Ouya Ships!

[Dos_Box]

The Kickstarter funded Android based console is now shipping it first units to the people who funded it. At £65 ($99) It will be interesting to see what effect this will have on the games industry, but given the hardware restrictions of the unit my guess would be it is aimed at the more casual gamer rather than those who would invest a lot more time and effort in larger console based titles.

 

BBC News - 'Disruptive' Ouya games console shipped to first supporters

[Sunnyknight]

The Kickstarter funded Android based console is now shipping it first units to the people who funded it. At £65 ($99) It will be interesting to see what effect this will have on the games industry, but given the hardware restrictions of the unit my guess would be it is aimed at the more casual gamer rather than those who would invest a lot more time and effort in larger console based titles.

 

BBC News - 'Disruptive' Ouya games console shipped to first supporters

 

Was reading this recently.

 

Doubt it'll have a HUGE affect on gaming industry.

[tmcd35]

I was excited about this when I first heard about it, but I think they have made some disastrous choices in order to a) keep to afar too low price point, b) be mobile phone Android compatbile, and c) get noticed by the press...

 

nVidia Tegra CPU - I'd have used a AMD APU

1Gb Ram - should have been at least 2Gb

8Gb SSD - wtf? 120gb 2.5" SATA would have been better

 

My design choices could still have been Android based and I think producable for around £150 retail. Would have stood a better chance at competing with the big boys. As it is you'd be able to get a new PS3 super slim or Wii-U for not much more than the price of the Ouya by the time PS4 and XBox720 launches as the end of the year.

 

Then add to that the recent announcement that they are going to ship with Nintendo emulators Actually, I think the law suite with Nintendo will have this off the shelves before too long!

[Dos_Box]

I think the whole point was that it will play the same games that those with 'doid phones currently play hence the lower specs. I agree about the storage though. 8GB isn't enough these days to store any number of Android titles.

[X-13]

Then add to that the recent announcement that they are going to ship with Nintendo emulators Actually, I think the law suite with Nintendo will have this off the shelves before too long!

 

Emulators are entirely legal.

 

Some of the reasons you'd use one, however, aren't.

 

 

For instance, I could download a Wii emulator and play homebrew games. Or use it as a test enviroment for making homebrew apps.

 

Nintendo don't like it, but their views don't matter when they law says it's ok.

[tmcd35]

I think the whole point was that it will play the same games that those with 'doid phones currently play hence the lower specs. I agree about the storage though. 8GB isn't enough these days to store any number of Android titles.

 

I think it you're right. But I think it was the wrong market to focus on and a missed opportunity because of it. If it wasn't for the gimmicky controller hardware and lack of third party support - Nintendo almost have it right with the Wii-U. Low cost, reasonably powerful, built on standard hardware, update the spec a little more often then the two bigger players.

 

Emulators are entirely legal.

 

I'm pretty certain it's not that clear cut. Besides, It's one thing making an emulator and having it freely available on the internet. It's another selling it with a system that one might argue encourage piracy. It's doubly foolish, if you were to do such a thing, to pick a company that is as anti-emulation and litigation happy on the subject as Nintendo are!

[X-13]

I'm pretty certain it's not that clear cut. Besides, It's one thing making an emulator and having it freely available on the internet. It's another selling it with a system that one might argue encourage piracy. It's doubly foolish, if you were to do such a thing, to pick a company that is as anti-emulation and litigation happy on the subject as Nintendo are!

 

IANAL, but I think it IS that clear cut. Emulators, in and of themselves, are legal. It's the ROMs and ISOs that aren't. Even selling it would be fine, providing it's just the emulator.

 

But, I agree that this is risky. It depends on how they market it. If they don't advertise it as a way to play Nintendo games [or 3rd-party copyrighted games for those consoles] then there isn't much Nintendo can do about it. It's just a bit of software.

[X-13]

The problem with an emulator is that at some point it has to run code, and its the code that is copyright.

Most emulators ship without the 'bootcode', and without it the emulator cannot function.

 

Indeed. It's a strange situation where some of the parts are ok, some are questionable [ROMs/ISOs of things you physically own] and others are illegal.

 

Then you get companies saying one thing, when in fact it's the opposite... [Like Nintendo and "emulators are illegal"]

[fromtheinternet]

8GB storage is a non-issue, as you can always plug in more via SDHC or even USB. Similarly with the processor, as an AMD jobby would need to be completely custom to fit in the same amount of space Intel's NUC is something that comes close, but that's still £150 for a 1.1GHz Celeron. I mean, you can run the Tegra chip off a mobile phone adapter... Plus going with AMD would mean having to completely tailor Android to your system. It would never see the light of day.

 

I think they've made the right decisions based on the time they've had (let's face it, look how long it took the Raspberry Pi to build up some steam), and gone for the right platform with Android. It's a familiar development environment, and easy to port existing stuff to. Plus it's open, which means my dreams of a decent XBMC-running 'droid device are alive and well.

[plexer]

This one has just been launched on KS MiiPC - Power to the Parents! by ZeroDesktop, Inc — Kickstarter

 

Ben

[Dos_Box]

This one has just been launched on KS MiiPC - Power to the Parents! by ZeroDesktop, Inc — Kickstarter

 

Ben

 

Now that looks quite interesting and I wouldn't hesitate to put that next to my TV. With full Android and XBMC. Win-win

[Arthur]

At £65 ($99) it will be interesting to see what effect this will have on the games industry

Practically zero effect, since it isn't going to cost £65 in the UK (for obvious reasons) and it's unlikely to appeal to the mass market. GAME will be selling the console for £99.99 with additional controllers costing £39.99 each.

[plexer]

The cost of additionaly controllers is ludicrous.

 

Ben

[CyberNerd]

Android supports native bluetooth gamepads, so I doubt you'd be tied to the official ones..

[Arthur]

It's a shame about this...

 

http://i.imgur.com/Xmb0nTP.png

[Arthur]

Engadget have already received their OUYA!

 

http://i.imgur.com/vhiORO2.jpg

 

http://i.imgur.com/sVrrTKh.jpg

 

http://i.imgur.com/0OPdiyU.jpg

[Arthur]

Android supports native bluetooth gamepads, so I doubt you'd be tied to the official ones.

Correct...

 

... since it's simply a Bluetooth controller, the OUYA gamepad can be used on any Bluetooth-compatible device; to that same end, any Bluetooth-enabled controller works wirelessly with OUYA (so, Sony's DualShock 3, for instance, but not Microsoft's Xbox 360 gamepad -- you'd have to plug in a wired 360 gamepad via USB). (Source)

 

Although I hope they fix the lag...

 

Troubling, however, is the noticeable lag between the game controller and the OUYA. From games to UI, the lag was a noticeable issue -- other journalists we spoke with encountered the same issue. It's not something that's impossible to fix, of course. Even Nintendo's speeding up its Wii U software issues in an upcoming patch, so it wouldn't be a huge surprise to see OUYA correcting the lag issue before June's retail launch.

Edited April 1, 2013 by Arthur

[Arthur]

Wow!

 

www.theverge.com/2013/4/4/4180242/ouya-review

 

http://i.imgur.com/r4IVS22.png

[CyberNerd]

Quite tempted to get one now after reading that. Looks awesome.

[SYNACK]

Wow!

 

www.theverge.com/2013/4/4/4180242/ouya-review

 

http://i.imgur.com/r4IVS22.png

 

Eep, thats worse when you find out that it is 3.5/10. Does show its linux underpinings though, its great, it can be whatever you want it to be, you just have to build it yourself, from scratch

Edited April 4, 2013 by SYNACK

[plexer]

The 2 points it falls down on are software and games selection both issues that can be sorted.

 

Ben

[SYNACK]

The 2 points it falls down on are software and games selection both issues that can be sorted.

 

Ben

 

You forgot the controler, with its lag and questionable build quality, again, it can be sorted but not simply with a software change (well excluding the lag).

[plexer]

Any bluetooth controller could be used so find a better one and sort the lag out in software?

 

Ben

[SYNACK]

Any bluetooth controller could be used so find a better one and sort the lag out in software?

 

Ben

 

Quite possible but that is another extra cost. They may be able to fix the controler design before shipping but it is going to be uphill for them. It interests me as a media player but I'd probably just retrofit a Rπ which is cheaper, smaller, quieter and cheaper. They are going after the same kind of market and so something like the π is more likely to be their competition than something like the Wii. If the controler stays the same perhaps it would be better for them to offer a option to ship without one so you can build it up with componets you prefer like the Rπ.

[CyberNerd]

I don't see why they give it 9,7,6,3,3,6 out of 10 then mark it as overall 3.5 whilst saying how hackable it is and how you can use it as a PC etc. Doesn't make any sense.