'OUYA' Android Console for $99

MS can't drop to $100 without taking a loss. The nice thing about being MS though, is that they can afford to take a loss long enough to bury their competition. However, with a market of free games, even Microsoft will have a tough time competing with Ouya. Its simply not the playing field that MS is built for. We'll see what they do.

 

I think I kind of want an OUYA... I want an ouya and play TOB on my tv!!

 

And you're so sure of this.......how exactly?

Because it's totally impossible that the Ouya team will have all of this set up by near launch date, if they don't have it set up already.

 

Its impossible to send out a patch for a hardware defect . I see no problem with waiting this thing to actually hit stores, and then if it looks good pick one up .

 

Is there any news regarding indie developer support on the new MS/PS3 consoles? Or are they going with the previous business model of AAA.

 

No. Aside from vague advertisements for the Wii U, not much info has even been hinted at from MS or Sony. (Except Microsoft's "we're pretty sure you'll see a new XBox within a year"; which could mean anything like "see? this xbox 360 is blue!")

Maybe they'll play it the same as they've done in the past. Don't tell ANYONE until a week before we release. Then see if the developers can produce a bunch of games in that week!

 

http://www.playstation.com/psm/developer/index_e.html

There are certified phones and tablets. So...imagine if Sony were to PSM certify their Internet Player, eh?

 

X720 or however it will be called dev kits have been out for quite a while with different devs commenting on it.
Also informations from the 'invite presentation' to it in London leaked a few months ago


So unlike the PS4, there are at least solid informations on its existance as well as dev hardware in the wild for the next xbox, which means that it could hit for the 2013 holiday season, which is rather unlikely for a PS4 unless they just finally solved their secrecy problem and therefor does not have enough solid leaks.

But Sony on the other hand is in a superb position. They bought Gaikai last month, which could allow them to expand the live of their platform and bring PSVita + PS3 offerings to a whole new level.
Especially after the news that OnLive is basically giong out of business and will restructure itself into a whole new, much smaller company, that brings Sony in a for them at least unique 'Power Position'.

Nintendo has already promoted its plan to get all games into retail and digital so thats their approach for the future right now to overcome the problems that dedicated consoles are facing right now with less and less shelf space that forces you to use online stores to find the game you want. Its though worse for mobile than home consoles, especially with nintendo not discontinueing the DS / DSi which steals valuable 3DS shelf space

 

Looking at Lauder's portfolio - do you think he's going to try to flip OnLive or try to keep it going? HTC took a hit. Have to wonder what this will mean for Ouya...

 

@dreamora
And Sony for some strange reason will automagically have all the infrastructure problems solved. This is an investment into the future plus a certain tiny percentage today, nothing more, nothing less. It doesn't solve any issues today but consoles related i could imagine Sony wanting to use it also to push the Vita plus enlarging the life cycle of the PS3 in parallel to the PS4 and who knows maybe even trying something completely different.

From what is known about the OnLive acquisition(?) it's beyond me why someone, beside of existing contracts, should make business with them anymore until things got revealed but on the other side i also don't expect too many people having a too distinct moral/money ratio in the longrun.

Ahh, i'm looking forward to the next iteration of real consoles.

 

Something that could make the Ouya even more enticing, would be the outcome of some of what Google's doing with AOSP. If they can get it to work more like "Windows" - breaking out the hardware drivers, even though there would still be hardware fragmentation - there would be less OS fragmentation.

 

I am a fan and backer of ouya. I found out here: ouya forums that I need to learn Unity 3d to start developing games for ouya. Thats why I am here, sorry for my bad english

Where can I start learning the basics of Unity 3D that I probably can one day develop a game for Android?

Thanks for the help.

 

Here's my preferred Ouya forum. Specifically for game devs.

 

Google walker boys Unity, start from their .

Also go ahead and download the Unity SDK , start messing with it . You have 3 programming languages to pick from , C# , JS and Boo, pick wisely

 

Oh! Missed a perfect opportunity for an Indiana Jones reference.

Walker Boys is good. 3dBuzz also has some great tutorials, starting with Unity fundamentals.

 

Unity is not the only way to make games for Android, though I'd say it's as good as any place to start.

 

After reading like ALL of this I feel I need to explain a couple of things.

"Free to Play" does not mean a game is free.
It means there are no subscription costs.

WoW is not Free-To-Play as there are ongoing costs associated with the game, whereas a game like Halo IS free-to-play as once you own the game (through buying it) it is free for you to play it.



Now, I've seen a lot of hate for this console on this thread and frankly I'm surprised. This console has a huge amount of earning possibilities and as its geared towards gaming and will have a gaming oriented user-base I'm incredulous that you all don't see the potential.

I mean, the fact that there will be more games than "apps" on the Ouya store ALONE should get most of you excited as there is a much higher chance that your game gets noticed.

Getting big on a platform like the Ouya (while providing less money than getting big on iOS) will gain you more notoriety from a specific userbase thats already committed to spending money (see the 40,000 Ouya Backers).

Having gained a small sum of cash and a name for your product, then porting it over to the larger mobile market would actually be a BETTER way for indies to not get lost in the mobile sea am I right?

 

Could you start by explaining why you edited the quote? You can click on the little blue box with the double white arrow to see the actual quote. Which in this particular case was this:

A comment I made about my opinion on how Ouya could improve (as were the majority of my comments). What can Ouya bring that's not already there...kick it up a notch - etc, etc, etc.

I've never said it means that. In general, I've taken the standpoint that F2P games cost the consumer more.

Technically, that's only part of the definition.

No, Halo is B2P. It's buy to play. B2P != F2P.

DDO, LotRO, STO, and the like are F2P. There's no initial investment nor continued investment.

Most of the "hate" has been well explained. Most of the "hate" has actually been criticism - not "hate", so to speak. Much of the "hate" has been about how it could be a better productive. Much of the "hate" has been constructive.

This makes absolutely no sense. Is it easier to find a needle on an otherwise empty plate or in a haystack?

More games is better for Ouya - not the developers. It will be more difficult to be noticed and to earn income because of the crowded competition. It's not going to be the somewhat closed atmosphere of Nintendo, Sony, nor Microsoft. It's the Android market without a screen...

You're confusing software and hardware here - as well as the amount of money spent. Look at the number of Android devices compared to iOS devices. Android destroys iOS. Lots of people buy cheaper Android devices compared to more expensive iOS devices. So yes, you're likely to see a large number of backers for a cheap device. That does not translate at all into the app side though. The Android userbase is well documented when it comes to apps/games and not wanting to pay for them.

Again, you're suggesting that by getting lost in that sea you can avoid getting lost in that sea...which makes no sense.

It's a pseudo market within the overall Android market. As long as your revenue is larger than your investment, ie profit, go for it. As I've said in various other threads on related matters; you also simply cannot look at direct revenue only. You might take a loss on the Ouya, but the additional attention that it draws may increase your revenue stream somewhere else - so your overall returns turn a profit.

In considering the development for Ouya, you're going to be facing issues similar to Metro development - as far as the combination of input available to the consumer. Personally though, I think that's great - because it also means that you're developing beyond just the touch for phone/tablet. I'm big on providing options to the customer. Develop the game for touch, controller, etc - and - you've got the folks that just use touch, those that want to hook up to a TV, use an addon device, etc, etc, etc. Think about the various devices that folks are already making - the various game controllers - for both Android and iOS. There's a demand. So in thinking about that with Ouya, I can only see that improving the overall market appeal for Android.

The issue arises though, as I brought up in the thread regarding mobile/console - why buy an Ouya if you can just dock your tablet/phone and get the same or even better experience (because of better hardware)...? That's where Ouya has to kick it up a notch. In some aspects, Ouya is proposing to do that. In others, not so much...

...but again, if developing for Ouya can improve your overall revenue stream/profitability - then if you can afford the investment, it would be foolish to ignore it.

 

I don't understand your reasoning here. How does purchasing a platform with a major selling point of "free to play games" imply that the purchasers are committed to paying for games? The OUYA will not just give us free or easy sales.

 

I think it's more a case of the "free to play" aspect being a major selling point in the acknowledgment that players are not committed to paying for games. That varies, mind you, because there are both the F2P and B2P crowds. B2P's willing to buy the game, but they do not want to pay maintenance. F2P's not willing to buy the game nor pay maintenance.

Within those groups though, there are those that are more than willing to pay for DLC, adventure packs, weapons, potions, boosts 'n buffs, vanity items, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc...er...etc.

I've just been reading about the issues Funcom's had with TSW (personally, I think it's a great game - I'm just poor). There were comments during the beta, that I've seen more of and more of in recent years during other betas. "This is a great game, but I'm going to wait until it goes F2P." Barely 200k units sold...add in the folks that leave...etc, etc, etc. It hasn't been good for Funcom.

DC Heroes... wham, bam...same.
SWTOR... wham, bam...same.

Yes, that's focusing a bit too much on MMORPGs (but that's where, as a gamer, I'm focused - not as a developer, lol - lol - er - lol).

But if we look at little rinky dink casual games, people (for some insane reason) would rather spend $1000 on a game than spend $5-15 for it...as long as they did not have to pay the $5-15 up front.

Yeah, it gives me gas...but that's where it's headed.

 

The only quote I've been able to find in regards to this "free-to-play" issue is one where they promise "All Ouya market games will have "Free-To-Play" downloadable demos", So I'm unsure where you're getting that.

And as the updates already specified a 70/30 split of sales revinue from the Ouya marketplace that seems to contradict the interpretation you gave of "Free-To-Play".

In regards to this:

The Ouya is a proprietary device that will have an OS built upon android, the fact that root access is easy does not make this an 'android' device nor does it draw parallels with the mobile market. The market segment that this product targets differs incredibly even from the tablet buying public.

Just by calling it a Game-Console and marketing it as such, regardless of the interconnectivity or media-playing capabilities of the device lend themselves to that differentiation between products.


That being said, yes piracy exists, and is incredibly prevalent, and not just within the mobile community.

I very much doubt the Google Play marketplace is going to be on this device, so (for android) you go from being 1 in 500,000 to being 1 in lets say 3000 releases in a year.
If they have a tag-based system of organising their store even better as i'm sure it will be VERY easy not to get lost in that "sea" of 3000.

 

I suggest cgcookie also. The Lunar Lander series is a wonderful starting point.

 

3000 in a year? I somehow expect it'll be a lot higher than that.

"Easy to find" is not the same as "hard to get lost". The big ticket item with online stores is not being easy to find, it's not having to be found in the first place.

 

So, I came across this for Xbox 360: http://gamingillustrated.com/happy-wars-first-free-to-play-game-for-xbox-360/

Outside of the fact that the game just looks fun - it's the thing about the F2P... Xbox 360 and F2P/item shop stuff...?

But wait, what's this - Crytek F2P? http://www.shogungamer.com/news/14490/crytek-founderceo-comments-f2p-future-company

I asked in another thread about the Atari Arcade and if it would affect folks - but with the concept of F2P, low prices, etc and the indie world - what does it mean when Sony, Microsoft, Crytek, and pick somebody at random is also heading that way as well...

...how will things like Ouya compete?
...how will indies compete?

 

Just to clear a couple things up. Ouya has said that the Google Play store will NOT be on the Ouya.

Also, all games must have a F2P option. They may then monetize in any number of ways (whether the free version is just a demo, or if they choose a subscription model, micro-transactions, etc.)

Finally, the Ouya's major selling point is that it much more accessible to developers. Crytek and XBox can make F2P games all they want, but if the price barrier remains at tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars, all you will ever find there are the AAA games (AKA remakes and sequels). Its just not a viable option for indies. This means that Ouya will (for the time being anyway) have a broader selection of games. Its not a matter of Ouya competing with them. My question is how will they compete with Ouya?

 

Um, that's kind of the point though.

Hand A: A smaller selection of AAA games...that are F2P.
Hand B: A wide selection of games, garbage trying to pass itself off as games, and even some pearls...that are F2P.

Um, that's kind of the point. Do you want to hunt through a bunch of games looking for that pearl...or.......

edit: Okay, this is a wee bit negative. It's one thing to point out potential issues such as this, but I do not want to come off as a simple naysayer. Admittedly, I'm much better at putting out fires than dealing with perspective issues such as this; but hey - here's a shot.

It's going to require rolling the sleeves up and kicking everything up a notch. It's going to mean putting in a lot more work than you might have thought you had to do before. It's going to require more social networking, all of that marketing jazz - getting the word out - developing a following. Yep, those things that the successful indies are doing now - they're going to get bumped down - so either you can fade into nothingness or you can raise the bar, accept the challenge, and make awesome games. The mediocre games...are going to fall by the wayside. What might have been passable amongst the F2P crowd's going to change... you've got to change too. It's time to put those doubts to the side, you've dreamed of doing this, you enjoy doing this - any frustrations you've faced are minor obstacles - your passion is stronger - your desire can overcome it...you will make the games that everybody bitches about out of sheer jealousy. Your customers will touch themselves when nobody's around - because your game rocks their world that much. Your game's going to rock their world so much, they won't care if somebody is around. Because you've got the brains, you've got the heart, and with great products like Unity - you've got the tools you need... you're an indie game developer, they may not see you coming - but they will never forget you once you arrive.

 

Yes, on an open platform, there will be a ton of crap. The folks at Ouya are also aware of that, having stated that the library will tend to cater toward the higher rated games. So games worth a look will be right there in front of you. However, I also can't count the number of times I've gone through the PSN and just downloaded a ton of no-name demos just to see what I could find.

We also shouldn't lose sight of the fact that there are some pretty awful AAA games out there. AAA doesn't mean quality (you're talking to a guy who dropped $60 on X-Men Destiny).

While there will be AAA games on the Ouya as well, we also have to keep in mind that F2P doesn't mean innovative either. These companies are still dropping tens of millions of dollars to develop their F2P games and will, therefore, still be taking less risks in their concepts. This is the strength of the indie market, and the Ouya is clearly the best option for indies to hit the living room.

 

Kind of off topic, but it is kind of funny how the trailer tied into some of the reviews saying that choices did not matter. "For you, choice and destiny, are the same." - lol.

No doubt there's going to be a lot of stifled creativity with regard to AAA games - they're corporate. Suits tend to do that kind of stuff.

edit: There may also be more room on the Ouya, if you go along with what this interview suggests (yes, just one opinion): http://www.gamezebo.com/news/2012/08/30/edmund-mcmillen-interview-part-4-living-room-conspiracy

 

This brings up a really good point . The Oyua is going to be an Ultra small market, its cool if you already have an android game and want to spend a few hours mapping the controls to Oyua .

But if your not developing for android , Oyua doesn't make it worth it to start ...

 

I read that article too, and kinda chuckled. Here's what I heard:

"I spent a lot of money getting SMB on a console. The Ouya allowing it for free is insulting."

also

"There is no 'port to Ouya button'" Translation: Why oh why didn't I build my game with Unity?

Anyway, why is everyone holding on to this thought that the Ouya is going to be a tiny market. Even in that interview; "36,000 people are going to own one".

Umm... no. 50,000+ people pre-ordered one. And that was just through minor viral marketing. There's probably tens of thousands more waiting for it to hit the shelves, and millions more haven't even heard of the thing yet.

Most of my gamer friends didn't know a thing about the Ouya until I told them.

 

Hang on, in what world do you think porting is free? How do you know it will just work out of the box? How do you know unity won't charge for it? There's no guarantee that it will have the same hardware as android. It might have compatibility. It might have ridiculously annoying os loops to jump through and social networks to support using java or C++ native.

It might actually have little to no monetary income for the developer. Lets say it takes a week to port? Lets figure that we need to market to get people to see it. I think I would be out of pocket at least 2-4k without breaking sweat just porting, well, ANYTHING even if its a 1 button click if the target is not what I am currently developing on.

If I was doing it for free or shovelware, I would be out of pocket for a day's work. Whats a day's salary? nothing. What if you need to pay your business partner 50% of everything? What if you are taxed on your earnings? What is the real cost of porting on unity?

Sure unity provides a 1 button method of being compatible and getting something working on another machine. It doesn't remap controls or playability for you. It doesn't make the game stop sucking because the playability is thrown completely out of whack on a new controller. It doesn't suddenly run into performance issues that were completely unexpected despite the console only costing 99 dollars (it is going to have some pretty S***ty hardware no matter how you look at it for that price) and that's just the start.

Porting professionally with quality and proper testing takes much more than a week I'd imagine.

Promising to port on Ouya is worth a pledge, or a cost. Because its promising in some form or other to get the game (even if its free on Ouya) to the people who pledged for it. This does cost money! It really does - but only if you understand time = money.

And we've all argued at the people who don't understand that.

 

Porting isn't cheap. Porting is nightmare... even using Unity.

 

...when did I say it was free?

I simply implied that porting a game with Unity is easier than with other engines.

 

I was about to type porting can be a nightmare especially if you're using Unity but this would be unfair as it strongly depends on where you're coming from and where you want to go. :O)

Whilst it's true that nothing is known officially, it would make sense that the Ouya export option is included in the Android licence. This way the Android licence also could get more important for Unity. Depending on your content and after the usual initial problems are solved i would expect porting to the Ouya being quite a smooth process (if the Ouya works as intended), especially if you're coming from a game designed for a mobilish performing device because a) it's a fixed platform and b) it might perform still better than a typical phone. Still you need to test things, maybe implement some system specific functionality. Then again you don't do it for free because you get your reward by the sales afterwards, also if you sell it in a crossy way (like the famous HIBs) because there are users who only might be interested in the game because of this specific platform.

What i found quite interesting are the tiny things you can witness when playing/observing a game. For instance some strategies in Fieldrunners (from the famous HIB again) on OS X or PC don't work the way they do on iOS. For some reasons the timing is slightly different and therefore strategies which are successful but close on one device don't work out anymore on the other platform. Depending on your game you might need to tweak things in order to make them in an appropriate difficulty again, also Input related as steering by a real controller is a lot easier than by some virtual jostick. These things can take some time. The devil is a squirrel.

 

Porting is indeed a nightmare. The trick is to design for all of your target platforms up front so that there's no need to port in the first place.

I'm currently creating an iOS/Android/PC/Mac game with Unity where platform switching is literally a matter of selecting another platform in the menu. And if I had the appropriate licenses I'm confident it'd also switch to consoles with little or no trouble. And except for Facebook integration and local storage access (both of which are outside of Unity's control) I haven't had to do any platform-specific feature implementation (you could debate that touch-screen controls are platform-specific, but I'd argue otherwise). So when OUYA comes around I'm pretty confident that at worst I'll have a day's work ahead of me to tweak the controls appropriately and make a new platform deploy, and that's if it doesn't just work out of the box.

Ok, so lets assume that 5 times that will buy one within 6 months of release. That gives us 300,000 users. Compared to iOS where there are already many millions of users. It is a small market compared to others, by an order of magnitude.

On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that they not only all know about iOS, but that some of them even have an iOS device.

 

And I'm sure more people own televisions than iPhones. And more people have heard of Monopoly than the iPhone, but they aren't the same market, so I'm not sure why we're comparing them...

 

Sure they're different markets, but the numbers can still be compared. The argument was that OUYA isn't a "small" market because there are 50,000 pre-orders, but comparing that to the number of active iOS gamers - or any other platform - and the number is indeed inferior, even if you artificially inflate the OUYA figures to account for people who might buy one in the future.

 

My point is, what if I'm not looking to make a mobile game? Then why would I care how many iPhone users there are?

The whole point of Ouya is to make developing for living room consoles easier for indie developers. The simple fact remains that there are a lot of things I can build for Ouya that simply can't be done on any mobile platform.

Sure, you could hack a game controller into an iPhone, then plug that into your tv, but at that point, your market (the number of people you can expect to do that for your game) has dropped below the number of "potential" Ouya users.

 

The living room and video games.

Do you know how i remember this? The first console which made it into our living room was the VCS 2600. Due to that gaming those days meant Asteroids, Missile Command and Defender, it was primary me any my father playing. Then after some time my mother wanted to watch some TV and later on my father as well. It didn't take too long and time sharing was invented. Some time later i had my own TV, so that i could play and my parents watch TV if wanted. And i wasn't the only one.

If you aren't living alone the living room isn't really the best place to play video games if you're really interested in them. Therefore i find this focus on the living room kind of a blender. It would be interesting to know how many people are really playing in the living room these days. There are so many options. You could take your notebook with you into the living room, use a handheld, don't get on the nerves of the others who want to watch a movie, enjoy a console game already, talk to each other, relax, ..., stay in your own room and play a computer game or do something completely different. And so on...

 

The figurative "living room". Personally, we have 2 consoles in our living room and 2 others downstairs. The point is playing a game on a television with a game controller in your hand. (The specific room in which that happens is irrelevant.)

 

Give it a year guys , it might take off , it might be the next Ngage ...who knows( but wouldn't you be pissed if you wasted time and money for market that shut down after 6 months ) .

 

I would be pissed if i make an exclusive game to that platform and never get something out of it. But that's not the case, I'm planning to port our current project to OUYA and see what's going on.

 

Wouldn't you be pissed if you didn't make a game for the Ouya and someone from these forums ends up creating the next video game icon for a new console? Personally, I don't want to pass on an opportunity due to skepticism.

 

Not really, since I know I'd still have to make a damn good game . You can devote time and effort to supporting a new and untested market( will devs make money , who knows) if you want , but I'd rather chill and wait , patience is a virtue

 

Famous last words. Trust me, patience is anything but a virtue in this industry.

And aren't you planning on making a "damn good game"? I know I am. I wouldn't waste time making one that I thought sucked.

 

To each his own , I just don't see the market . Nothing stops M$ from announcing a 100$ 360 the day the Oyua comes out , bundle it with halo 4 and its game over for ouya .

If your just buying the Ouya and your going to spend 3 days porting, then cool . But i wouldn't devote much more effort then that .

 

I'm more excited about Linux support in Unity 4 , I'm not all that great of a dev, but considering the crap the Linux community has to contend with when it comes to gaming I still can whip something up .

 

Speaking of small markets?

I do agree though, I'd love to make some games compatible with Linux. Its a small market, but a fiercely loyal community.

 

Yeah, I agree entirely. That's the fundamental purpose of this platform, and anyone getting hung up over the fact that it's built on Android is missing that point.

My point was that compared to existing markets this one is small. Which isn't a reason to avoid it necessarily, but every established gaming market out there is many many times the size of this one. (No surprised - they're established and this one's the new kid on the block.) So this market alone isn't likely to make your game profitable unless it's a tiny game.

What's more, to begin with this market success stories like Angry Birds won't just be rare exceptions, they simply can't happen. Even if you got the holy grails of 100% penetration and 100% sales conversion, there aren't enough users.

That won't stop me from putting my game on OUYA, but that platform alone isn't enough for anyone except hobbyists, at least for now. With some luck that'll change in due time.

 

Plus, the games on the Ubuntu Software Center have a higher rate of people buying the game after looking at the game's page than those on the App Store (OS X and iOS). There is also a large monetary potential from those loyal users of Linux.