pyoung 14y ago
    I think RPi released schematics, see link. On a side note, I bought two of em, not because I have any idea of what to do with them, but because a)open, and b)cheap. Just got my first one today! http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/1090 http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/1090
    - bradfa 14y ago
      I said I doubt you'll get schematics and data sheets on all the parts Was in reference to OUYA, not Rasp Pi. Regarding Rasp Pi, you don't get a data sheet on the SoC though, as you do for Beagles or Arduino. So, calling it "open" is a bit of a misnomer. Rasp Pi is only "open" till you want to know what all the register addresses are or similar, then you need an NDA which is rather "not open." But now I'm digressing from the point. Being open doesn't matter for OUYA, just like it doesn't matter for the Rasp Pi. Even without schematics, Rasp Pis would sell like hot cakes, it's a $30 computer for crying out loud. Same thing with the OUYA. It's a $100 game system _WITH_ and SDK. That's an unheard of price the same way $30 for a computer is.

makmanalp 14y ago

This one is screaming for a google acquisition, especially with the new google play brand. The support from indie devs is pretty nice too, since people have proven they'll pay for quality indie games with the humble indie bundle, and sony's co-op with indie devs on games like journey (http://thatgamecompany.com/games/journey/ http://thatgamecompany.com/games/journey/) is a big vote of confidence. Ultimately, what draws people to a platform are the games, so it's good to have a bunch of proven games already, and more coming. Now, all it needs is a few killer exclusives.

msie 14y ago
I would be afraid of Google or any other big company acquiring it since it would result in locking down of the system to satisfy the lawyers. I remember when certain Little Big Planet levels were not allowed to be distributed because they contained copyrighted materials: http://www.1up.com/news/big-planet-levels-deleted-due http://www.1up.com/news/big-planet-levels-deleted-due I want the freedom to load any content from anywhere I want.
- adgar 14y ago
  > I want the freedom to load any content from anywhere I want. This is completely compatible with preventing the distribution of material which infringes copyright.
  - msie 14y ago
    Please enlighten me with more detail.
- tikhonj 14y ago
  On the one hand, yes that's a potential issue. On the other, hasn't Google been very good with making sure their Android devices (e.g. Nexus *) are pretty open? That was my impression. Of course, I don't follow this super closely. Moreover, all this is relative--and relative to Apple, even Microsoft seems open. So Google has a rather large spectrum of openness where people would think them open just in comparison to Apple and Microsoft.

maxko87 14y ago

Just bought one. The technology listed makes it totally worth the money alone. Not to mention that if this thing has as many developers making (partially free) games for it as does the Android market now, it seems like this won't be outdated for quite a while.

Cushman 14y ago

I wonder if this will light a fire under Apple's ass to finally pull whatever Apple TV play they've been planning.

zdw 14y ago

I'd love to know which Tegra3 variant they're using - some of them (T33 specifically) have much higher clockspeeds and memory bandwidths: http://www.anandtech.com/show/6036/asus-transformer-pad-infinity-tf700t-review/3 http://www.anandtech.com/show/6036/asus-transformer-pad-infi... As it's a plug-in device, battery life isn't an issue. Going with the fastest memory/CPU combination would likely be quite attractive to gaming developers dealing with HD resolution screens, assuming that it would fit in the budget.

napillo 14y ago
They don't have to be stuck with a Tegra3. Arm Mali such as the T658 could offer an even better experience than the Tegra3. The beauty of Android development is that any OpenGL supporting graphics chip would work.
mtgx 14y ago
Since they are planning on launching in the first half of 2013, I would love for them to go with Tegra 4 instead, or at least Samsung's Exynos 5, both of which have new GPU architectures with unified shaders and support for OpenGL ES 3.0. Tegra 4 is rumored to have 64 GPU cores compared to the 12 Tegra 3 has, and it should have "Kepler DNA". If the GPU cores are at least as good as the current ones (and they should be), then we're looking at a 5x+ graphics performance increase, plus the extra features of Open GL ES 3.0 over the 4 year old OpenGL ES 2.0. Plus, it will have a quad core Cortex A15 CPU. It would be great if OUYA could start directly with these new GPU and CPU architectures, especially if they don't plan on renewing the console every year (although I think they should). Exynos 5250 would also be a great alternative that should be available as early as this fall with a dual core Cortex A15, and a new architecture GPU Mali T604, which should also be at least 3-4x faster than Tegra 3, and should also support OpenGL ES 3.0.
- JackC 14y ago
  It's worth noting that, essentially, they committed to supply a machine with the given specs if they reached roughly 9,500 preorders. They are currently at roughly 23,000 preorders (adding up the different donation levels) in the first two days. If they end up with, say, 95,000 preorders, I imagine they might be able to swing better hardware prices than they were counting on.

asher_ 14y ago

I've ordered one, even though I only do occasional casual gaming on my phone and don't even have a TV plugged in. I'm wondering how they are able to put all this stuff in a box, with a nice controller, for their price point. It seems like it would be really hard to make money on this.

bradfa 14y ago
At $100 each for just the systems, I doubt they're making any money from the Kickstarter. They will make a few $100k from the higher levels, though. What they're doing is funding the initial build (fixtures, test rigs, plastics molds, etc) and build hype / excitement. I assume retail prices will be higher, probably in the $150 range, when they'll make decent margins on the hardware. Their volumes will be much higher (probably 2 orders of magnitude) than Panda / Beagle boards (Pandas sell for $182, Beagle xM for $150, both are profitable). They'll also probably offer "services" consulting with developers to help them get the most out of the SDK which will be an alternate revenue stream. No screen, no battery, no mobile phone radio, no requirement for physically small size. All allow quite lower hardware BOM costs than equivalent phones / tablets.
- waterlesscloud 14y ago
  It's something like $90-$95 after the Kickstarter and Amazon fees come out of it, right?
- learc83 14y ago
  Their money is going to come from the 30% they're taking from all games sold in their game store (at least that's the plan).
TillE 14y ago
You can get a Raspberry Pi for $25. Use better components, add a plastic case with buttons, and that's it, right? No screen and no battery saves them quite a bit.
funkaster 14y ago
The way I see it, they're not trying to profit from the console, but from the App ecosystem: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-video-game-console#ImAGameDeveIdLikeToTalkWithYouAbouPublMyGameOnOuyaHowDoIDoThat http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-... IMO, The kickstarter campaing is to raise enough money to produce a lot of consoles already sold (close to cost, maybe loosing a bit?), creating a big-enough mass of players so that developers can start thinking in actually creating games for the platform, and make money from that. At least, that's what I would do :)

olalonde 14y ago

It's interesting to note that Kickstarter openly admits that 20000 people ordered the console. I was under the impression that all the money going into Kickstarter projects were officially donations due to legal concerns.

shawnc 14y ago
My thoughts exactly. With that wording, why did Ouya need Kickstarter to do this?
- cdmckay 14y ago
  I think the difference is, Ouya doesn't have to actually deliver a product.
- mikeash 14y ago
  I think part of it is the escrow model. If you preorder something directly from the creator, but not enough other people preorder it to make the project worthwhile, everybody could be in a sticky situation. With Kickstarter, you don't pay until enough other people also sign up to make the venture workable. There's no doubt also some psychological stuff going on. Donating to Kickstarter in exchange for a finished product is probably much more appealing than directly preordering. In both cases you take risk, but in the former case you acknowledge it up front, and can feel good about helping the project even if they somehow fail. In the latter case, you'll just feel ripped off if they fail.
TillE 14y ago
You really don't want to pay tax on $1M+ in gifts.
- olalonde 14y ago
  I am not very familiar with tax law, care to explain?
  - learc83 14y ago

physcab 14y ago

This post says just as much about Kickstarter as a platform as it does about Ouya. It looks like the time required to raise $1m for a worthy cause is quickly approaching zero now, which is simply astounding. If I were a VC, I'd think long and hard about what value proposition I can offer to entrepreneurs over just raw capital. Because in the (near) future, it doesn't look like money will be the differentiating factor.

MattSayar 14y ago
I don't think VCs should be worried about Kickstarter, at least in the near future. A VC can see the long-term value of a business idea, whereas Kickstarter supporters are just excited to get their hands on a shiny new toy. I think it's a lot harder to get crowds of people excited enough about your unreleased social app to raise significant capital than it is for a handful of VCs, who will then have a vested interest in your subsequent success.
- maratd 14y ago
  > A VC can see the long-term value of a business idea > Kickstarter supporters are just excited to get their hands on a shiny new toy. Every kickstarter project I've supported is always about a product in the future. Including this one. Frequently, that shiny toy is years away. The only difference between kickstarter and a VC is that consumers are deciding if the company will eventually deliver a product they want. You just cut out the middleman. The VC.
  - Florin_Andrei 14y ago
    So, the VCs, who often are funding disruptive technologies, are now facing the new kid on the block, pretty disruptive himself. Oh, the irony.
  - randomdrake 14y ago
    >The only difference between kickstarter and a VC is that consumers are deciding if the company will eventually deliver a product they want. You just cut out the middleman. The VC. I don't know if that's necessarily true. The biggest difference is that VCs have an interest in the continued success in the company because they are looking for a return on their investment, not just the product in question.

nicpottier 14y ago

I hate to be a hater, but can we start taking odds on how big a disappointment this will be? I am just going to come out and say that the vast majority of the backers are going to be really disappointed, this is far too ambitious a project for that budget, even three times that budget. If I was Kickstarter I would actually be worrying about this type of project actually damaging the brand itself.

shortlived 14y ago
To paraphrase mindstab [1] from the previous Ouya post, "you just don't get it". http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4226753 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4226753
- cube13 14y ago
  The problem with mindstab's entire point is that there already is a platform for interesting, independently published games. It's called the Personal Computer. Everyone has one, and it has several distribution platforms, lots of people working on it, and even can utilize a 100% open source stack.
  - bradfa 14y ago
    The problem with PC gaming is that it's hard to get 4 people all gaming on the same computer in the same room for under $300 investment (versus console + 4 controllers). It's easy to do this in the living room with a Wii (and will be with the OUYA). Sure, you can have a LAN party. But it's going to be a lot harder to find people to come to that than to come over and play Wii bowling. Sure, you can game online, but the you're not all in the same room hanging out. Physical presence is still a big deal in console gaming.
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
    - ryanklee 14y ago
      It's far easier to get 4 people into 4 separate rooms than it is to get them all into the same room. In other words, physically proximate group play is the exception; the rule is remote group play.

eropple 14y ago

I was one of the earlier folks to put down a pledge for this thing, because it seems like something I'd like to develop for. However, I pulled it back today because of the lack of a dev story for it. I was told by the Ouya official twitter account to just "develop on another Android device", which is a very shallow answer given the huge differences in gameplay between a touchscreen device and a gamepad device (and that gamepad-api isn't really viable yet). That suggests that they don't take the craft of game development seriously, and to me that doesn't bode well for the platform. When they have development resources that show me that they're taking developers seriously, I'll revisit it (and doing so is fairly cheap for me; I'm using the always-awesome libgdx, which has Android support already). But my initial experience has been pretty bad, and I'm questioning their competency right now to the point where I can't give them money.

lnanek2 14y ago
You can use an Xperia Play, which has slide out game controls, although ICS + Bluetooth controller would be a better route. Almost no games will ever be written for Ouya alone anyway, they'll just be written for Android in general and if Ouya is lucky have a few small tweaks for them like hiding the on screen controls. I've seen games ported from gaming handhelds to Android and the porting company didn't even add support for the D-Pad buttons on some Android devices. Just tossed in on screen touch controls and that is it. Game developers just won't, in general, put much time at all in customizing the game for a specific Android device.
- eropple 14y ago
  Without further information about their controller (and the rest of their environment, really), I'm hesitant to just jump right in. And, sure, most developers won't put time in to customize a game for a specific platform, but I'd personally be ashamed if I didn't make it good on every platform I say I support. If it isn't done well, I'd rather not do it, know what I mean? I'm not even sold about supporting the Nexus 7 I've got, because I don't know yet whether I can make it awesome enough. Trash-flood games ruined XBLIG and make finding worthwhile games on the iOS App Store and Google Play way harder than it should be. I won't contribute to the pile of crap.

danso 14y ago

> With all our technological advancements, shouldn't costs be going down? Gaming could be cheaper! Costs are going down. Does anyone remember plunking down $50 to $60 for an 8-bit NES game in 1980s dollars? You don't pay much more than $60 (in highly inflated dollars) for any game today, and yet you get so much more technological advancement for your buck. Whether you get more value is up for debate, of course.

JL2010 14y ago

Is it mentioned anywhere that the actual planned pricing (after the product releases) will be $99? The "$99 Android console!" headlines are great for publicity, but I wouldn't be surprised if the actual product (if it ever goes on sale) might be in the neighborhood of $250-$300 while the pledgers are the only ones that will actually get a $99 console "sold" as a loss for the sake of generating interest.

learc83 14y ago
They've moved up to 80k consoles available at $99, so either they have serious funding to cover the loss or they are selling them at cost or with a bit of a profit. They are taking 30% from all games sold, so it is in their best interest to get as many consoles out there as possible. I would bet that the retail price is at or very near $99

jhuckestein 14y ago

Can somebody give an example of a complicated electronics Kickstarter project that has shipped successfully? I don't mean to imply anything, I always enthusiastically back these things. I'm just curious. In one year of Kickstarter pledging history I've only received two T-shirts (for well over $1000 worth of "purchases"). Some pens I ordered a year ago are on their way now ;)

waterlesscloud 14y ago
Could you give examples of Kickstarters you've backed that never shipped? How far behind are they? Do you believe they ever will? My little project today is researching the Million Dollar Kickstarters, seeing how they're doing. The Elevation Dock has had some production issues, seems to have some QA issues. Has a few very vocal critics. But then anything of any size does. It looks like their main mistake has been lack of communication. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hop/elevation-dock-the-best-dock-for-iphone/ http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hop/elevation-dock-the-b...
- jhuckestein 14y ago
  Come to think of it most of them are in the last 6 months and aren't much delayed. There's Pen-Type A, Ubooly, Pebble, Remee, Blink/Steady, Hickies, Backpacks by MHM and the Bosavi Headlamp. The only one with a real delay is Pen-Type A.
mbell 14y ago
> Can somebody give an example of a complicated electronics Kickstarter project that has shipped successfully? I'd challenge defining this as complicated, you can more or less copy the Tegra 3 dev board and repackage it. Making sure the software (drivers, UI) are smooth will be much more challenging.

larrys 14y ago

It seems that even though kickstarter will not fund companies (only "projects") this is an example of how a company could spin off a stealth division to organize around a project to get it funded and to prove the market and pre-sell. The video done here is very professional and the whole thing just has to much shine on it. I'm wondering if projects like this will end up clouding out the original intention of kickstarter. The founder (Julie Uhrman) has nice credentials but is described as a "digital media executive": http://www.linkedin.com/in/julieuhrman http://www.linkedin.com/in/julieuhrman Added: And at least on linkedin ouya is presented as a company and it appears from here background that that is what she is building.

jiggy2011 14y ago
You could also pitch to a VC , "We need $X million to make an awesome video with an all star cast. We will use this video to raise the remaining $Y on kickstarter"

scribblemacher 14y ago

Ouya = Indrema 2012?

tristan_juricek 14y ago

Doesn't it seem like a group might be able to use Kickstarter to "speedup" the something like the process Github used to get to it's Series A? You know, start a generally profitable business and then work with a very knowledgable investor to take on a huge piece of pie? Just seems like a VC might even prefer a group that knows what it wants and how to get things done. They might be more ready to disrupt. And they might have a great culture with the right priorities. I wonder if we'll ever see "Pixar in reverse". A company that can deliver an entertainment product turn into some kind of revolutionary hardware product manufacturer.

veridies 14y ago
If a Steam console does come out, we'll get to see that for ourselves.

emehrkay 14y ago

Did this thing just shut down any interests with the Nexus Q? I would assume that it can do just about everything the Q does except the NFC stuff right

jiggy2011 14y ago

I wonder how successful this will be beyond the kickstarter. I think this will partly depend on who has been donating. How many of these are developers who want this to develop on, how many are hackers who want some nice open hardware to build something else on top of and how many are general gamers who just want a new console? It's possible that they ship the kickstarter units once they have finished development but that is more or less it and actual orders0 drop quickly to almost nothing. The incumbents have several advantages over this: They have deep wallets and are able to subsidize their consoles heavily (and already do). For example they could offer a sale price for an XboX at around the time that this is released so that the price difference becomes negligible. They have retail space, even though many would say that retail is dying. Walking past a high street shop that advertised a particular product will certainly increase the perceived legitimacy of that product in the public eyes. They can also use this hook to wrestle things like this out of the physical retail space. It's going to be hard to persuade AAA developers to develop for this, partly because it is so "hackable". If this does gain some popularity then it's likely that neighbourhood teenage geeks will do a nice business in taking these consoles, putting custom firmware on them to bypass whatever DRM and installing hundreds of torrented games on them, for some ridiculously cheap fee like $30. XboX gets around this problem by deliberately making this difficult and risky (having to do a hardware mod, risking loss of XboX Live service , voiding warranty on a device with perceived reliability issues). As an example of this a PayTV service was launched in the UK some years ago but the hardware was made very easy to hack so it was possible to make it able to subscribe to all premium channels without paying for them. They eventually went out of business because the majority of their customers had hacked boxes. All the titles they are gunning for appear to be indie titles, the problem is that most successful Indie titles will end up on Xbox etc anyway since MS , Sony etc are enabling digital distribution. Unless this can get a massive install base it's likely that Indie devs will only target it as a secondary platform and will concentrate on XboX etc first. It's difficult to think of a way to sell this device on it's merits to an "average consumer" beyond being slightly cheaper than an XBox (but not cheaper than a second hand one). The only pitch I can think of would be "you can run pirate games on this". Piracy is also a big part of the reason that the PC was such a successful games platform, I remember the arguments at school between console and PC gamers and one frequently trotted out in favour of the PC was "the hardware costs more , but the games are free because we just copy the disks".

akmiller 14y ago

Maybe I'm missing something, but wouldn't it be possible for Google to take the Q, add more of the Android experience including the full Google Marketplace, create a nice bluetooth controller for it, and completely squash this thing? They'd probably need to come down in price about 100 bucks, but I bet that's doable.

Aloisius 14y ago

Am I the only one who doesn't own a TV anymore? It isn't because I'm pretentious or don't believe in TV, it is just that when my television broke, I realized my laptop had replaced it for almost everything already. I can easily imagine a day when other people won't own one either for the same reason. The idea of buying a television just to play games strikes me as... expensive. That said, I do know of someone who bought a TV just for her xbox.

jiggy2011 14y ago
A TV now is more like a large monitor to hook other things upto, whereas in the past the TV set itself was responsible for decoding the broadcast stream etc. A TV still has it's advantages however, they are cheap for their size because the resolution can remain relatively low (imagine how much a 42" retina display would cost). There's also a big social aspect that a laptop does not address, you wouldn't want to bring your friends round for a movie or a friendly game of wii sports and all crowd around a laptop would you?
- obtu 14y ago
  A TV is actually worse than a monitor for most purposes, especially if you want their output to match a video signal: http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/8705.html http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/8705.html
veridies 14y ago
I own a 32" TV 720p that I bought for only about $230. It's nice to be able to recline on a couch and watch shows with a larger screen. I watch everything from a computer running XBMC, though.

nhangen 14y ago

Look at how long it took them to actually talk about the product...wow! Kickstarter has an amazing ability to talk about themselves as if they create everything that sells there. I pledged the $99 level on this one, with limited expectations. I hope they deliver.

waterlesscloud 14y ago

I note some enterprising soul added "ouya" to their KS description today so they show up in searches for the word. Hop on the bandwagon! http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wizardbox/fall-of-eternity http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wizardbox/fall-of-eterni...

dsirijus 14y ago

I don't really see how their hardware is at all better than the modern smartphone. Any manufacturer targeted at the same user base and a phone device designed to support its gaming needs to boot will beat this. The only way they can spin this is by creating a gaming community around it which, admittedly, is what they're trying to do. Successfully for now.

jwildeboer 14y ago

They are lacking credibility IMHO. Where's this company located? Whats its name? Who are the initial VC/Angel investors? Who is on the board? In their video they show shiny, happy developers, sitting at nice desks etc, showing prototype boards. This logically means there was a first financing round to get this far - develop hardware, rent offices, hire people. The official domain name (ouya.tv) is anonymously registered via dreamhost - again, no information on the company backing Ouya. I understand the stealth part of startups, but publicly asking for money withot any background information is a risky proposition IMHO. (I did order one though, call me crazy ;-)