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Well first I would argue that we did see this coming: AAA games make money but so do casual and free-to-play games. Wii established the precedent, and follow o

by tmzt 13y ago

Well first I would argue that we did see this coming: AAA games make money but so do casual and free-to-play games. Wii established the precedent, and follow on devices such as the Ouya expand the market for console devices for casual games. Also, Roku 2 shipped a version with a game remote and Angry Birds. My concern is that it is too early for Google to introduce an Android gaming console, without establishing a standard for games to be developed against. The first Ouya's have sold out (to the chagrin of the presale buyers), but customers don't need the confusion of multiple incompatible consoles at this stage. Having a different market application is probably fine, but the developers need to be able to publish to multiple markets and still customize the games for the for the console they are targeting. I believe that actions taken by Google at this stage could prevent Android gaming consoles from becoming established, and they should be willing to defer to the first mover, Ouya, in order to build an economy of compatible Android gaming consoles later.

simonh 13y ago
What's in it for Google? There's always been a reasonable argument that it benefits Google to have a diverse mobile device ecosystem, in which open standards compliant browsers and apps that can access Google services are a baseline feature. Their nightmare scenario was a world of locked down mobile device platforms with browsers hard wired into proprietary web portals and services that cut them out of the loop. TV is a different medium though. It's useless as a web browser platform and Google app style services have never worked will on them either. The control interface is just too clumsy. So as a general web and services access platform it's not that attractive. What TV is good at is video presentation and games. Google's never going to make any money on games, either on mobile or on a TV platform. They do have youtube though, so that's really the only viable route they have towards revenue on the TV. The problem is, nobody making an Android based TV device has any incentive to include a youtube service on it except Google. If Samsung say produced an Android based TV device, what's in it for them to support a Youtube app? Better to strike a revenue sharing deal with Netflix, Hulu, HBO, etc. They could revenue share with Youtube, but then Google is only getting a slice of the revenue, instead of the whole lot from Google's own TV device. Google is already getting squeezed out of their own Android ecosystem by companies like Samsung and Amazon rolling their own default apps and services for their devices. On an open Android platform on the TV, that effect would be considerably magnified.
- Pxtl 13y ago
  Google makes money off the Play Store, I imagine; a TV is a good Play Store client.
drone 13y ago
I agree that its best for Google to focus on enabling Ouya (or any other nascent console developer). I'm not even sure what benefit there is to Google to own a particular piece of hardware, when they could be taking a slice of the pie from lots of hardware manufacturers (through ads, of course, or enabling technologies). A better place for Google, IMO, would be looking at how they can re-define what the console experience should be - they have a potential Kinect killer in Glass. I'm afraid that Apple might be out of their league in this regard. Everything about the AppleTV screams "day late and dollar short" to me. I'm not sure their expertise in mobile experience can be easily translated to the big screen in front of the couch. Just throwing some common games on an AppleTv and calling it a gaming console seems a little silly.
Pxtl 13y ago
I imagine that if Google expands the Play Store standards to include console apps that do not conform to the all-touchscreen conventions of Android, then Ouya will be able to get Play Store support. The Ouya guys insist that they tried to get Google to support them but that you must have a touchscreen to get access to the play-store.
- tmzt 13y ago
  Certainly, and the reasons those standards were put in place were good ones. There where devices with less than usable touchscreens (including resistive) and in some cases no touchscreens. These are the myriad of devices from Shenzen, one after another, running Android derived from AOSP. At the same time, these devices were only one of the problems. Google was fighting against companies putting the Market on devices that could barely run Android, couldn't run 3D games that were available in the market, didn't support playback of video formats that were commonly used in the games and other applications, and had other limitations. The availability of the devices contributed to Android's popular image as a low-end platform, with Apple's iPhone being the premium device. Remember, this was during the Android 1.0 and early 2.0 days. At the same time, it was clear that Android needed to support multiple platforms. I asked one of the developers in IRC at the time when we would see a "set-back box" running Android, or systems for vehicles. The response was along the lines of "let's concentrate on phones first." Now we are seeing a perfectly reasonable restriction in the Market (now Play Store) license being used to exclude a new product category from the officially supported application store where Google collects a healthy cut. Also, doesn't the Ouya controller have a touchscreen, and even run Android on it's own internal CPU/GPU? It's not clear to me from the Kickstarter description but it would make sense. The trade-off here for Ouya is either collecting the share of the revenues for themselves, including possibly through their own free-to-play credits system, or having a large number of partially supported games which were not designed to use a controller. I can see that whether it was the original plan or not, having their own application store makes sense for Ouya if they can get the developer attention they need. That's really what I'm talking about here, Google's careless implications of creating a competing console may have the effect of confusing potential buyers at Target or GameStop as to which Android console to buy. The result being they buy neither.

by tmzt 13y ago

simonh 13y ago

What's in it for Google? There's always been a reasonable argument that it benefits Google to have a diverse mobile device ecosystem, in which open standards compliant browsers and apps that can access Google services are a baseline feature. Their nightmare scenario was a world of locked down mobile device platforms with browsers hard wired into proprietary web portals and services that cut them out of the loop. TV is a different medium though. It's useless as a web browser platform and Google app style services have never worked will on them either. The control interface is just too clumsy. So as a general web and services access platform it's not that attractive. What TV is good at is video presentation and games. Google's never going to make any money on games, either on mobile or on a TV platform. They do have youtube though, so that's really the only viable route they have towards revenue on the TV. The problem is, nobody making an Android based TV device has any incentive to include a youtube service on it except Google. If Samsung say produced an Android based TV device, what's in it for them to support a Youtube app? Better to strike a revenue sharing deal with Netflix, Hulu, HBO, etc. They could revenue share with Youtube, but then Google is only getting a slice of the revenue, instead of the whole lot from Google's own TV device. Google is already getting squeezed out of their own Android ecosystem by companies like Samsung and Amazon rolling their own default apps and services for their devices. On an open Android platform on the TV, that effect would be considerably magnified.

Pxtl 13y ago
Google makes money off the Play Store, I imagine; a TV is a good Play Store client.

drone 13y ago

I agree that its best for Google to focus on enabling Ouya (or any other nascent console developer). I'm not even sure what benefit there is to Google to own a particular piece of hardware, when they could be taking a slice of the pie from lots of hardware manufacturers (through ads, of course, or enabling technologies). A better place for Google, IMO, would be looking at how they can re-define what the console experience should be - they have a potential Kinect killer in Glass. I'm afraid that Apple might be out of their league in this regard. Everything about the AppleTV screams "day late and dollar short" to me. I'm not sure their expertise in mobile experience can be easily translated to the big screen in front of the couch. Just throwing some common games on an AppleTv and calling it a gaming console seems a little silly.

Pxtl 13y ago

I imagine that if Google expands the Play Store standards to include console apps that do not conform to the all-touchscreen conventions of Android, then Ouya will be able to get Play Store support. The Ouya guys insist that they tried to get Google to support them but that you must have a touchscreen to get access to the play-store.

tmzt 13y ago
Certainly, and the reasons those standards were put in place were good ones. There where devices with less than usable touchscreens (including resistive) and in some cases no touchscreens. These are the myriad of devices from Shenzen, one after another, running Android derived from AOSP. At the same time, these devices were only one of the problems. Google was fighting against companies putting the Market on devices that could barely run Android, couldn't run 3D games that were available in the market, didn't support playback of video formats that were commonly used in the games and other applications, and had other limitations. The availability of the devices contributed to Android's popular image as a low-end platform, with Apple's iPhone being the premium device. Remember, this was during the Android 1.0 and early 2.0 days. At the same time, it was clear that Android needed to support multiple platforms. I asked one of the developers in IRC at the time when we would see a "set-back box" running Android, or systems for vehicles. The response was along the lines of "let's concentrate on phones first." Now we are seeing a perfectly reasonable restriction in the Market (now Play Store) license being used to exclude a new product category from the officially supported application store where Google collects a healthy cut. Also, doesn't the Ouya controller have a touchscreen, and even run Android on it's own internal CPU/GPU? It's not clear to me from the Kickstarter description but it would make sense. The trade-off here for Ouya is either collecting the share of the revenues for themselves, including possibly through their own free-to-play credits system, or having a large number of partially supported games which were not designed to use a controller. I can see that whether it was the original plan or not, having their own application store makes sense for Ouya if they can get the developer attention they need. That's really what I'm talking about here, Google's careless implications of creating a competing console may have the effect of confusing potential buyers at Target or GameStop as to which Android console to buy. The result being they buy neither.