8 ms·

Ouya tops $8.5 million as Kickstarter campaign comes to a close

66 points by khangtoh 14y ago

Rygu 14y ago
Some people are concerned about the hardware, whether or not the specs will start to get outdated when the product finally ships (Q1/Q2 2013). Another point is the openness, it being so open for not only software hacks but also hardware hacks, will it also produce a lot of cheaters in online multiplayer games? I pledged, and personally, I can't wait to get my hands on it! I think the media player capabilities and Android compatibility will make the product succeed anyhow. Certainly, the campaign (904% of Kickstarter goal) already has.
esolyt 14y ago
I am really excited about Ouya. It has the potential to become a game changing (pun intended) product. I hope they can live up to all the buzz they have generated.
- praptak 14y ago
  I hope that even if they fail this will be one of those failures that expands our collective knowledge.
tzaman 14y ago
This kind of money is clearly a message the world needs a product like this. Hopefully existing players (Sony, M$) will think about it a bit. I hate the fact that my PS3 is still considered the latest generation of consoles and is now more than 5 years old.
- rys 14y ago
  Why do you hate that fact? It's not like the PS3 is a bad console in 2012, incapable of incredible modern games. The console lifespan is lengthening as a general rule, and for good reasons.
  - vegardx 14y ago
    Compared to computer games today the PS3 is incapable. Point in case: Battlefield 3, where they have to limit the game to 24 players, where PC has 64 players. And it has been like that a long time now, with many games. That's why I like Ouya, it focuses on another market, a market where consoles generally have done really great, arcade style games. Also, with the possibility to use it as a media center is a killer feature for many people.
    - slantyyz 14y ago
      >> Compared to computer games today the PS3 is incapable. It's seems like there are very two distinct paths that gamers come from: 1) arcade/old-school consoles and 2) computer FPS, RTS, MMOs. Coming from #1 myself, I find it interesting that the majority of people from #2 really only consider their path to be "true gaming". They're the ones who are always demanding more CPU power, more memory, etc, and basically seem to ignore that there are games that are not FPS, RTS or MMOs. Coming from #1, I don't have any complaints about underpowered consoles, and I play plenty of games running off 3D engines like Street Fighter IV, Tekken, Burnout, etc. I don't even touch FPS, RTS or MMOs. While I'm sure #1's are in the minority these days, there are still large numbers of us who buy consoles to play games that aren't best played with PCs, keyboards and mice.
- pwny 14y ago
  I personally stop reading anything whenever I read "M$". Like, I literally did not read the last half of your post.
  - andybak 14y ago
    ha! Just realised I did the same thing unconsciously.
- potatolicious 14y ago
  The long console cycle this generation has been a great thing for consumers - we are still seeing incredible limits being pushed on both the Xbox and PS3, and has been a tremendous boon for the public, who are no longer on $400-500-every-2-years upgrade cycles. If you really want to be at the very bleeding edge of what's possible in gaming, the PC market is alive and well. The console market is more affordable and consequently more inclusive. > "This kind of money is clearly a message the world needs a product like this." I doubt this. There's a [very small] market for a product like this. The power of the internet is that this [very small] demographic can come together, pool their resources, and create something they all want. This does not mean that there's a mass-market or mainstream product waiting to jump out.
- slantyyz 14y ago
  Why? It's not like 4K TVs are everywhere. Sure, it might be able to run 1080p games faster with a few more effects. A TV console, however, doesn't need to incrementally improve as fast as a gaming computer, because the TV gamers aren't constantly upgrading to higher resolution monitors.
kayoone 14y ago
What we can take away from this, and i hope the major console makers do this as well is, that many people (especially developers of course) want a more open and friendly console market. This basically embodies what the rumours wanted Valve to do with their own pc-based console.
- megablast 14y ago
  Not that many people, only 60,000. This is nothing.
marknutter 14y ago
I really hope this silences the naysayers. The negativity around here has gotten out of hand lately. I personally want this project to succeed.
- pwny 14y ago
  The "naysayers" as you say, bring up a lot of valid points that have nothing to do with the OUYA's ability to raise kickstarter money so this will probably not silence anyone. If anything, the money raised only proves the fact that over 60k people jumped in on the bandwagon of a non-existent console with no controller design that plans to ship in an almost unrealisable timeframe. I want people that try bold things to succeed as much as the next guy but my (and others') concerns about the OUYA are far more elaborated than their ability to raise money.
  - sp332 14y ago
    Even if this fails (I don't expect it to but of course it could), I'm willing to throw some money at serious research into what's so hard about making tiny $99 consoles, and how to address those problems in the next project.
    - illuminate 14y ago
      "I'm willing to throw some money at serious research into what's so hard about making tiny $99 consoles" Generally, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economies_of_scale http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economies_of_scale
      - Wilduck 14y ago
        Could you clarify? Do you mean that it's harder to make these things smaller? Because that's not what "Economies of scale" refers to. Even if you are trying to make a point about the long run average cost of console production, I still don't see the direct connection and I'd like to know what you're getting at.
unimpressive 14y ago
Android is giving me hope for the future of general purpose computing. With the nexus 7 finally bringing a non-sucky open tablet to market, and Ouya proving that users and developers want open (Or at the very least that open products have a chance in the market.), I'm feeling more comfortable with a technology landscape full of tablets, smartphones and purpose specific devices like gaming consoles.
- GFischer 14y ago
  Well, Android IS the long awaited "Year of Linux on the desktop", only it's not on the desktop, because the desktop is no longer the center of the consumer digital world. I'm also happy that an open-source based operating system is becoming the mainstream. It's an exciting time to be a developer or an entrepreneur :) (these technologies becoming mainstream enable so many things, I don't know where to start!).
bogdand 14y ago
Kickstarter Ouya: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-video-game-console http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-...
randomdrake 14y ago
While everyone seems to be commenting on the impact this will have on hardware manufacturers, I'm more excited about the impact this will have on the big software distributors. I would love to see a disruption to the likes of EA. The console video gaming world has become, mostly, stagnant; full of sequels upon sequels. Current games are chocked full of DRM for overplayed, non-innovative titles. The market has become less about making great games that people love, and more about making executives money. It's terribly depressing and is directly responsible for me stopping my, over 25 year, love of gaming. I, along with others, have doubts about the platform. However, I would absolutely love to see it affect some change in what the video gaming market has mostly become. I would love to see more independent developers making lots of money and pumping out cool, fun to play, games on a system that is accessible beyond the PC.
- angersock 14y ago
  EA and Activision are the heroes gamers deserve. Honestly, when your target audience are people so devoted to a frivolous activity that they willing buy devices with no other purpose than to consume carefully curated content, it becomes hard to see them as anything other than a paycheck.
  - Sumaso 14y ago
    I suppose we should throw out our TV's while were at it
    - Semaphor 14y ago
      Not a bad idea imo. Just get a big PC screen:)
    - angersock 14y ago
      I would tend to agree, especially as the other pull models for content consumption are a lot better in every meaningful way. TV's entire model is funded by advertising, the sole purpose of which is to get you to buy things. So, again, I wouldn't take it over, say, a PC where I occasionally stream/pirate videos or, even better, pay artists directly for the performances I enjoy.
chucknelson 14y ago
Hmmm...I think this probably will make it to completion, but not on their aggressive timeline. Prove me wrong Ouya! Also, not sure how many Ouya-specific games will make it out, but it should be great for emulation and media streaming.
- mtgx 14y ago
  The nice thing about OUYA being based on Android, is that developers can either make a game for "Android" and then just tweak it to run well on OUYA and with the controller, or they can make a game "specifically" for OUYA, and then just port it to all Android devices. So either way they can get access to a huge user base for the same game, regardless of how big OUYA's base is. Google could've had this advantage as well with Google TV, but they never cared about making Google TV a console, or better yet, a "console platform". Too bad. I'm hoping OUYA succeeds, although I still can't get myself to buy one unless it has a 2013-worthy mobile chip inside.
  - eropple 14y ago
    With respect: if you think it's as simple as just "tweaking" to go from a ten-foot viewing distance with a controller to a touchscreen at no more than thirty inches, you have a crippling lack of perspective on games. This "just port to our completely different model out games, no big deal bro" messaging is actually what the Ouya people have themselves said and it's a major reason I'm convinced they're not competent or want cheap, bad games. If they bothered to study what has come before,they would have looked at the difficulty of a good port from the 360 to WP7 via DNA. But either they didn't our they did and want is to pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. Oh--and they want to release for April 2013 and have zero developer documentation. Reminds me why these guys are seen as being on the up and up?
    - potatolicious 14y ago
      Because people are desperate for this to be realistic, the same way people pumped money into Diaspora, even though it was backed by a team that's never shipped product before, that all just recently left college. I want Ouya to succeed, but I just don't see how it can happen. They are extremely aggressive both on schedule and pricing, and more than that, the team has no experience shipping consumer electronics - and hardware manufacturing is a huge, huge expertise in and of itself. So you have a very, very inexperienced team trying to ship a consumer electronics device faster and cheaper than pretty much any other experienced manufacturer who have been doing this for decades. I'm not sure if most backers realize quite how big of a leap this is.
mtgx 14y ago
It seems you can still pre-order from their official website: http://www.ouya.tv http://www.ouya.tv
shadowmint 14y ago
47126 Ouya 7755 Ouya + Controller 2500 Ouya + 2 Controllers 826 Ouya Dev Kits By April 2013. Good luck guys~ It's interesting to note some figures; if you assume $50 US per ouya that's $2,910,350 or 33% of the collected costs to make the hardware; double that to a guess of $100 per unit and you looking at ~68% of the collected Kickstarter. Realistically the hardware is probably relatively cheap to manufacture in bulk, and it'll probably end up towards the $50 rather than $100 mark, especially if they decide not to upgrade to newly released hardware. Just interesting numbers.
- polshaw 14y ago
  >47126 Ouya >7755 Ouya + Controller I thought that sounded odd. All have a controller, the second is 'limited edition brown'. As for costs.. i am guessing they will probably make an order for 100k? (They have the cash, plenty of time for more pre-orders, and surely expect to sell some after launch, and they are tiny so easy to store). At those quantities my guess for a cost breakdown; SOC; $15, nand $3, wireless radios $6, case $5, power $4, controller $10, battery $2. So i think $50 is realistic, they will need FCC certification etc. Keep in mind they are (planning) making them for almost 9 months out, tegra 4 will no doubt be out, nand prices will be lower, tiny case, low power, cheap looking controller (sorry).
  - freehunter 14y ago
    Limited edition brown... Microsoft already tried that with a consumer electronics device. And that's all anyone remembers of that line of hardware. I gotta wonder, why brown?
- dinkumthinkum 14y ago
  As cool as I think this whole thing is, honestly I think they're going to need a lot more money than that what was raised on Kickstarter to be a serious contender.
Keyframe 14y ago
$8,580,682 (from 63,277 backers) - keep perspective guys. 60k - That's like one week of sales of one of the consoles in Japan only. And those aren't even pushed units numbers. Not to mention amount of money that rolls in the likes of EA titles. It's all nice and all, but nowhere near disruptive word.
- jgroome 14y ago
  Woah, let them actually make the thing and bring it to market before you write them off. It's grossly unfair to compare their fundraising efforts to the total sales of established console games... At this point, anyway.
  - Keyframe 14y ago
    I'm not writing them off - in fact I'm cheering up their effort. With this I was trying to say what it looks like in larger perspective. OUYA has a really, REALLY big hurdle in front of themselves in order for us to call them disruptive. OUYA being a success or not (more likely), one thing is for sure - I'm starting to like all these multi million projects on kickstarter. Big budgets and not from an investment company.
  - eropple 14y ago
    Why is it unfair? They (despite claims that, honestly, just don't make a lot of sense) want to be treated seriously. This is treating them seriously. Their platform, which by the way is not a "quick port" from Android if you care about user experience, has a tiny user base compared either to consoles or phones. I'd like to see them do well, but I'm personally not going to treat it as something special until they show that it is. So far it sounds like a shovel-ware conduit to the TV and that gets people nothing.
    - praptak 14y ago
      > Their platform [...] has a tiny user base A platform. That does not even exist yet. Has a tiny user base. We have a genius here.
xam 14y ago
Very impressive! If I were Google, I'd buy the company immediately. With Google's backing, they could go into production with more speed, maybe even using the Nexus Q's USA-based manufacturer. I think once they've release the first Ouya, Google should start working on putting in more Google TV and Nexus Q features.
- tomflack 14y ago
  That's exactly what I don't want to see. Yet another device tied in to Google. For me, all the promise of the Ouya is in doing things independently, not tied to the mission of a corporate behemoth. If corporate behemoths want in, they can do the same thing as everyone else and write SN app for it.
  - xam 14y ago
    I understand what you're saying, but I don't think Google would do much of anything to tie the Ouya to its 'corporate behemoth' mission. Besides, I believe that Google's immense power could improve Ouya's standing by backing it thoroughly.
    - tomflack 14y ago
      They would, 100% absolutely try and make it the new Google TV.
  - surgeterrix 14y ago
    Well, if Ouya is successful, they will eventually become a corporate behemoth too. What was it, maybe 7-8 years ago Google was still a scrappy start up sticking it to MS and AOL?
    - tomflack 14y ago
      Then they'd be a new corporate behemoth, introducing variety. If these guys entertain a Google acquisition at all, I am out.
swalsh 14y ago
I wonder if the Oculus Rift will be compatible with it. I'm really excited to see where indie developers go with these two devices.
benackles 14y ago
While I backed this project and think its sorely needed to allow software developers access to the console platforms, I think the design of the controller was rather disappointing. I figured if they were going to create a new hardware platform it would have a more revolutionary form factor. The controller hasn't changed since the mid-1980s. Almost all the game console makers make the same damned controllers with exception to the Wii there's been almost no innovation. It's about time to rethink the standard controller design. I'm not talking about game-specific controllers, like the gun or joystick. I think there needs to be something more attached to actual human body movements. I know this project was about an open game console, but I think this creates the opportunity for innovation in hardware accessories (i.e. the controller). I think we could do a lot better than the same old formula: Up+Down+Left+Right A+B+X+Y R1+R2+L1+L2 Select+Start (ALL BUTTONS)
- gte910h 14y ago
  When you're doing a project like this, you want less, not more risk. Changing controller design would be a foolhardy adding of risk. Something very familiar is a great choice for it
Graham24 14y ago
So, how the hardware specs on this thing compare to the consoles? Is this PS2, PS3 or better levels of performance?
stewie2 14y ago
all i hope is that they can use tegra 4.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
vannevar 14y ago
So what would happen if they simply walked away with the money? Or put a million or so into a show of good-faith effort and walked away with the rest? Is there any recourse for the backers?

66 points by khangtoh 14y ago

Rygu 14y ago

Some people are concerned about the hardware, whether or not the specs will start to get outdated when the product finally ships (Q1/Q2 2013). Another point is the openness, it being so open for not only software hacks but also hardware hacks, will it also produce a lot of cheaters in online multiplayer games? I pledged, and personally, I can't wait to get my hands on it! I think the media player capabilities and Android compatibility will make the product succeed anyhow. Certainly, the campaign (904% of Kickstarter goal) already has.

esolyt 14y ago

I am really excited about Ouya. It has the potential to become a game changing (pun intended) product. I hope they can live up to all the buzz they have generated.

praptak 14y ago
I hope that even if they fail this will be one of those failures that expands our collective knowledge.

tzaman 14y ago

This kind of money is clearly a message the world needs a product like this. Hopefully existing players (Sony, M$) will think about it a bit. I hate the fact that my PS3 is still considered the latest generation of consoles and is now more than 5 years old.

rys 14y ago
Why do you hate that fact? It's not like the PS3 is a bad console in 2012, incapable of incredible modern games. The console lifespan is lengthening as a general rule, and for good reasons.
- vegardx 14y ago
  Compared to computer games today the PS3 is incapable. Point in case: Battlefield 3, where they have to limit the game to 24 players, where PC has 64 players. And it has been like that a long time now, with many games. That's why I like Ouya, it focuses on another market, a market where consoles generally have done really great, arcade style games. Also, with the possibility to use it as a media center is a killer feature for many people.
  - slantyyz 14y ago
    >> Compared to computer games today the PS3 is incapable. It's seems like there are very two distinct paths that gamers come from: 1) arcade/old-school consoles and 2) computer FPS, RTS, MMOs. Coming from #1 myself, I find it interesting that the majority of people from #2 really only consider their path to be "true gaming". They're the ones who are always demanding more CPU power, more memory, etc, and basically seem to ignore that there are games that are not FPS, RTS or MMOs. Coming from #1, I don't have any complaints about underpowered consoles, and I play plenty of games running off 3D engines like Street Fighter IV, Tekken, Burnout, etc. I don't even touch FPS, RTS or MMOs. While I'm sure #1's are in the minority these days, there are still large numbers of us who buy consoles to play games that aren't best played with PCs, keyboards and mice.
pwny 14y ago
I personally stop reading anything whenever I read "M$". Like, I literally did not read the last half of your post.
- andybak 14y ago
  ha! Just realised I did the same thing unconsciously.
potatolicious 14y ago
The long console cycle this generation has been a great thing for consumers - we are still seeing incredible limits being pushed on both the Xbox and PS3, and has been a tremendous boon for the public, who are no longer on $400-500-every-2-years upgrade cycles. If you really want to be at the very bleeding edge of what's possible in gaming, the PC market is alive and well. The console market is more affordable and consequently more inclusive. > "This kind of money is clearly a message the world needs a product like this." I doubt this. There's a [very small] market for a product like this. The power of the internet is that this [very small] demographic can come together, pool their resources, and create something they all want. This does not mean that there's a mass-market or mainstream product waiting to jump out.
slantyyz 14y ago
Why? It's not like 4K TVs are everywhere. Sure, it might be able to run 1080p games faster with a few more effects. A TV console, however, doesn't need to incrementally improve as fast as a gaming computer, because the TV gamers aren't constantly upgrading to higher resolution monitors.

kayoone 14y ago

What we can take away from this, and i hope the major console makers do this as well is, that many people (especially developers of course) want a more open and friendly console market. This basically embodies what the rumours wanted Valve to do with their own pc-based console.

megablast 14y ago
Not that many people, only 60,000. This is nothing.

marknutter 14y ago

I really hope this silences the naysayers. The negativity around here has gotten out of hand lately. I personally want this project to succeed.

pwny 14y ago
The "naysayers" as you say, bring up a lot of valid points that have nothing to do with the OUYA's ability to raise kickstarter money so this will probably not silence anyone. If anything, the money raised only proves the fact that over 60k people jumped in on the bandwagon of a non-existent console with no controller design that plans to ship in an almost unrealisable timeframe. I want people that try bold things to succeed as much as the next guy but my (and others') concerns about the OUYA are far more elaborated than their ability to raise money.
- sp332 14y ago
  Even if this fails (I don't expect it to but of course it could), I'm willing to throw some money at serious research into what's so hard about making tiny $99 consoles, and how to address those problems in the next project.
  - illuminate 14y ago
    "I'm willing to throw some money at serious research into what's so hard about making tiny $99 consoles" Generally, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economies_of_scale http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economies_of_scale
    - Wilduck 14y ago
      Could you clarify? Do you mean that it's harder to make these things smaller? Because that's not what "Economies of scale" refers to. Even if you are trying to make a point about the long run average cost of console production, I still don't see the direct connection and I'd like to know what you're getting at.

unimpressive 14y ago

Android is giving me hope for the future of general purpose computing. With the nexus 7 finally bringing a non-sucky open tablet to market, and Ouya proving that users and developers want open (Or at the very least that open products have a chance in the market.), I'm feeling more comfortable with a technology landscape full of tablets, smartphones and purpose specific devices like gaming consoles.

GFischer 14y ago
Well, Android IS the long awaited "Year of Linux on the desktop", only it's not on the desktop, because the desktop is no longer the center of the consumer digital world. I'm also happy that an open-source based operating system is becoming the mainstream. It's an exciting time to be a developer or an entrepreneur :) (these technologies becoming mainstream enable so many things, I don't know where to start!).

bogdand 14y ago

Kickstarter Ouya: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-video-game-console http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-...

randomdrake 14y ago

While everyone seems to be commenting on the impact this will have on hardware manufacturers, I'm more excited about the impact this will have on the big software distributors. I would love to see a disruption to the likes of EA. The console video gaming world has become, mostly, stagnant; full of sequels upon sequels. Current games are chocked full of DRM for overplayed, non-innovative titles. The market has become less about making great games that people love, and more about making executives money. It's terribly depressing and is directly responsible for me stopping my, over 25 year, love of gaming. I, along with others, have doubts about the platform. However, I would absolutely love to see it affect some change in what the video gaming market has mostly become. I would love to see more independent developers making lots of money and pumping out cool, fun to play, games on a system that is accessible beyond the PC.

angersock 14y ago
EA and Activision are the heroes gamers deserve. Honestly, when your target audience are people so devoted to a frivolous activity that they willing buy devices with no other purpose than to consume carefully curated content, it becomes hard to see them as anything other than a paycheck.
- Sumaso 14y ago
  I suppose we should throw out our TV's while were at it
  - Semaphor 14y ago
    Not a bad idea imo. Just get a big PC screen:)
  - angersock 14y ago
    I would tend to agree, especially as the other pull models for content consumption are a lot better in every meaningful way. TV's entire model is funded by advertising, the sole purpose of which is to get you to buy things. So, again, I wouldn't take it over, say, a PC where I occasionally stream/pirate videos or, even better, pay artists directly for the performances I enjoy.

chucknelson 14y ago

Hmmm...I think this probably will make it to completion, but not on their aggressive timeline. Prove me wrong Ouya! Also, not sure how many Ouya-specific games will make it out, but it should be great for emulation and media streaming.

mtgx 14y ago
The nice thing about OUYA being based on Android, is that developers can either make a game for "Android" and then just tweak it to run well on OUYA and with the controller, or they can make a game "specifically" for OUYA, and then just port it to all Android devices. So either way they can get access to a huge user base for the same game, regardless of how big OUYA's base is. Google could've had this advantage as well with Google TV, but they never cared about making Google TV a console, or better yet, a "console platform". Too bad. I'm hoping OUYA succeeds, although I still can't get myself to buy one unless it has a 2013-worthy mobile chip inside.
- eropple 14y ago
  With respect: if you think it's as simple as just "tweaking" to go from a ten-foot viewing distance with a controller to a touchscreen at no more than thirty inches, you have a crippling lack of perspective on games. This "just port to our completely different model out games, no big deal bro" messaging is actually what the Ouya people have themselves said and it's a major reason I'm convinced they're not competent or want cheap, bad games. If they bothered to study what has come before,they would have looked at the difficulty of a good port from the 360 to WP7 via DNA. But either they didn't our they did and want is to pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. Oh--and they want to release for April 2013 and have zero developer documentation. Reminds me why these guys are seen as being on the up and up?
  - potatolicious 14y ago
    Because people are desperate for this to be realistic, the same way people pumped money into Diaspora, even though it was backed by a team that's never shipped product before, that all just recently left college. I want Ouya to succeed, but I just don't see how it can happen. They are extremely aggressive both on schedule and pricing, and more than that, the team has no experience shipping consumer electronics - and hardware manufacturing is a huge, huge expertise in and of itself. So you have a very, very inexperienced team trying to ship a consumer electronics device faster and cheaper than pretty much any other experienced manufacturer who have been doing this for decades. I'm not sure if most backers realize quite how big of a leap this is.

mtgx 14y ago

It seems you can still pre-order from their official website: http://www.ouya.tv http://www.ouya.tv

shadowmint 14y ago

47126 Ouya 7755 Ouya + Controller 2500 Ouya + 2 Controllers 826 Ouya Dev Kits By April 2013. Good luck guys~ It's interesting to note some figures; if you assume $50 US per ouya that's $2,910,350 or 33% of the collected costs to make the hardware; double that to a guess of $100 per unit and you looking at ~68% of the collected Kickstarter. Realistically the hardware is probably relatively cheap to manufacture in bulk, and it'll probably end up towards the $50 rather than $100 mark, especially if they decide not to upgrade to newly released hardware. Just interesting numbers.

polshaw 14y ago
>47126 Ouya >7755 Ouya + Controller I thought that sounded odd. All have a controller, the second is 'limited edition brown'. As for costs.. i am guessing they will probably make an order for 100k? (They have the cash, plenty of time for more pre-orders, and surely expect to sell some after launch, and they are tiny so easy to store). At those quantities my guess for a cost breakdown; SOC; $15, nand $3, wireless radios $6, case $5, power $4, controller $10, battery $2. So i think $50 is realistic, they will need FCC certification etc. Keep in mind they are (planning) making them for almost 9 months out, tegra 4 will no doubt be out, nand prices will be lower, tiny case, low power, cheap looking controller (sorry).
- freehunter 14y ago
  Limited edition brown... Microsoft already tried that with a consumer electronics device. And that's all anyone remembers of that line of hardware. I gotta wonder, why brown?
dinkumthinkum 14y ago
As cool as I think this whole thing is, honestly I think they're going to need a lot more money than that what was raised on Kickstarter to be a serious contender.

Keyframe 14y ago

$8,580,682 (from 63,277 backers) - keep perspective guys. 60k - That's like one week of sales of one of the consoles in Japan only. And those aren't even pushed units numbers. Not to mention amount of money that rolls in the likes of EA titles. It's all nice and all, but nowhere near disruptive word.

jgroome 14y ago
Woah, let them actually make the thing and bring it to market before you write them off. It's grossly unfair to compare their fundraising efforts to the total sales of established console games... At this point, anyway.
- Keyframe 14y ago
  I'm not writing them off - in fact I'm cheering up their effort. With this I was trying to say what it looks like in larger perspective. OUYA has a really, REALLY big hurdle in front of themselves in order for us to call them disruptive. OUYA being a success or not (more likely), one thing is for sure - I'm starting to like all these multi million projects on kickstarter. Big budgets and not from an investment company.
- eropple 14y ago
  Why is it unfair? They (despite claims that, honestly, just don't make a lot of sense) want to be treated seriously. This is treating them seriously. Their platform, which by the way is not a "quick port" from Android if you care about user experience, has a tiny user base compared either to consoles or phones. I'd like to see them do well, but I'm personally not going to treat it as something special until they show that it is. So far it sounds like a shovel-ware conduit to the TV and that gets people nothing.
  - praptak 14y ago
    > Their platform [...] has a tiny user base A platform. That does not even exist yet. Has a tiny user base. We have a genius here.

xam 14y ago

Very impressive! If I were Google, I'd buy the company immediately. With Google's backing, they could go into production with more speed, maybe even using the Nexus Q's USA-based manufacturer. I think once they've release the first Ouya, Google should start working on putting in more Google TV and Nexus Q features.

tomflack 14y ago
That's exactly what I don't want to see. Yet another device tied in to Google. For me, all the promise of the Ouya is in doing things independently, not tied to the mission of a corporate behemoth. If corporate behemoths want in, they can do the same thing as everyone else and write SN app for it.
- xam 14y ago
  I understand what you're saying, but I don't think Google would do much of anything to tie the Ouya to its 'corporate behemoth' mission. Besides, I believe that Google's immense power could improve Ouya's standing by backing it thoroughly.
  - tomflack 14y ago
    They would, 100% absolutely try and make it the new Google TV.
- surgeterrix 14y ago
  Well, if Ouya is successful, they will eventually become a corporate behemoth too. What was it, maybe 7-8 years ago Google was still a scrappy start up sticking it to MS and AOL?
  - tomflack 14y ago
    Then they'd be a new corporate behemoth, introducing variety. If these guys entertain a Google acquisition at all, I am out.

swalsh 14y ago

I wonder if the Oculus Rift will be compatible with it. I'm really excited to see where indie developers go with these two devices.

benackles 14y ago

While I backed this project and think its sorely needed to allow software developers access to the console platforms, I think the design of the controller was rather disappointing. I figured if they were going to create a new hardware platform it would have a more revolutionary form factor. The controller hasn't changed since the mid-1980s. Almost all the game console makers make the same damned controllers with exception to the Wii there's been almost no innovation. It's about time to rethink the standard controller design. I'm not talking about game-specific controllers, like the gun or joystick. I think there needs to be something more attached to actual human body movements. I know this project was about an open game console, but I think this creates the opportunity for innovation in hardware accessories (i.e. the controller). I think we could do a lot better than the same old formula: Up+Down+Left+Right A+B+X+Y R1+R2+L1+L2 Select+Start (ALL BUTTONS)

gte910h 14y ago
When you're doing a project like this, you want less, not more risk. Changing controller design would be a foolhardy adding of risk. Something very familiar is a great choice for it

Graham24 14y ago

So, how the hardware specs on this thing compare to the consoles? Is this PS2, PS3 or better levels of performance?

stewie2 14y ago

all i hope is that they can use tegra 4.

deleted 14y ago

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vannevar 14y ago

So what would happen if they simply walked away with the money? Or put a million or so into a show of good-faith effort and walked away with the rest? Is there any recourse for the backers?