10 ms·

The reality of the Ouya console doesn’t match the hype

65 points by reidmain 14y ago

ChuckMcM 14y ago
That has to be the clearest analysis yet for the prospects of the Ouya.
- heretohelp 14y ago
  Oh but that can't possibly be, surely all the people who are actual gamers decrying how silly all this hype is have to be haters!
  - smackfu 14y ago
    What a nice wet blanket you have.
- duked 14y ago
  or bitterness over their own kickstarter that did not attract enough people ...
bluetidepro 14y ago
Welp, I officially wish this article came out before I pledged on Kickstarter for an OUYA system. I guess we (people who have pledged) can just hope with over $4,000,000 from Kickstarter, they can make some of the systems "dreams" come true! Haha
- evan_ 14y ago
  You can revoke a pledge. Go to "Manage Pledge" on the Kickstarter page, and scroll all the way to the end. There's a link, "Cancel Pledge".
  - bluetidepro 14y ago
    Oh, awesome, great to know! Thanks for the FYI!
ben1040 14y ago
Don't most high-end Android phones these days allow you to connect to a TV via MHL adapter? It seems like they would be better served (i.e., able to actually deliver a product at the price point they're pushing) by building a really awesome controller to play games on the phone you already own, and making an SDK to extend games to take advantage of it.
- coffeeaddicted 14y ago
  Have you ever seen anyone gather around a mobile phone connected to a TV for playing? The first step preventing that already is that people don't want to connect/disconnect hardware constantly. I acknowledge some points in the article. It will probably be hard/impossible to make a living making games for this console alone. And I was also already wondering if they have any chance finishing the software in time when they are only starting now. But if they manage to release it in time for that price I wouldn't care much - for 99$ a console that's rootable - that alone sounds good enough for buying to me. Also I think his worries about porting the input of games for a controller are overblown, that's not exactly the hardest part when writing a game.
  - jiggy2011 14y ago
    It depends on the game, but controls are a huge part of the game experience and many types of games are just fundamentally horrible to play on a particular set of controls. Bad controls will simply ruin a game. I remember the pain of playing Mortal Kombat on a keyboard for example, also bear in mind how long it took for consoles to make FPS games tolerable on a controller. This is worse than that, you might have some luck in porting a touchscreen game over to mouse control or vice versa, but touch control to gamepad? How on earth would one play "cut the rope" on a controller? I agree though that it might well be worth the $99 just for use as a media box and to play old arcade ROMs on but the question is whether that is a viable business model for them?
- mtgx 14y ago
  If it can do TV stuff, then it will be an overall better solution, and you won't have to deal with the hassle of connecting the cable to your TV and also a controller to the phone.
antidaily 14y ago
Ouya ships March 2013... which will probably be 3 months after Apple and Google have gaming stores for your TV.
drone 14y ago
I find Ouya a lot less questionable as a Kickstarter project than PA using it as a fundraising platform for operating expenses, which no other company could get away with as far as I can tell.
- aeurielesn 14y ago
  I couldn't have put this better into words than you. I think they are convinced they deserve equal treatment to Wikipedia, since they are planning to do this on a yearly basis. Disappointing.
  - drone 14y ago
    I really don't understand why they chose kickstarter, when they could've just put up a paypal donate option. Well, except perhaps that anything remotely cool on kickstarter gets written up everywhere. I'd like to add one more thing as well, but don't want to go back and edit: I find that Ouya, by having a -functional- hardware prototype that serves most of the core features it will promise as a piece of hardware, is already well advanced beyond the state of most kickstarter projects. The most frustrating thing for me about kickstarter is how many projects are -conceptual- at the kickstarter phase. I refuse to give someone money because they're unwilling to take the risk to build the first version of something with their own sweat, blood, and tears before begging for cash. Why should I pay you just because you have an idea? Show me that you can fully implement it. Better yet, show me that you're done and you just need to raise the cash to make it happen. There seems to be something in the start-up world these days that just having the idea and the merest inkling of how to achieve it should be all that it takes to get people to throw money at you.
    - nitrogen 14y ago
      If you build it first, there is a risk that Kickstarter will reject your application as seeking funding for business operations, rather than funding for a specific project.
modeless 14y ago
Ouya is going to kill the Kickstarter brand. These guys have no clue how to manufacture any hardware and are seriously underestimating the difficulty of turning a prototype into an assembly line. There will be many delays and broken promises on the way to a very late and very disappointing final product, and the whole well-publicized ordeal is going to poison Kickstarter in people's minds.
- clamps123 14y ago
  sounds like you're talking out of your ass to me
- pbreit 14y ago
  Do you have any evidence to support your claims?
  - MrMember 14y ago
    There are past projects that might make a person wary of an unproven company trying to produce a console. There's the Phantom, which is fairly infamous. And the Open Pandora guys still haven't manufactured enough consoles to even fulfill preorders, several years on.
    - drone 14y ago
      Yes, but we're talking about a project being designed by one of the more famous industrial designers in the world, who also works for other hardware manufacturers (Jawbone, for example), and more than likely has a very deep network of hardware manufacturing contacts to draw upon. Just because some projects failed doesn't mean every related project will fail - unless the assumption here is that the only companies capable of bringing a console of any sort to market are MS, Sony, and Nintendo these days.
      - MrMember 14y ago
        Yes, but it doesn't hurt to be skeptical. Everyone who pledges should know they're paying for a product that doesn't exist yet and currently has no confirmed games. The project description does everything it can to gloss that over, and even outright lies in some places (like with the Minecraft thing).
ahelwer 14y ago
It's tough to strike a balance between cheerleading and naysaying here. I've seen the word "scam" thrown around, as well as Roosevelt's bit about the man in the arena. Since Ouya is asking for your money, just take this as due diligence before pledging (or not). The gaming community really likes jumping on hate bandwagons. I don't think it's productive to drive this brand into the ground before it has its chance.
- stcredzero 14y ago
  The gaming community really likes jumping on hate bandwagons. Big swaths of the tech world are like this as well. As a programmer of over 3 decades, I'm wondering if there's something about computer related tech fields that tends to promote unkind, amoral, and short-sighted outlooks on the world. Alternatively, there could be an attraction for the segment of the populace with unkind, amoral, and short-sighted outlooks on the world. Not everyone in tech is like that, of course, or I'd leave. (This is not to say the PA guys are like that.)
  - trotsky 14y ago
    we didn't invent the word vaporware without real lessons having been learned
  - shashashasha 14y ago
    I wouldn't jump to say "unkind" and "amoral" but computer related tech fields do attract very analytical thinkers, who are often more critical than less analytical types.
    - stcredzero 14y ago
      Some of those analytical lack enough humility to avoid the appearance of thinking themselves infallible. Then there is a segment of those in tech who think that whatever they can get away with, they should get away with.
  - vipervpn 14y ago
    I'm wondering if there's something about computer related tech fields that tends to promote unkind, amoral, and short-sighted outlooks on the world. Don't forget drama.
deleted 14y ago
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nestlequ1k 14y ago
For $99, I sort of see this as my dream emulator platform. Any indie games that I can get on top of that seems like icing on the cake.
pbreit 14y ago
This article is completely stupid. The whole point of Kickstarter is to sell a dream. 9 months (not 8) is plenty of time to get the pieces in place. And you know what? It'll probably slip a few months. Big deal. The entire article is chock full of FUD. Why not give the company a few weeks or months to make some visible progress before trying to squash the enthusiasm. Donators are only in for $99 so it's not like anyone's going bankrupt over it.
- geon 14y ago
  You are glossing over the main point of the article; they don't have any games. A gaming platform is only as good as its games.
  - nhangen 14y ago
    Of course they don't have games - it isn't made yet.
    - MBCook 14y ago
      Has anyone ever released a console without at least a few games in the pipe? It never turns out well when there are very few games, but 9 months from release they don't have any games.
      - jiggy2011 14y ago
        I can't think of any successful games console that didn't launch with at least one exclusive "killer app".
  - pbreit 14y ago
    But the main point of the article is silly. Why would they have any games at this point? The Kickstarter fundraising campaign just got under way.
    - jiggy2011 14y ago
deleted 14y ago
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gaius 14y ago
I suggest the Penny Arcade guys (who, umm, write a webcomic, what do they know about anything technical?) have a read of The Future Was Here, the story of the Commodore Amiga, for a glimpse at how good engineers with a belief in their mission can go from breadboard to world-beating product almost before you can blink...
- chilgart 14y ago
  This particular article is credited to Ben Kuchera, ex-gaming editor for Ars Technica of nine or so years. While he may not be a high-profile programmer or developer, his past work is evidence that he knows quite a bit about the industry.
- jsnell 14y ago
  The author of the article is not one of the comic guys, he was the games journalist of Ars Technica for something like 10 years. Now, that's of course not a technical merit. But it does perhaps suggest some familiarity with the games industry... Perhaps you could come up with some talking points that address the misgivings presented in the article, rather than attacking the author? Possibly something a bit more substantial than just comparing this project to one done by incredibly talented engineers, and backed by the company that had already made world's best selling computer.
tuxidomasx 14y ago
I was mostly concerned about the controller and how hard it is to get right. Why not just build it with compatibility with other console controllers, including the older 8 and 16 bit systems? This way they dont have to worry about the tricky (and costly) business of designing a controller from scratch-- its very easy to get it wrong, and I'd think video gamers are most comfortable with controllers they are used to.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  You really need to have a standard controller for a console so that developers know what the hell they are developing for. If I design a game that relies on an analogue trigger and 6 buttons how do I deal with someone plugging a PS2 controller in, or a NES controller?
charleso 14y ago
Reminds me of The Phantom video game console from around a decade ago. That one also promised the universe, with PA declaring their skepticism back in 2003: http://penny-arcade.com/2003/01/22 http://penny-arcade.com/2003/01/22 http://www.penny-arcade.com/2003/08/20/ http://www.penny-arcade.com/2003/08/20/ (the links to the product no longer reference that device -- it never appeared) There's nothing wrong with civilly expressing skepticism about overly-ambitious claims. This article seems to do a good job of doing just that.
chaostheory 14y ago
As I've already mentioned in another thread, OUYA isn't made to replace the Xboxes, Wiis, and PS's of the world. OUYA is not for the mainstream masses. OUYA is a cool and cheap experiment for hackers and developers who like gaming akin to the venerable GP32 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GP32 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GP32
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  In that case they better make sure they are turning a profit on the hardware.
nhangen 14y ago
I'm really surprised by the amount of criticism this project is getting, especially compared to the dozens of other Kickstarter 'hits' that I felt were more deserving of said critique. The real question to me is this - can this team pull it off? If yes, then I don't care about the state of the project, only that the team is invested in it. If the team cannot, then yes, that's a real problem. However, I don't see anyone talking about the team at all.
- guelo 14y ago
  If you read the article you will see several critiques of the team.
- reidmain 14y ago
  My biggest critique with this KickStarter is they are promising hardware in eight months where only a single prototype exists currently. Like the article says, these guys are not Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, etc so I don't have very much faith in them actually hitting their target date. I could easily see this shipping on time but with tons of bugs in the hardware or shipping 10 months late because they didn't realize how complicated it was. Even the Elevation Dock KickStarter, which was the first KickStarer golden goose, has had serious delays and they are building a simple iPhone dock.
  - nhangen 14y ago
    Sure, but that's becoming par for the course. You could easily blame the backers as much as you could the creators. I've backed many projects that were much simpler and still had huge delays...Pogo's Tibet remix as an example.
pyoung 14y ago
What it really comes down to, is if you think (or hope) that Ouya will succeed, then give them some money on Kickstarter if you can afford it. If you do not want Ouya to succeed then don't. If you aren't sure, then wait until it hits production. In the mean time, get back to work on your own projects and stop worrying so much about what other people are doing.
- dalacv 14y ago
  best comment on here
programminggeek 14y ago
There is one thing the Ouya has that no other niche console/handheld has ever had... an existing base of software already written and ready to run on it. Seriously, if you are an android dev you'll need to retool your controls, not port the entire game from one language/platform to anther. That is one of the easier problems to solve as far as making this product a hit. Really, I wouldn't be surprised if at some point Gamestop buys the Ouya so that they can get in on the digital revenue before their whole business model shuts down. Why do you think Amazon has their own android app store? Software sales are obviously going, going, gone digital, so Best Buy, Amazon, Gamestop are going to have to become digital stores to sell software/games or they become irrelevant like record stores did a decade ago. It might be too late, but don't be surprised if BestBuy/Gamestop buy or build something just like the Ouya.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  Are you suggesting that the porting is the difficult part, or redesigning the controls is the difficult part. If the former I will refer you to my previous post: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4231971 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4231971
  - vshade 14y ago
    There are a lot of games that would be better played using an actual joystick, heck, lots of them have virtual joysticks or virtual buttons. There are very few games that were really designed based on touch controls.
    - jiggy2011 14y ago
      Not sure that is the case, pretty much every game I have installed on my android phone is designed specifically for touch controls, some of them would work OK on a mouse. Very few would be playable on a controller. Regards joysticks, the only games that I can think of that would be better on a joystick would be flight simulators which probably partly explains the lack of "serious" flight sims available on consoles.
jiggy2011 14y ago
This article basically hits the nail on the head. Saying that you could just develop for Windows (or even desktop Linux will have a bigger install base) if you desire openness is a very valid point, but there is one caveat. This thing ships with a controller, people who are used to playing action type console games prefer to use a controller for pretty much every game type including FPS. Sure you can plug a joypad into a PC but in my experience this is a shockingly rare thing to find people doing "in the wild". I have a feeling us on HN are sceptical of this device precisely because we want it to succeed in principle but have been burned so many times in the past by "magic open tech" that fails to live upto our expectations. They might be able to flog some units in the emerging markets, but they better make sure they are making a profit on the hardware because 99% of those customers are not going to be buying legit games from your app store.
- gfosco 14y ago
  Rare as it may be, one of the best things I ever bought was the Microsoft adapter to use wireless XBOX360 controllers on my PC. I thought the OUYA was a great idea after seeing the Kickstarter video, but I'm glad there are enough skeptics around to mention that pesky reality.
  - jiggy2011 14y ago
    I have done the same, though for some strange reason my Xbox360 pad (an official one as far as I can tell) actually has a standard USB on the end and requires an adapter to plug into a 360. The great thing is that pretty much every game on steam supports it and even recognises it as a 360 Pad so game tutorials will display the correct labels and colours for buttons. Works great under Linux too. What surprises me though is the number of people to whom this ability is surprising "You're playing a PC game with a joypad? What? how?" It's also surprising that even gaming specialist manufacturers like alienware don't offer joypads as an option when building a system.
radley 14y ago
I know it's very possible for it to be made because $99 Android TV devices already exist including the new Google TVs and the tiny Android Mini PC. (I'm also a huge proponent of Android becoming the OS for everything: device, desktop, TV, cars, & appliances.) Ouya is the 2nd $99 Android "TV device" I've seen pop up on Kickstarter. The first project was essentially a Mini PC re-branded for Americans (so I passed on it). Ouya has two hurdles: 1) repackaging it in a new container and tossing in a controller all for the same price. Possible? Sure. 2) Android is such a fast moving platform that their device could be outdated/outclassed by the time they finish shipping. If Google had a clue, they'd repackage the Google TV as a gaming station before Xmas.
jiggy2011 14y ago
There is of course an alternative explanation for all of this which is that they don't give a shit about this being a "success" in any commercial or "market share" sense and simply wanted to hack together a cool piece of hardware that they wanted themselves and thought they could make that a reality if enough likeminded people wanted it too. That could explain why they asked for $1M on kickstarter rather than taking a chunk of investment the usual way.
seclorum 14y ago
I don't get why Ouya is such a hot story right now, but Open Pandora is not? http://openpandora.org/ http://openpandora.org/ The Pandora can do all of the things Ouya dreams about (already has done it), has a working software eco-system, has an app-store in place, and heck .. the Pandora even has its own development tools onboard. All you need to develop for Pandora is available: on the Pandora. So I think this Ouya thing is one thing altogether (Hype circle), but the Pandora .. its not getting the love it deserves. Honestly, I couldn't be more excited for a next-generation gaming platform architecture than I am for the Pandora ..
- chucknelson 14y ago
  That thing is atrocious. I don't mind this whole "open" movement, but that hardware is just not desirable. Is it a joke of some sort? The linux screenshot is just...weird.
  - seclorum 14y ago
    Its a lot lovelier once you've got it in your hands and realize its actually very, very comfortable to hold for hours on end - unlike iPads/iPhones/most other mobile devices.

65 points by reidmain 14y ago

ChuckMcM 14y ago

That has to be the clearest analysis yet for the prospects of the Ouya.

heretohelp 14y ago
Oh but that can't possibly be, surely all the people who are actual gamers decrying how silly all this hype is have to be haters!
- smackfu 14y ago
  What a nice wet blanket you have.
duked 14y ago
or bitterness over their own kickstarter that did not attract enough people ...

bluetidepro 14y ago

Welp, I officially wish this article came out before I pledged on Kickstarter for an OUYA system. I guess we (people who have pledged) can just hope with over $4,000,000 from Kickstarter, they can make some of the systems "dreams" come true! Haha

evan_ 14y ago
You can revoke a pledge. Go to "Manage Pledge" on the Kickstarter page, and scroll all the way to the end. There's a link, "Cancel Pledge".
- bluetidepro 14y ago
  Oh, awesome, great to know! Thanks for the FYI!

ben1040 14y ago

Don't most high-end Android phones these days allow you to connect to a TV via MHL adapter? It seems like they would be better served (i.e., able to actually deliver a product at the price point they're pushing) by building a really awesome controller to play games on the phone you already own, and making an SDK to extend games to take advantage of it.

coffeeaddicted 14y ago
Have you ever seen anyone gather around a mobile phone connected to a TV for playing? The first step preventing that already is that people don't want to connect/disconnect hardware constantly. I acknowledge some points in the article. It will probably be hard/impossible to make a living making games for this console alone. And I was also already wondering if they have any chance finishing the software in time when they are only starting now. But if they manage to release it in time for that price I wouldn't care much - for 99$ a console that's rootable - that alone sounds good enough for buying to me. Also I think his worries about porting the input of games for a controller are overblown, that's not exactly the hardest part when writing a game.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  It depends on the game, but controls are a huge part of the game experience and many types of games are just fundamentally horrible to play on a particular set of controls. Bad controls will simply ruin a game. I remember the pain of playing Mortal Kombat on a keyboard for example, also bear in mind how long it took for consoles to make FPS games tolerable on a controller. This is worse than that, you might have some luck in porting a touchscreen game over to mouse control or vice versa, but touch control to gamepad? How on earth would one play "cut the rope" on a controller? I agree though that it might well be worth the $99 just for use as a media box and to play old arcade ROMs on but the question is whether that is a viable business model for them?
mtgx 14y ago
If it can do TV stuff, then it will be an overall better solution, and you won't have to deal with the hassle of connecting the cable to your TV and also a controller to the phone.

antidaily 14y ago

Ouya ships March 2013... which will probably be 3 months after Apple and Google have gaming stores for your TV.

drone 14y ago

I find Ouya a lot less questionable as a Kickstarter project than PA using it as a fundraising platform for operating expenses, which no other company could get away with as far as I can tell.

aeurielesn 14y ago
I couldn't have put this better into words than you. I think they are convinced they deserve equal treatment to Wikipedia, since they are planning to do this on a yearly basis. Disappointing.
- drone 14y ago
  I really don't understand why they chose kickstarter, when they could've just put up a paypal donate option. Well, except perhaps that anything remotely cool on kickstarter gets written up everywhere. I'd like to add one more thing as well, but don't want to go back and edit: I find that Ouya, by having a -functional- hardware prototype that serves most of the core features it will promise as a piece of hardware, is already well advanced beyond the state of most kickstarter projects. The most frustrating thing for me about kickstarter is how many projects are -conceptual- at the kickstarter phase. I refuse to give someone money because they're unwilling to take the risk to build the first version of something with their own sweat, blood, and tears before begging for cash. Why should I pay you just because you have an idea? Show me that you can fully implement it. Better yet, show me that you're done and you just need to raise the cash to make it happen. There seems to be something in the start-up world these days that just having the idea and the merest inkling of how to achieve it should be all that it takes to get people to throw money at you.
  - nitrogen 14y ago
    If you build it first, there is a risk that Kickstarter will reject your application as seeking funding for business operations, rather than funding for a specific project.

modeless 14y ago

Ouya is going to kill the Kickstarter brand. These guys have no clue how to manufacture any hardware and are seriously underestimating the difficulty of turning a prototype into an assembly line. There will be many delays and broken promises on the way to a very late and very disappointing final product, and the whole well-publicized ordeal is going to poison Kickstarter in people's minds.

clamps123 14y ago
sounds like you're talking out of your ass to me
pbreit 14y ago
Do you have any evidence to support your claims?
- MrMember 14y ago
  There are past projects that might make a person wary of an unproven company trying to produce a console. There's the Phantom, which is fairly infamous. And the Open Pandora guys still haven't manufactured enough consoles to even fulfill preorders, several years on.
  - drone 14y ago
    Yes, but we're talking about a project being designed by one of the more famous industrial designers in the world, who also works for other hardware manufacturers (Jawbone, for example), and more than likely has a very deep network of hardware manufacturing contacts to draw upon. Just because some projects failed doesn't mean every related project will fail - unless the assumption here is that the only companies capable of bringing a console of any sort to market are MS, Sony, and Nintendo these days.
    - MrMember 14y ago
      Yes, but it doesn't hurt to be skeptical. Everyone who pledges should know they're paying for a product that doesn't exist yet and currently has no confirmed games. The project description does everything it can to gloss that over, and even outright lies in some places (like with the Minecraft thing).

ahelwer 14y ago

It's tough to strike a balance between cheerleading and naysaying here. I've seen the word "scam" thrown around, as well as Roosevelt's bit about the man in the arena. Since Ouya is asking for your money, just take this as due diligence before pledging (or not). The gaming community really likes jumping on hate bandwagons. I don't think it's productive to drive this brand into the ground before it has its chance.

stcredzero 14y ago
The gaming community really likes jumping on hate bandwagons. Big swaths of the tech world are like this as well. As a programmer of over 3 decades, I'm wondering if there's something about computer related tech fields that tends to promote unkind, amoral, and short-sighted outlooks on the world. Alternatively, there could be an attraction for the segment of the populace with unkind, amoral, and short-sighted outlooks on the world. Not everyone in tech is like that, of course, or I'd leave. (This is not to say the PA guys are like that.)
- trotsky 14y ago
  we didn't invent the word vaporware without real lessons having been learned
- shashashasha 14y ago
  I wouldn't jump to say "unkind" and "amoral" but computer related tech fields do attract very analytical thinkers, who are often more critical than less analytical types.
  - stcredzero 14y ago
    Some of those analytical lack enough humility to avoid the appearance of thinking themselves infallible. Then there is a segment of those in tech who think that whatever they can get away with, they should get away with.
- vipervpn 14y ago
  I'm wondering if there's something about computer related tech fields that tends to promote unkind, amoral, and short-sighted outlooks on the world. Don't forget drama.

deleted 14y ago

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nestlequ1k 14y ago

For $99, I sort of see this as my dream emulator platform. Any indie games that I can get on top of that seems like icing on the cake.

pbreit 14y ago

This article is completely stupid. The whole point of Kickstarter is to sell a dream. 9 months (not 8) is plenty of time to get the pieces in place. And you know what? It'll probably slip a few months. Big deal. The entire article is chock full of FUD. Why not give the company a few weeks or months to make some visible progress before trying to squash the enthusiasm. Donators are only in for $99 so it's not like anyone's going bankrupt over it.

geon 14y ago
You are glossing over the main point of the article; they don't have any games. A gaming platform is only as good as its games.
- nhangen 14y ago
  Of course they don't have games - it isn't made yet.
  - MBCook 14y ago
    Has anyone ever released a console without at least a few games in the pipe? It never turns out well when there are very few games, but 9 months from release they don't have any games.
    - jiggy2011 14y ago
      I can't think of any successful games console that didn't launch with at least one exclusive "killer app".
- pbreit 14y ago
  But the main point of the article is silly. Why would they have any games at this point? The Kickstarter fundraising campaign just got under way.
  - jiggy2011 14y ago

deleted 14y ago

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gaius 14y ago

I suggest the Penny Arcade guys (who, umm, write a webcomic, what do they know about anything technical?) have a read of The Future Was Here, the story of the Commodore Amiga, for a glimpse at how good engineers with a belief in their mission can go from breadboard to world-beating product almost before you can blink...

chilgart 14y ago
This particular article is credited to Ben Kuchera, ex-gaming editor for Ars Technica of nine or so years. While he may not be a high-profile programmer or developer, his past work is evidence that he knows quite a bit about the industry.
jsnell 14y ago
The author of the article is not one of the comic guys, he was the games journalist of Ars Technica for something like 10 years. Now, that's of course not a technical merit. But it does perhaps suggest some familiarity with the games industry... Perhaps you could come up with some talking points that address the misgivings presented in the article, rather than attacking the author? Possibly something a bit more substantial than just comparing this project to one done by incredibly talented engineers, and backed by the company that had already made world's best selling computer.

tuxidomasx 14y ago

I was mostly concerned about the controller and how hard it is to get right. Why not just build it with compatibility with other console controllers, including the older 8 and 16 bit systems? This way they dont have to worry about the tricky (and costly) business of designing a controller from scratch-- its very easy to get it wrong, and I'd think video gamers are most comfortable with controllers they are used to.

jiggy2011 14y ago
You really need to have a standard controller for a console so that developers know what the hell they are developing for. If I design a game that relies on an analogue trigger and 6 buttons how do I deal with someone plugging a PS2 controller in, or a NES controller?

charleso 14y ago

Reminds me of The Phantom video game console from around a decade ago. That one also promised the universe, with PA declaring their skepticism back in 2003: http://penny-arcade.com/2003/01/22 http://penny-arcade.com/2003/01/22 http://www.penny-arcade.com/2003/08/20/ http://www.penny-arcade.com/2003/08/20/ (the links to the product no longer reference that device -- it never appeared) There's nothing wrong with civilly expressing skepticism about overly-ambitious claims. This article seems to do a good job of doing just that.

chaostheory 14y ago

As I've already mentioned in another thread, OUYA isn't made to replace the Xboxes, Wiis, and PS's of the world. OUYA is not for the mainstream masses. OUYA is a cool and cheap experiment for hackers and developers who like gaming akin to the venerable GP32 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GP32 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GP32

jiggy2011 14y ago
In that case they better make sure they are turning a profit on the hardware.

nhangen 14y ago

I'm really surprised by the amount of criticism this project is getting, especially compared to the dozens of other Kickstarter 'hits' that I felt were more deserving of said critique. The real question to me is this - can this team pull it off? If yes, then I don't care about the state of the project, only that the team is invested in it. If the team cannot, then yes, that's a real problem. However, I don't see anyone talking about the team at all.

guelo 14y ago
If you read the article you will see several critiques of the team.
reidmain 14y ago
My biggest critique with this KickStarter is they are promising hardware in eight months where only a single prototype exists currently. Like the article says, these guys are not Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, etc so I don't have very much faith in them actually hitting their target date. I could easily see this shipping on time but with tons of bugs in the hardware or shipping 10 months late because they didn't realize how complicated it was. Even the Elevation Dock KickStarter, which was the first KickStarer golden goose, has had serious delays and they are building a simple iPhone dock.
- nhangen 14y ago
  Sure, but that's becoming par for the course. You could easily blame the backers as much as you could the creators. I've backed many projects that were much simpler and still had huge delays...Pogo's Tibet remix as an example.

pyoung 14y ago

What it really comes down to, is if you think (or hope) that Ouya will succeed, then give them some money on Kickstarter if you can afford it. If you do not want Ouya to succeed then don't. If you aren't sure, then wait until it hits production. In the mean time, get back to work on your own projects and stop worrying so much about what other people are doing.

dalacv 14y ago
best comment on here

programminggeek 14y ago

There is one thing the Ouya has that no other niche console/handheld has ever had... an existing base of software already written and ready to run on it. Seriously, if you are an android dev you'll need to retool your controls, not port the entire game from one language/platform to anther. That is one of the easier problems to solve as far as making this product a hit. Really, I wouldn't be surprised if at some point Gamestop buys the Ouya so that they can get in on the digital revenue before their whole business model shuts down. Why do you think Amazon has their own android app store? Software sales are obviously going, going, gone digital, so Best Buy, Amazon, Gamestop are going to have to become digital stores to sell software/games or they become irrelevant like record stores did a decade ago. It might be too late, but don't be surprised if BestBuy/Gamestop buy or build something just like the Ouya.

jiggy2011 14y ago
Are you suggesting that the porting is the difficult part, or redesigning the controls is the difficult part. If the former I will refer you to my previous post: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4231971 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4231971
- vshade 14y ago
  There are a lot of games that would be better played using an actual joystick, heck, lots of them have virtual joysticks or virtual buttons. There are very few games that were really designed based on touch controls.
  - jiggy2011 14y ago
    Not sure that is the case, pretty much every game I have installed on my android phone is designed specifically for touch controls, some of them would work OK on a mouse. Very few would be playable on a controller. Regards joysticks, the only games that I can think of that would be better on a joystick would be flight simulators which probably partly explains the lack of "serious" flight sims available on consoles.

jiggy2011 14y ago

This article basically hits the nail on the head. Saying that you could just develop for Windows (or even desktop Linux will have a bigger install base) if you desire openness is a very valid point, but there is one caveat. This thing ships with a controller, people who are used to playing action type console games prefer to use a controller for pretty much every game type including FPS. Sure you can plug a joypad into a PC but in my experience this is a shockingly rare thing to find people doing "in the wild". I have a feeling us on HN are sceptical of this device precisely because we want it to succeed in principle but have been burned so many times in the past by "magic open tech" that fails to live upto our expectations. They might be able to flog some units in the emerging markets, but they better make sure they are making a profit on the hardware because 99% of those customers are not going to be buying legit games from your app store.

gfosco 14y ago
Rare as it may be, one of the best things I ever bought was the Microsoft adapter to use wireless XBOX360 controllers on my PC. I thought the OUYA was a great idea after seeing the Kickstarter video, but I'm glad there are enough skeptics around to mention that pesky reality.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  I have done the same, though for some strange reason my Xbox360 pad (an official one as far as I can tell) actually has a standard USB on the end and requires an adapter to plug into a 360. The great thing is that pretty much every game on steam supports it and even recognises it as a 360 Pad so game tutorials will display the correct labels and colours for buttons. Works great under Linux too. What surprises me though is the number of people to whom this ability is surprising "You're playing a PC game with a joypad? What? how?" It's also surprising that even gaming specialist manufacturers like alienware don't offer joypads as an option when building a system.

radley 14y ago

I know it's very possible for it to be made because $99 Android TV devices already exist including the new Google TVs and the tiny Android Mini PC. (I'm also a huge proponent of Android becoming the OS for everything: device, desktop, TV, cars, & appliances.) Ouya is the 2nd $99 Android "TV device" I've seen pop up on Kickstarter. The first project was essentially a Mini PC re-branded for Americans (so I passed on it). Ouya has two hurdles: 1) repackaging it in a new container and tossing in a controller all for the same price. Possible? Sure. 2) Android is such a fast moving platform that their device could be outdated/outclassed by the time they finish shipping. If Google had a clue, they'd repackage the Google TV as a gaming station before Xmas.

jiggy2011 14y ago

There is of course an alternative explanation for all of this which is that they don't give a shit about this being a "success" in any commercial or "market share" sense and simply wanted to hack together a cool piece of hardware that they wanted themselves and thought they could make that a reality if enough likeminded people wanted it too. That could explain why they asked for $1M on kickstarter rather than taking a chunk of investment the usual way.

seclorum 14y ago

I don't get why Ouya is such a hot story right now, but Open Pandora is not? http://openpandora.org/ http://openpandora.org/ The Pandora can do all of the things Ouya dreams about (already has done it), has a working software eco-system, has an app-store in place, and heck .. the Pandora even has its own development tools onboard. All you need to develop for Pandora is available: on the Pandora. So I think this Ouya thing is one thing altogether (Hype circle), but the Pandora .. its not getting the love it deserves. Honestly, I couldn't be more excited for a next-generation gaming platform architecture than I am for the Pandora ..

chucknelson 14y ago
That thing is atrocious. I don't mind this whole "open" movement, but that hardware is just not desirable. Is it a joke of some sort? The linux screenshot is just...weird.
- seclorum 14y ago
  Its a lot lovelier once you've got it in your hands and realize its actually very, very comfortable to hold for hours on end - unlike iPads/iPhones/most other mobile devices.