6 ms·

Google Indefinitely Delays the Nexus Q After Poor Reviews

84 points by chaosmachine 14y ago

w1ntermute 14y ago
Google squandered the Q - it was a great marketing opportunity, what with its unique form factor. They should've used it to create a first-party Google TV (with support for using Android phones and tablets to control it, particularly the Nexus 7) and released game controllers along with it, encouraging developers to create Android console games. Then they should've made the Q the cable box for Google Fiber. That would've really made the headlines. However, while it's easy for us to sit here and take potshots at Google, we have to remember that it's a logistical nightmare bringing together disparate divisions of a massive organization like Google and getting them to coordinate their efforts so that the company as a whole can present a united front to consumers.
- TimJRobinson 14y ago
  Luckily the ouya is going to do just that, I wonder if Google will purchase them if they become profitable (or even without profits it'd be a smart acquisition for them and would give games companies more confidence in the console and building games for the Android platform in general) .
  - ljf 14y ago
    I am excited by Ouya - though the sticker for me will be whether it can play Netflix/LoveFilm/Amazon videos. The gaming and media part is exciting for me, but I really want a replacement for the Wii I am currently using. At the price they are aiming for (for future retail) and with the wide enough feature set, I'd be happy to buy two.
  - eropple 14y ago
    > Luckily the ouya is going to do just that There's very little reason for anyone to have confidence in Ouya as a platform. From the developers' apparent inability to plan (still no dev documentation, still no SDK...and they're planning to release in the next eight months!) to their pimping of a port of the Android port of a DS game as the biggest thing that's happened to the platform. (I have the Android port of FF3 on my Nexus 7. It's ugly enough there. It's going to be really ugly at 40".) I had really high hopes for this at first but this has been in meltdown mode pretty much from day one. I just hope that the hardware actually gets into users' hands, because frankly at this point I'm not even sure.
- mtgx 14y ago
  Completely agree. Either buy OUYA, and improve the product if you can, and get even more partnerships for launch day, or build something similar (also for $99 - very important!), and release it a few months later at the next Google I/O with Tegra 4. Boom - crazy buzz around it. The price is essential though. Screw everything else. Just make sure it's $99. And using a beefed up Tegra 4 (no regard for energy efficiency in a console), or some other next-gen GPU architecture with OpenGL ES 3.0 support (like Exynos 6/Mali T658), coupled with Cortex A15 CPU's, would be a huge bonus over OUYA, even if it arrives a few months later compared to OUYA. But please - please - stop buying into that theory that says early adopter products need to be more expensive or whatever makes Google release such products at prices that everyone thinks are insane. Just a few examples: Xoom - $800 Google TV - $300 Chromebook $450 Nexus Q - $300 Google still hasn't learned that they need to introduce these new products at a "sweet spot" pricing point - much like the Nexus 7 actually! But it took Amazon to teach them that, so I don't have much faith in them repeating this, especially after seeing the Nexus Q pricing. Google's problem regarding pricing is also that they keep putting components that are too expensive in those products, without receiving an equivalent value from it. The Xoom was this expensive because of the 3g/4G chips and high MP cameras. The Chromebooks and Google TV were this expensive because of Intel's Atom chips. Nexus Q was too expensive because it had an amplifier (did anyone actually care about that?), and because it was "built in US". They need to stop making these kind of mistakes once and for all, if they want to be successful selling hardware. Apple puts only the essential components in their products that 80% of the people would use, and make sure they are high quality. For example, the original iPad had a high-quality display, but had no cameras, and not even a GPS. This kind of thinking made the iPad cost "only" $500 at the time, when people thought it would be significantly more - maybe not $1000, but perhaps more expensive than an unlocked iPhone, thanks to the expected bigger screen, bigger battery, etc. Google needs to learn to do that as well.
  - tvon 14y ago
    > Either buy OUYA (...) Buy, what, kickstarter mindshare?
  - Synaesthesia 14y ago
    If it's just gonna play video, it doesn't need Tegra 4, but if it wants to be a console, sure. But are Google looking to compete with consoles here?
jxi 14y ago
Sensationalist title, as usual. I don't see any evidence showing poor reviews. The only people who got it are people at IO anyway, so that's kind of a small sample. I'd say they delayed it so they could add more features before a real launch, just so it lives up to Google's standards.
- drgath 14y ago
  > just so it lives up to Google's standards. To be honest, Google doesn't have a great track record when it comes to initial product releases. They get by with it because they release early, iterate often, and eventually develop a winner (a good strategy). But rarely are they winners out of the gate. If your comment were about Apple, then absolutely you'd have a point about high standards.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
- ceejayoz 14y ago
  > I don't see any evidence showing poor reviews. One is linked to in the article itself. Others are hardly difficult to find. > The only people who got it are people at IO anyway, so that's kind of a small sample. I'd say folks at IO are likely to be fairly positive towards Google. > I'd say they delayed it so they could add more features before a real launch, just so it lives up to Google's standards. It wasn't up to Google's standards, but you're doubtful that it got poor reviews?
axxl 14y ago
I think Pogue had a really good article on it a little while ago (it's linked from this article as well) http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/05/the-google-nexus-q-is-baffling/ http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/05/the-google-nexus-q...
- Zenst 14y ago
  Your right, that does sum up alot of issues and oversights and google listened. If only Google did the Olympics instead of #NBCfail.
kamechan 14y ago
If it were a google TV also, and played android games via some innovative controller like ouya's, i'd buy it in a second.
- Zenst 14y ago
  I believe you have nailed the shortcommings just right. It has half-way step to what you suggest and in that it realy should have those features. Also given the price of this and the ouya (also not released yet) I'd say some people were asking some questions about price also. This and the opertunity to add google tv to the device from the start would of been to good a opertunity to miss that I feel that could be the main reason there stepping abck a bit and doing a rethink now instead of carrying on a unstable path.
drgath 14y ago
Good decision. There's nothing wrong with not releasing something you don't feel is up to par. I actually admire that. Ship it when it's ready, and not a moment sooner. On the other hand, there is something wrong with releasing a product that turns out to be over-priced and under-featured. That worked for Google in the past where it was all Web products, the price was "free", you could just slap a "beta" label on it and iterate daily. But that doesn't work when something costs $300 dollars in a competitive marketplace with established leaders.
- Mythbusters 14y ago
  It makes Google look amateurish to announce a product with big fanfare and to cancel it later admitting that it does not do much... executive powerplays at work I guess...
  - Zenst 14y ago
    Amerteurish would be to blindly carry on launching a product and then releaseing version 2.0 that fixed all the issues and making the 1.0 unsuported. No, what google did was to listern to feedback and respond in the best possible way. Those who ordered get the product and there money back and those who havnt get a chance to wait for the improved version based upon feedback. Realy can't fault that and to call it amateurish is perhaps overly strong. No power plays at work at all, mearly good PR/marketing and activly listerning to feedback.
    - azylman 14y ago
      Amerteurish would be to blindly carry on launching a product and then releaseing version 2.0 that fixed all the issues and making the 1.0 unsuported. Sounds like Google TV...
      - sandieman 14y ago
        Google TV's lack of success has certainly taught them a lesson or two here. Hence, the freebies as an attempt to win back good will.
arihant 14y ago
Google now has five boxes hooked up in living rooms of Google fans. They amplified the problem they should be solving. Seriously, a Logitech Google TV, a Nexus Q and 3 boxes for Google fiber. Edit: They also managed a pointless keyboard with the boxes.
- drgath 14y ago
  The moment I saw a keyboard with GoogleTV I facepalmed. That's not how people should interact with their TV.
damiankennedy 14y ago
I'm confused. Why would you get one of these instead of an Android TV? My Android TV running ICS was only 135 $NZ and I got a wireless keyboard for 70 $NZ. Now my kids play Angry Birds Space and Justin Bieber videos on TV!
- dangrossman 14y ago
  What's confusing? This is an article about them not releasing it for precisely that reason.
  - wpietri 14y ago
    The confusing part is them announcing something that was so bad that it wasn't worth releasing. Why waste the marketing opportunity? Why take it so far along the production path? Why give themselves all of the bad press?
- someperson 14y ago
  Could you link to the TV? I'm curious.
  - damiankennedy 14y ago
    The device itself plugs into the TV's HDMI slot and looks like an oversize memory stick. I then put in my home wifi details just like you would on a phone. Then with apps like kies you can link to any other android phone or vice versa. The family windows box isn't turned on most days and when it is it just continuously downloads updates and spins the hard disk.
    - vetler 14y ago
      Any links? Where did you get it?
      - damiankennedy 14y ago
        They're in a chain of stores in New Zealand called Warehouse Stationary.
Zenst 14y ago
I think google are handerling this extremly well. They had a product that was about to launch and pretty much good to go. Go some feedback that they thought, hmmm maybe we should look at this again and are doing it. Then ontop of that they are not only honouring all preorders with the product they were advertised, but also doing it for free with full refunds as well. That is how you do marketing and deal with feedback.
cookiecaper 14y ago
Nexus Q should have been considered a house-wide Android extender appliance; a compute node accessible by any and all authorized Android devices. It could be used to supplement the resource demands of phone apps, to serve as an autoconfigured caching HTTP proxy, etc. There are a lot of possibilities for an appliance like that (w1ntermute's suggestion that it double as Google Fiber's cable box is awesome) and I think it's sad that they felt it needed to be marketed as a $300 collaborative jukebox.
- tnorthcutt 14y ago
  The average consumer would have absolutely no idea what that (compute node, resource demands, autoconfigured caching) means. None.
  - nitrogen 14y ago
    They don't need to understand the tech. Just tell them "your Android devices work up to 3x as fast when you are within Wifi range of this box."
  - cookiecaper 14y ago
    Right, but they'll understand it when their tower defense game says "Get a Nexus Q for cooler auto-generated maps", "Get a Nexus Q for faster load times", or "Get a Nexus Q for LAN multiplayer with all other Android users in range".
pacomerh 14y ago
Now that they're holding it, I sorta want one. Mad world.
- kylec 14y ago
  http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=google+nexus+q+-cover+-bluetooth+-pouch+-battery http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=google+nexus+q+-cover+-b...
timkeller 14y ago
Unfortunately, Google is developing a history of announcing – and later killing – products at their Google IO event. I can appreciate the pressure: Every year, all eyes are on the company to match/outshine Apple's WWDC announcements. It seems that Google needs to move IO to a different (less pressurised) time of year, and focus on only announcing release-ready products.
ZeroGravitas 14y ago
I still think if they'd removed the HDMI out, it would have got better reviews. The inbuilt amp and connecting to a TV are pretty much mutually exclusive, and everyone focused on the latter then wondered why it cost 3x as much as something that connected to a tv but didn't have an amp in it.
generalk 14y ago
I've said it before, but to make the Nexus Q awesome: give it Google Now, and have multiple users able to set up their own Google accounts on it. I don't want an Android console, I don't need something else to stream content to my TV, but what I do want is a couple of glowing orbs in my house that will remind me over speakers that I have an appointment at 10am but heavy traffic means I should leave at 9:15am. Or, using built-in mics or connected Android devices, ask it Now-style questions and receive Star Trek style responses.

84 points by chaosmachine 14y ago

Google squandered the Q - it was a great marketing opportunity, what with its unique form factor. They should've used it to create a first-party Google TV (with support for using Android phones and tablets to control it, particularly the Nexus 7) and released game controllers along with it, encouraging developers to create Android console games. Then they should've made the Q the cable box for Google Fiber. That would've really made the headlines. However, while it's easy for us to sit here and take potshots at Google, we have to remember that it's a logistical nightmare bringing together disparate divisions of a massive organization like Google and getting them to coordinate their efforts so that the company as a whole can present a united front to consumers.

TimJRobinson 14y ago
Luckily the ouya is going to do just that, I wonder if Google will purchase them if they become profitable (or even without profits it'd be a smart acquisition for them and would give games companies more confidence in the console and building games for the Android platform in general) .
- ljf 14y ago
  I am excited by Ouya - though the sticker for me will be whether it can play Netflix/LoveFilm/Amazon videos. The gaming and media part is exciting for me, but I really want a replacement for the Wii I am currently using. At the price they are aiming for (for future retail) and with the wide enough feature set, I'd be happy to buy two.
- eropple 14y ago
  > Luckily the ouya is going to do just that There's very little reason for anyone to have confidence in Ouya as a platform. From the developers' apparent inability to plan (still no dev documentation, still no SDK...and they're planning to release in the next eight months!) to their pimping of a port of the Android port of a DS game as the biggest thing that's happened to the platform. (I have the Android port of FF3 on my Nexus 7. It's ugly enough there. It's going to be really ugly at 40".) I had really high hopes for this at first but this has been in meltdown mode pretty much from day one. I just hope that the hardware actually gets into users' hands, because frankly at this point I'm not even sure.
mtgx 14y ago
Completely agree. Either buy OUYA, and improve the product if you can, and get even more partnerships for launch day, or build something similar (also for $99 - very important!), and release it a few months later at the next Google I/O with Tegra 4. Boom - crazy buzz around it. The price is essential though. Screw everything else. Just make sure it's $99. And using a beefed up Tegra 4 (no regard for energy efficiency in a console), or some other next-gen GPU architecture with OpenGL ES 3.0 support (like Exynos 6/Mali T658), coupled with Cortex A15 CPU's, would be a huge bonus over OUYA, even if it arrives a few months later compared to OUYA. But please - please - stop buying into that theory that says early adopter products need to be more expensive or whatever makes Google release such products at prices that everyone thinks are insane. Just a few examples: Xoom - $800 Google TV - $300 Chromebook $450 Nexus Q - $300 Google still hasn't learned that they need to introduce these new products at a "sweet spot" pricing point - much like the Nexus 7 actually! But it took Amazon to teach them that, so I don't have much faith in them repeating this, especially after seeing the Nexus Q pricing. Google's problem regarding pricing is also that they keep putting components that are too expensive in those products, without receiving an equivalent value from it. The Xoom was this expensive because of the 3g/4G chips and high MP cameras. The Chromebooks and Google TV were this expensive because of Intel's Atom chips. Nexus Q was too expensive because it had an amplifier (did anyone actually care about that?), and because it was "built in US". They need to stop making these kind of mistakes once and for all, if they want to be successful selling hardware. Apple puts only the essential components in their products that 80% of the people would use, and make sure they are high quality. For example, the original iPad had a high-quality display, but had no cameras, and not even a GPS. This kind of thinking made the iPad cost "only" $500 at the time, when people thought it would be significantly more - maybe not $1000, but perhaps more expensive than an unlocked iPhone, thanks to the expected bigger screen, bigger battery, etc. Google needs to learn to do that as well.
- tvon 14y ago
  > Either buy OUYA (...) Buy, what, kickstarter mindshare?
- Synaesthesia 14y ago
  If it's just gonna play video, it doesn't need Tegra 4, but if it wants to be a console, sure. But are Google looking to compete with consoles here?

jxi 14y ago

Sensationalist title, as usual. I don't see any evidence showing poor reviews. The only people who got it are people at IO anyway, so that's kind of a small sample. I'd say they delayed it so they could add more features before a real launch, just so it lives up to Google's standards.

drgath 14y ago
> just so it lives up to Google's standards. To be honest, Google doesn't have a great track record when it comes to initial product releases. They get by with it because they release early, iterate often, and eventually develop a winner (a good strategy). But rarely are they winners out of the gate. If your comment were about Apple, then absolutely you'd have a point about high standards.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
ceejayoz 14y ago
> I don't see any evidence showing poor reviews. One is linked to in the article itself. Others are hardly difficult to find. > The only people who got it are people at IO anyway, so that's kind of a small sample. I'd say folks at IO are likely to be fairly positive towards Google. > I'd say they delayed it so they could add more features before a real launch, just so it lives up to Google's standards. It wasn't up to Google's standards, but you're doubtful that it got poor reviews?

axxl 14y ago

I think Pogue had a really good article on it a little while ago (it's linked from this article as well) http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/05/the-google-nexus-q-is-baffling/ http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/05/the-google-nexus-q...

Zenst 14y ago
Your right, that does sum up alot of issues and oversights and google listened. If only Google did the Olympics instead of #NBCfail.

kamechan 14y ago

If it were a google TV also, and played android games via some innovative controller like ouya's, i'd buy it in a second.

Zenst 14y ago
I believe you have nailed the shortcommings just right. It has half-way step to what you suggest and in that it realy should have those features. Also given the price of this and the ouya (also not released yet) I'd say some people were asking some questions about price also. This and the opertunity to add google tv to the device from the start would of been to good a opertunity to miss that I feel that could be the main reason there stepping abck a bit and doing a rethink now instead of carrying on a unstable path.

drgath 14y ago

Good decision. There's nothing wrong with not releasing something you don't feel is up to par. I actually admire that. Ship it when it's ready, and not a moment sooner. On the other hand, there is something wrong with releasing a product that turns out to be over-priced and under-featured. That worked for Google in the past where it was all Web products, the price was "free", you could just slap a "beta" label on it and iterate daily. But that doesn't work when something costs $300 dollars in a competitive marketplace with established leaders.

Mythbusters 14y ago
It makes Google look amateurish to announce a product with big fanfare and to cancel it later admitting that it does not do much... executive powerplays at work I guess...
- Zenst 14y ago
  Amerteurish would be to blindly carry on launching a product and then releaseing version 2.0 that fixed all the issues and making the 1.0 unsuported. No, what google did was to listern to feedback and respond in the best possible way. Those who ordered get the product and there money back and those who havnt get a chance to wait for the improved version based upon feedback. Realy can't fault that and to call it amateurish is perhaps overly strong. No power plays at work at all, mearly good PR/marketing and activly listerning to feedback.
  - azylman 14y ago
    Amerteurish would be to blindly carry on launching a product and then releaseing version 2.0 that fixed all the issues and making the 1.0 unsuported. Sounds like Google TV...
    - sandieman 14y ago
      Google TV's lack of success has certainly taught them a lesson or two here. Hence, the freebies as an attempt to win back good will.

arihant 14y ago

Google now has five boxes hooked up in living rooms of Google fans. They amplified the problem they should be solving. Seriously, a Logitech Google TV, a Nexus Q and 3 boxes for Google fiber. Edit: They also managed a pointless keyboard with the boxes.

drgath 14y ago
The moment I saw a keyboard with GoogleTV I facepalmed. That's not how people should interact with their TV.

damiankennedy 14y ago

I'm confused. Why would you get one of these instead of an Android TV? My Android TV running ICS was only 135 $NZ and I got a wireless keyboard for 70 $NZ. Now my kids play Angry Birds Space and Justin Bieber videos on TV!

dangrossman 14y ago
What's confusing? This is an article about them not releasing it for precisely that reason.
- wpietri 14y ago
  The confusing part is them announcing something that was so bad that it wasn't worth releasing. Why waste the marketing opportunity? Why take it so far along the production path? Why give themselves all of the bad press?
someperson 14y ago
Could you link to the TV? I'm curious.
- damiankennedy 14y ago
  The device itself plugs into the TV's HDMI slot and looks like an oversize memory stick. I then put in my home wifi details just like you would on a phone. Then with apps like kies you can link to any other android phone or vice versa. The family windows box isn't turned on most days and when it is it just continuously downloads updates and spins the hard disk.
  - vetler 14y ago
    Any links? Where did you get it?
    - damiankennedy 14y ago
      They're in a chain of stores in New Zealand called Warehouse Stationary.

Zenst 14y ago

I think google are handerling this extremly well. They had a product that was about to launch and pretty much good to go. Go some feedback that they thought, hmmm maybe we should look at this again and are doing it. Then ontop of that they are not only honouring all preorders with the product they were advertised, but also doing it for free with full refunds as well. That is how you do marketing and deal with feedback.

cookiecaper 14y ago

Nexus Q should have been considered a house-wide Android extender appliance; a compute node accessible by any and all authorized Android devices. It could be used to supplement the resource demands of phone apps, to serve as an autoconfigured caching HTTP proxy, etc. There are a lot of possibilities for an appliance like that (w1ntermute's suggestion that it double as Google Fiber's cable box is awesome) and I think it's sad that they felt it needed to be marketed as a $300 collaborative jukebox.

tnorthcutt 14y ago
The average consumer would have absolutely no idea what that (compute node, resource demands, autoconfigured caching) means. None.
- nitrogen 14y ago
  They don't need to understand the tech. Just tell them "your Android devices work up to 3x as fast when you are within Wifi range of this box."
- cookiecaper 14y ago
  Right, but they'll understand it when their tower defense game says "Get a Nexus Q for cooler auto-generated maps", "Get a Nexus Q for faster load times", or "Get a Nexus Q for LAN multiplayer with all other Android users in range".

pacomerh 14y ago

Now that they're holding it, I sorta want one. Mad world.

kylec 14y ago
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=google+nexus+q+-cover+-bluetooth+-pouch+-battery http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=google+nexus+q+-cover+-b...

timkeller 14y ago

Unfortunately, Google is developing a history of announcing – and later killing – products at their Google IO event. I can appreciate the pressure: Every year, all eyes are on the company to match/outshine Apple's WWDC announcements. It seems that Google needs to move IO to a different (less pressurised) time of year, and focus on only announcing release-ready products.

ZeroGravitas 14y ago

I still think if they'd removed the HDMI out, it would have got better reviews. The inbuilt amp and connecting to a TV are pretty much mutually exclusive, and everyone focused on the latter then wondered why it cost 3x as much as something that connected to a tv but didn't have an amp in it.

generalk 14y ago

I've said it before, but to make the Nexus Q awesome: give it Google Now, and have multiple users able to set up their own Google accounts on it. I don't want an Android console, I don't need something else to stream content to my TV, but what I do want is a couple of glowing orbs in my house that will remind me over speakers that I have an appointment at 10am but heavy traffic means I should leave at 9:15am. Or, using built-in mics or connected Android devices, ask it Now-style questions and receive Star Trek style responses.