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The promise was that the bloated console industry was ripe for low end disruption akin to what the ipad had done to pc sales. The 2012 Tegra 3 hype train was a

by Steko 13y ago

The promise was that the bloated console industry was ripe for low end disruption akin to what the ipad had done to pc sales. The 2012 Tegra 3 hype train was also full steam ahead and it's easy to promise your games will look awesome on kickstarter. The reality was that console makers were not bloated -- they were already selling at cost and the Ouya was just another console and a bad one. The games library wasn't compelling and new top Android games were already incompatible with the underwhelming Tegra 3. Performance on the whole was bad, PS2 quality. It was certainly cheap at $100 but with the hands down superior Wii at $150 (and probably somewhere behind most users tvs) it just wasn't cheap enough. On top of all this is was marketed exclusively as a console when it should have been going after people buying the Apple TV. The potential is still there though and maybe Ouya has enough cash to regroup and be the company to deliver a compelling product. This news doesn't exactly bode well on that front though.

sp332 13y ago
People do play games on their phones. The selling point of the OUYA was that you can play games on hardware from (at the time) $400+ phones on a $100 console that came with a real controller. And developers could target a single hardware platform and run it all-out without worrying about battery life. Openness was a major point in favor, which the Wii doesn't have. It doesn't look like anyone is taking advantage of it though.
- pjmlp 13y ago
  In some European countries you can get €400+ mobiles at €1 if you go for a two year contract. Many of such mobiles do have HDMI connections and bluetooth gamepads available. Then there are lots of cheap USB pens running Android that you can just plug into your TV. So there isn't much a Ouya can offer against these options.
  - sp332 13y ago
    Ouya doesn't lock you into a contract, so the prices aren't really comparable. HDMI connections on phones are a lot slower than dedicted screens due to buffer copying - MHL 3.0 is supposed to fix that. Do the cheap USB pens have comparable graphics, USB expandability, and look as good as the Ouya? :)
    - pjmlp 13y ago
      > Ouya doesn't lock you into a contract, so the prices aren't really comparable. Average Joe/Jane don't care about it as they already have the phone anyway. > Do the cheap USB pens have comparable graphics, USB expandability, and look as good as the Ouya? :) Quite a few to choose from, both cheaper and more expensive than the Ouya: http://www.conrad.de/ce/de/overview/0413084/Android-Mini-PCs http://www.conrad.de/ce/de/overview/0413084/Android-Mini-PCs Maybe their GPUs aren't at Ouya's level, but they are good enough for most Play Store titles.
jkestner 13y ago
Yeah, I think a lot of the momentum was driven by people who wanted to put XMBC on it, but that didn't mesh with the message they wanted to project. And the rest is an interesting study in how hard it is to jumpstart an ecosystem, especially after casual games have been driven to a price point that requires a user base two orders of magnitude bigger to have a chance.

by Steko 13y ago

sp332 13y ago

People do play games on their phones. The selling point of the OUYA was that you can play games on hardware from (at the time) $400+ phones on a $100 console that came with a real controller. And developers could target a single hardware platform and run it all-out without worrying about battery life. Openness was a major point in favor, which the Wii doesn't have. It doesn't look like anyone is taking advantage of it though.

pjmlp 13y ago
In some European countries you can get €400+ mobiles at €1 if you go for a two year contract. Many of such mobiles do have HDMI connections and bluetooth gamepads available. Then there are lots of cheap USB pens running Android that you can just plug into your TV. So there isn't much a Ouya can offer against these options.
- sp332 13y ago
  Ouya doesn't lock you into a contract, so the prices aren't really comparable. HDMI connections on phones are a lot slower than dedicted screens due to buffer copying - MHL 3.0 is supposed to fix that. Do the cheap USB pens have comparable graphics, USB expandability, and look as good as the Ouya? :)
  - pjmlp 13y ago
    > Ouya doesn't lock you into a contract, so the prices aren't really comparable. Average Joe/Jane don't care about it as they already have the phone anyway. > Do the cheap USB pens have comparable graphics, USB expandability, and look as good as the Ouya? :) Quite a few to choose from, both cheaper and more expensive than the Ouya: http://www.conrad.de/ce/de/overview/0413084/Android-Mini-PCs http://www.conrad.de/ce/de/overview/0413084/Android-Mini-PCs Maybe their GPUs aren't at Ouya's level, but they are good enough for most Play Store titles.

jkestner 13y ago

Yeah, I think a lot of the momentum was driven by people who wanted to put XMBC on it, but that didn't mesh with the message they wanted to project. And the rest is an interesting study in how hard it is to jumpstart an ecosystem, especially after casual games have been driven to a price point that requires a user base two orders of magnitude bigger to have a chance.