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Why I Think The OUYA Will Succeed (And Get Better)

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by PhobicGunner, Dec 22, 2012.

  1. Dreamwriter

    Dreamwriter

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    Here's the video (of Android games) NVidia uses to show the power of Tegra 3

    Right now the closest thing right now to an Ouya is the Asus Transformer TF700 - it works with USB game controllers out of the box (assuming you get the USB adapter or Transformer keyboard), has 1GB RAM, Jellybean 4.1, the exact same model of Tegra 3 used in the Ouya (though not overclocked like the Ouya will be), supports 1080p, and can output to TV over HDMI. Although mirroring the display to TV does lower performance a bit.
     
    Last edited: Dec 26, 2012
  2. KRGraphics

    KRGraphics

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    Maybe I could buy this tablet to test a game on it...
     
  3. PhobicGunner

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    Make sure not to test with HDMI mirroring, on Tegra that dramatically reduces framerate

    But yeah, if this thing is on the level it seems ( more powerful than the original Xbox ), we're gonna see some very nice looking games I think.. :)
     
  4. KRGraphics

    KRGraphics

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    I definitely will not do HDMI mirroring... I was also looking to test my droid games on a Nexus 10 provided I can find a way to use a gamepad on it...
     
  5. Starsman Games

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    The ONLY way you will see a price point higher than 99c becoming the norm is if Ouya forbids such a low price in the first place. Indies are horrible business people and they will frantically lower price in a race to the bottom, hoping volume will make up for it. As soon as enough people go for 99c, everyone will feel forced to do the same.

    People think the mobile markets are stuck at 99c because people are not willing to pay more. That is not true. The markets are stuck at 99c because that's what developers got customers used to. I think Apple's biggest mistake ever was to give developers the granularity of increasing price in US dollars.

    Prices should have been stuck at $4.99 and up, with 5 dollar increments (and yes, the average price would have normalized around $4.99.)

    Also Apple should have never allowed IAP to be part of free apps (it was not at first.) In fact, this kind of holds true in the console market. Currently console makers dictate the price and demands titles be priced at specific tiers, with the default one being around $60. Even Steam forces pricing rules. If Ouya does not do the same, it will become a freemium/99c wasteland.

    You should take a peek at the XBox Live Indie Games section. It's full of 5 minute casual garbage. It's what happen when you let the inmates run the asylum.
     
    Last edited: Dec 26, 2012
  6. Starsman Games

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    First pictured tablet in that list is the Asus Transformer, a $599 tablet... and never called by name... I have a strong feeling that anyone entrusting any payment information to anyone in this list is in for a world of painful identity theft or/and becoming a victim of fraud.
     
  7. n0mad

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    +1000 to Thars.

    Also, about Ouya, the biggest problem I can see is control scheme. Android games are made for touch controls. Ouya is made for physical controls. That means any forthcoming Android game that wants to support Ouya will have limited touch controls so it can be transfered to 4-6 buttons + pad.
    And that also means their phone version will all have a visual pad. No more clever touch schemes. This problem alone drastically reduce the potential.
    It's like if a new handheld device was created to support Wii games.

    edit : ah crap, +1000 to this post I mean :p

     
    Last edited: Dec 26, 2012
  8. Starsman Games

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    I don't think that’s a HUGE problem. I am sure your game uses virtual controls. There are a lot of games that just can’t make the transition (Cut the Rope.) Most people that develop games with touch controls (I guess) actually develop their games to acknowledge keyboard input and either code it out, comment it out or platform-hide it. It may just require small tweaks to get that code to acknowledge a gamepad. Most time consuming bit should be coding the UI to a control, though (shops, options, configurations, etc.) where you may be forced to develop some control-focus logic you never developed for a point-and-click/touch system. Still should be no huge problem.

    But yea, not every game will fit the console. I think Rovio got Angry Birds to somehow fit an XBox controller so I'm sure people will figure out how to make most their games work IF they are interested to do so (I'm on an extreme wait and see mode with little-to-none-hope-at-all.)

    I don't think the goal was ever to capture those games, though, but instead to lure in the GameLoft-type games, the most hardcore consoleish games that have been shoehorned into mobiles so far.

    BTW: things I care about:

    1) Combat Piracy. Yes. You cant ever fight it entirely off, but you should make an active move to casually avoid it. Things like requiring the most recent version of the Ouya OS to run newly downloaded games or updates may be a good first start point. Devs should not combat or embrace piracy, the Ouya team is the one that should be in charge of that.
    2) Price control (read my previous post on it)
    3) Marketing (if they dont push this on national TV for at least a month or two before launch, this will be forever just a small geek group thing... and yea a million is small.)
     
  9. imaginaryhuman

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    I'm finding myself in a position to consider maybe buying a OUYA. I don't own any consoles, never have... except an N64 on which I played the first 3D Mario game which gave me motion sickness, after which I got a refund... but that's another story. ;)

    I see a definite strong movement towards `games on the tv`, I mean obviously other consoles are doing this already but Apple definitely is going to make a move. AppleTV is currently limited but whether they start coming out with a combination of a TV-set and an iMac or some kind of entertainment-only user interface, or maybe even an `Apple console`, most likely with its own apps etc, I'm sure they're going to be competing in this space with Ouya next year. Since a lot of people own flatscreen tv's who don't necessarily own game consoles yet, there's lots of open market potential for new customers who haven't yet realized what's possible.

    It seems to me some people here are put off perhaps by the fact that Ouya is only $99, that the Tegra 3 isn't much beyond iPad 3/4 in terms of performance, correlations between `mobile` just because of Android's history on mobile devices and the use of Tegra 3, plus the free-to-play model.. and for some reason so many are thinking this means really crap cheap games with terrible prices. But I think we're also forgetting that EVERY game HAS to be free-to-play, which means that up front there is ZERO cost. Every game is $0.00. It is then up to the game developer pretty much to implement some kind of payment method, in-game ads, unlocking content, or whatever... not sure how OUYA will participate in that part or have a way of standardizing any of it, but we'll see. But starting off with $0 as the entry price that might eliminate entirely this idea of racing to the bottom, since with free-to-play the payments tend to be more gradual, spread out, hidden, introduced over time, etc making the price somewhat more transparent in general. Also the console isn't even out yet and the marketplace will be what WE make it (plus the big companies of course who will migrate to it pretty fast). ... but as always, new platform = hardly any software = extremely potent opportunity to get in there EARLY with your game/app and soak up the excessive desire for new content which will skyrocket your sales.

    I think Ouya will be quite interesting for Indie developers... being `not a mobile device` and having a big screen and reasonable hardware performance, that's a pretty good recipe for supporting indie games, especially the kind of lower-budget games like 2D scrollers and so on, and smaller 3D games. It depends how they will position/feature/make discoverable these kind of games once the heavy-hitters and existing IP (angry birds etc?) starts migrating to it and swamping the marketplace with their marketing muscle, and most likely getting most of the higher voted/reviewed games. But so long as there is some `fairness` there (whatever that is) it could be pretty interesting. It's definitely more of a console marketed at being `by the people for the people` kind of thing, which also ties in more with the indie vibe. So I feel quite good about it.
     
    Last edited: Dec 26, 2012
  10. n0mad

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    Right now it's impossible for Kinetic Damage to be ported on a physical pad :/
    There's more than the virtual pad going on, in fact (tap enemy HP nodes, hold a button to change other buttons, etc). It would require either a 12-button pad, either a 8-button but with awkward interaction feedback. It's the typical control scheme that feels very fluid on touch controls, but would feel completely awkward if ported to physical pad :/

    Indeed it's not that huge a problem on the short view, but let's consider one of the possible consequences :
    Ouya owners will want to play their games both on their phone when away, and on their console when they're home. This will lead to Ouya players who will badmouth a game if it's not Ouya compatible, because they paid for an OS support, not a hardware. At first, it will just be "ok, nevermind", but we all know how a majority of consumers can become quickly very vocal when they feel righteous, especially when "it looks easy to port" (= don't understand the portability problems).
    It will lead to several 1-star ratings, just because not Ouya compatible.
    Then targetted devs will flip out and make everything for their game to be Ouya compatible ... which means 4-button virtual pad gameplay ...

    I'm ready to take bets : Let's observe the Android market now, the general gameplay of current top games, and compare it to 3-4 monthes after the Ouya is released. I'm 90% sure you will suddenly see far more "arcade type games" than now (= virtual pad experiences).
    I'm not saying it's a bad thing, as I love arcade games. But that means less innovation on new touch controls, which was the main driver in gameplay innovation in recent years.

    On the other hand, I played some fantastic physical control type indie games on Xbox/Steam... yeah. But PC/Xbox doesn't have to compromise between Touch or Physical.

    I don't know, it's not a huge deal indeed, but it will separate a part of the market between Phones/Tablets and Ouya, for sure. I can't see this separation being well received by gamers.


    edit : this part in grey has been nullified by PhobicGunner's precision two posts below.
    Yellow card for me !

     
    Last edited: Dec 26, 2012
  11. PhobicGunner

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    They did mention a bit how this would work for various games. They're basically going to have an incredibly generic item purchase system, where items can be either "consumables" (like, say, in-game currency) or they can be "entitlements" as they referred to it (like, say, unlocking the full version of the game or perhaps unlocking some DLC).
    This to me seems like an incredibly good move especially for players, who can download and test out any game they want before deciding whether to purchase or not.
    They've also stated that the devs are actively working on a Unity port of the ODK, btw :)

    +1
    I think a lot of people forget that this console is first and foremost aimed at attracting indie developers. The games indies make very rarely require the latest and greatest hardware, and I think the OUYA will be more than powerful enough for those games.
     
  12. PhobicGunner

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    This is another thing people keep forgetting. The OUYA's OS is Android-based. Android-based does not mean straight up Android. They never did say it would support all Android games, in fact the only reason they advertised this is for developers so that developers have an idea what they're working with long before the console hits manufacturing lines.

    So Kinetic Damage in it's current state does not work well on an OUYA pad. That's OK; not all games will fit well on all platforms. People aren't going to badmouth your game for it (it's not like OUYA connects to Google Play or something, it has it's own marketplace)
     
  13. imaginaryhuman

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    You have some good points about different platforms influencing each other and cross-platform `cloud` expectations. I bet it will lead to many games being less touch-interfacey. .. but that said there are also lots of mobile games that have touch controls and yet there are games on other devices without touch, so there's still going to be a lot of games unique to the platform, or with an adaptation to it. And as *always* the hardware will define many of the limits and boundaries when it comes to what kinds of games will appear on it, since hardware acts like a cap on development technologies to some extent. It's like when development platforms started including more physics libraries and suddenly everyone was making physics games. ... many devs stay within the envelope of what the tech can already do, some find ways to overstep the limits somewhat, but for the most part the hardware defines the spectrum. So I'm sure Ouya games will be more `consoley`, more action games with the dpad and 360-degree pads, more super-nintendo-style/megadrive-like games perhaps, and not forgetting the controller has a touch thingy so I'm sure some clever folks will create `new` types of gameplay that best suit it.
     
  14. khanstruct

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    That's only partially accurate. Every game has to have some form of free play. That's not the same thing as Free to Play. It could be something as simple as a free, playable demo. Granted, you could consider the FULL game "downloadable content", but that's a bit of a stretch.

    Either way, the Ouya really is an incredibly enticing platforms for indie developers. That alone will build a huge game library which will drive more people to buy the console.
     
  15. n0mad

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    Ah, ok my bad, I totally didn't know about that.
    Then my whole post can be disregarded :)

    Let's hope so ! :)
     
  16. Starsman Games

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    I don't think it's a realistic expectation (unless Ouya releases their own handheld.) For one, although they will use Android, and Android is open source and free to use, the "Android" trademark is not free to use openly. Only way you can use that trademark in any marketing material is if you reach some agreement with Google, and right now that also involves forcing Google Play, Maps, Browser, and other Google services into the device.

    The press may be able to say it's running Android, but it's not something the masses will actually be aware of. Just like many Kindle Fire owners have no clue they are running Android on their tablets.

    So not only is it a silly assumption that I think will not manifest, but also no one should expect what they buy in Google Play to run in an Ouya.

    Edit: woops, beaten to it.
     
  17. Starsman Games

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    Or deter. It all depends on the quality of said library.
     
  18. n0mad

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    I find it very unexpected though, to have its own marketplace. That's quite risky for a "young non AAA" console to try to build its own game market.
     
    Last edited: Dec 26, 2012
  19. Starsman Games

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    It is risky. And it's not just about their own market, but things like social integration. Things like XBox Live Matchmaking and Achievements are not optional features anymore, and you can’t expect any developer to make their own, since fragmenting those features kill the point of it.

    It is necessary, though. They need to pull it off, all of it. Even Amazon started their own GameCenter/XBoxLive social tool features for Kindle Fire Apps, and they are not only about games. They just realize how important the features are.

    These are things why I doubt the success of the platform. We are not just talking about a machine that is properly made, but also services that fulfill their requirements to work, and well... to be there at all, of course.
     
  20. imaginaryhuman

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    For better or worse, richer or poorer, I just bought one. :D

    Now I just gotta finish my game to sell on it :D

    How is that working with Unity, anyway... will I just need my existing Android license (freebie) or will there be a whole new `ouya license`?
     
  21. PhobicGunner

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    I don't know about what UT is doing, but on the OUYA website they said they are still working on a Unity-specific API for OUYA
    To get ready for social features, I'm making my game as modular as possible (plenty of interfaces/subclasses for everything from logging in to triggering achievements...) so I can put in a sort of test version of the social features now and get everything working, then when the Unity ODK actually comes out I can create an OUYA-specific version of the social features without too much trouble
     
  22. imaginaryhuman

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    It's good to see that Unity is supporting the platform, and getting in there pretty early will very much set them up as `the` game development software to use on this platform... or least a very big contender.

    It would be nice if there was just some small `tool` or something that Unity releases for free, and then maybe needing a standard Android license to build to ouya, something simple like that, but we'll see. Unity has to make their money somewhere.
     
  23. Starsman Games

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    I don't think Unity is doing anything other than the usual "make it run on Android". Think PhobicGunner meant that the Ouya team is developing plugins and stuff that will make it easier for you to use core Ouya features like social features, the gamepad, etc.
     
  24. kenaochreous

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    If Ouya's specs are lower than PS3 and Xbox 360 and if gaming is it's goal then Ouya's specs are a huge issue.
     
  25. Starsman Games

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    Its goals are to make a smartphone-type device plugged to the TV. It's piggyback riding on the commoditizing of hardware thanks to the competitive smartphone field.

    Lots of people seem to enjoy gaming on these devices despite them being "underpowered", and the Wii itself seemed to do darn well in the console space despite being insanely underpowered to it's peers.

    Power MAY be an issue, but don't think it's the console's biggest hurdle.
     
  26. PhobicGunner

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    They're an issue if you wanna go the AAA developer approach of "blur the hell out of the screen and throw normal maps on everything" to making game graphics.

    If, however, you are SMART about how to approach your game's graphics, you can make some damn good visuals that run lightning fast.
     
  27. TylerPerry

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    But its sort of like how well would mobile games stand up in the living room? Like on the go I go for my 3DS before my phone when I need some entertaining... I don't see how this will change in my living room like why grab my ouya instead of my Wii-U... the Wii was different as its not the graphics but the games no games in my opinion are as fun as super smash bros brawl and thus the Wii is as worthy of my living room as my ps3... seeing as no games are this good IMO on the Ouya it maybe is not worthy.

    Also these games that look good on phones will be all jagged and polygonal on the Ouya.

    Any way I think it has potential in the indie gamer scene and people who are right into games but not like everyone who has a Wii will have an Ouya... but still enough I would probably make a game for it.
     
  28. PhobicGunner

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    Maybe. This is not necessarily a requirement of the platform, but more dependent on the artist. I've seen some incredibly low polygon models, but they didn't look jagged at all.

    I mean, look at this guy:

    http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2012/324/4/8/game_ready_lowpoly_ninja_by_mightydargor-d5lmhc8.jpg

    When you see the wireframe, you realize it's not very many polygons at all, but they just made sure the polygons were placed in the most important areas and you can really tell.
    Also take a look at Shadowgun, those are some real low poly models but they look fantastic.
     
  29. Aguy

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    Games look good on phones? Do they? I never downloaded one on my phone due to big hands...
    Play them on my tablet and look good but can't picture these games looking good on a phone when it would be like 1/3 the size.

    Anyway, would think that falls on the art person. If I make something that's say an inch. I'm going to have to make sure it can scale up to whatever size it needs to be, not just be a stretched out picture. I see what's you're saying but I would think most people will take this into consideration before releasing something...though I see a lot of people release crap and think it's okay.
     
  30. KRGraphics

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    I just saw that model, and it looks fantastic! The outline makes it look very clean and neat... and I think we all have our work cut out for us if we are going to support the OUYA... I have many ideas for games, and I want to definitely go for AAA quality on that small ass rubik's cube... :)
     
  31. npsf3000

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    Go on, explain your reasoning for this?
     
  32. Starsman Games

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    Think he is mixing terminology. With a larger screen, model simplicity, gaps, hard edges and the like all become a bit more visible. It CAN be worked around with art to a degree, and it's not "jagged"... although jaggies can be a bit of an issue in a larger screen too, if the system does not have the horsepower to kick in some anti-aliasing on top of all it's doing.
     
  33. PhobicGunner

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    It doesn't really need AA imho. It's already got support for 1080p (and to a higher degree than Xbox, most Xbox games only ever render at 720p tops)
     
  34. Starsman Games

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    Well I have 20/20 eyesight and I see jaggies on an iPhone's retina display at arm's lenght. I know most people are not 20/20 but I'm picky! But at the same time, many console games already have no FSAA and as you note also are rendered at 720.

    However: most games in these consoles are rendered 720p precisely so they can do more on-screen work. The consoles are perfectly capable to push 1080p, just as you say the Ouya does. If developers don't resort to similar tricks to deliver... well you are taking even more away from what the game can actually do.

    Again, though, not claiming this is a prove of doom. The Wii pulled through so far with insane level of jaggies running at 420ish.
     
  35. PhobicGunner

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    Having done some work with XNA, the specific reason they don't render at 1080p is because games these days use deferred rendering, but on the Xbox there is a specific area of memory you have to use for render targets, so the more render targets you have the smaller you have to make them in order to fit in memory.
    However, this is not a problem with OUYA because, well, you aren't going to be using a lot of render targets anyway.

    EDIT: Also note, by the way, that to some extent television screens help a lot with jaggies (they tend to be far more noticeable on PC screens than on TV)
     
  36. KRGraphics

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    Are you also alluding to the very low poly nature of the models?
     
  37. Dreamwriter

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    Sure, if you take a game made for a 320x480 screen and blow it up to TV size, it'll be jagged and polygonal. But if you are making a game specifically for 720p or higher for the Ouya, it has a lot of potential for looking great even on a large-screen TV.
     
  38. PhobicGunner

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    Yeah, lots of people are also really underestimating the power of the Tegra3 (just because it's used in a few mobile devices), with a few cheap visual tricks and careful optimization.

    Let me give a concrete example.

    I'm developing an FPS that will be aimed at OUYA. It will be a bit of a cross between Unreal Tournament and Halo with some RPG-style character progression (as you level up, you can pick character stats to upgrade)

    - My levels will not have any sort of day/night cycles, so I can of course just use a static lightmap. I will also use Light Probes as a super-cheap way to cast environment lighting and shadows onto characters (this technique is used by all Source Engine games)

    - I recently picked up a free decal system from the asset store, so I'll probably put together some system to project shadows using the decal system instead of the built-in Projector (since the default Projector method can result in excessive draw calls). Additionally, nearby characters will use rendertextures applied to the decal, similar to the Character Shadow script on the Unify Wiki (distant characters will disable this and switch to a fallback blob texture to avoid too much computation)

    - My characters will be lit with a very similar shader to that found in Shadowgun. Characters will use per-pixel lighting for a single directional light, and use per-vertex light probe lighting for all other lights in the scene.

    - I figured out a way to fake per-pixel specular using a baked cubemap in the Reflective-VertexLit shader, with cubemaps baked from an editor utility. As a bonus, I can edit the resulting cubemap and add in static environment reflections for that extra visual kick.

    - Finally, since there will only ever be one first-person weapon mesh onscreen at any given time, I can afford to splurge here and use the Reflective-Bumped VertexLit shader as a replacement for the aforementioned Reflective-VertexLit specular trick.

    All in all, I can make some assumptions and optimizations specific to how my game is set up, and the end result should look very pleasing to any gamer but still be fast enough to run on the OUYA.
     
  39. techmage

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    Thats not a very good reason.

    http://www.apple.com/airplay/

    https://www.google.com/search?q=iph...0003da4073894&bpcl=40096503&biw=1422&bih=1070
    https://www.google.com/search?q=iph...0003da4073894&bpcl=40096503&biw=1777&bih=1221


    All the ouya is, it's a horribly gimped, non-mobile, cell phone that doesn't have it's own screen, and is in a bigger box. Only people who can't afford a cell phone will get it, or people who are too lazy to click 'Airplay', and turn on their bluetooth gamepad will buy it. Or people who just have some intense nostalgia for game boxes sitting in their living room will get it. Which all around, is an extreme minority I'm going to guess.

    And how frequently is Ouya hardware going to be updated? Because it's standard for most people to get a cell upgrade every 2 years. So every 2 years they are going to put down $200 for greatest cell phone currently available. Ouya will have to update its hardware every 2 years to stay ahead of cell phones. Once someone puts down $200 for their cell phone that has better hardware than an ouya, and does everything an ouya does, why are they going to buy an ouya? Because they are too lazy to click 'airplay' or turn on a bluetooth controller? Ya right.

    Ouya MIGHT have a chance if it gets a KILLER ouya only title on it from the get-go. But I find that hard to believe, and certainly wouldn't bet on it.

    I think ouya is cool, and the big indie movement is cool. But consoles are just old technology, they are no longer needed. The cell phone does everything, and people want fewer devices, not more. What ouya really should be is a big campaign to create a standardized and really high quality game pad for iOS and android. Cause admittedly no gamepad has yet been standardized.... but one will emerge eventually as it gets more popular.

    It's not my intention to crush your hopes for ouya, or start a big argument here. I'm just expressing my honest viewpoint here, I don't see any hope for the ouya.
     
    Last edited: Dec 27, 2012
  40. PhobicGunner

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    Your logic. It has flaws.

    What is it about OUYA that makes it a "non-mobile cell phone"? OS? Hardware? By those criterion, the Xbox is nothing but a seriously gimped PC.

    And sure, you can connect your phone to your TV and plug in a gamepad, but the EXACT SAME THING can be said about PCs. So again, by those standards the Xbox shouldn't have succeeded. But it did, and still does.

    EDIT: Ah, I see you're one of those anti-console people who think the Xbox and PlayStation franchises are doomed to eventual failure.
     
  41. nipoco

    nipoco

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    From someone who is obviously biased 'psi.kart released on iOS app store'

    Consoles and smartphones aiming completely different target audiences.
     
  42. techmage

    techmage

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    I don't think consoles are doomed to failure, however I do think in 5 years or so we are going to be seeing more game revenue flowing through mobile platforms, phones and pads more than anything else.

    The PC to Xbox transition that occured like 10 years ago was due to a handful reasons. I was actually a heavy PC gamer at the time and watched as each and every one of my heavy PC gamer friends gradually transitioned to the XBox. In a way you could say the XBox was a heavily gimped PC, but I see there being a handful of specific reasons why people went to the xbox over PC. Those reasons were, ease of use, and that the xbox was much more economical and easier to move around.

    People were tired of dicking around with PC hardware, tired of dicking around with Windows problems, solving driver issues, solving installation issues or whatever. Xbox had none of this, buy the CD, put it in the xbox, works perfectly.

    The Xbox was cheaper, buy one Xbox for $300 and your good for 5 years or so. Whereas a PC is like $1500 and ideally should have a $300 upgrade every few years.

    The xbox could be taken to friends houses more easily, my friends like to LAN them together to play. Having PC LAN parties was extremely tedious to move all the PC around.

    Those are the reasons I saw people went to the xbox over the pc.

    Now lets look at Cell phone over the ouya.

    The cell phone has just as good an ease of use, buy the app, play the app. iOS has none of the 'dicking around' issues that dealing with PC hardware, windows issues, and drivers use to have. Ease of use between ouya and an iPad is equal.

    The phone is even more mobile and even more social. So for the reason of playing with your friend, the phone beats out the ouya.

    Now for the economical reasons. Ouya will be cheaper, but what I think still puts it at a great disadvantage is an Ouya is optional device. A cell phone isn't. Everyone has a cell phone, everyone gets a cell upgrade every 2 years, everyone will upgrade their cell phone to the latest if possible. It is a given that everyone will have a cell phone with more powerful hardware than ouya. People will already be gaming on their powerful cell phone. This isn't one system vs another in the context of which one should you buy? Its in the context, why should you spend more money on ouya that doesn't do anything more? As the cell phone is just a given. The cell phone as a gaming device will be $0, because everyone will already have purchased it for $200 non-gaming reasons, there will be non upfront additional 'console costs' to start gaming on your cell phone. The Ouya will be a game only device for $100 or whatever. It will be cheaper to just get and use your cell phone.

    Cell phone games will be more mobile, cheaper, with just as good of ease of use. For all the reason the xbox initially beat out the PC, the cell phone is beating out ouya.
     
    Last edited: Dec 27, 2012
  43. techmage

    techmage

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    Yes I am arguing my bias.

    But I didn't come to these conclusions from knee jerk reactions, I've gone through alot of logical thought process here, which I hope is demonstrated. And by taking into account as much as I logically could, I foresee iOS and the iPad and iPhone as becoming the gaming platform which has the brightest future.

    Also understand, I only argue what I argue so that someone can demonstrate me as wrong. I'm not arguing to be right. I am just arguing to share my thought process on what I have currently logically deduced. If someone can shed light on something new I may have not taken into account, please do so, thats the only reason I type out everything I have typed. Not to be right, but to show my logic and hopefully maybe someone can improve it if there are areas that need to be improved. I'm completely open to the ouya being viable, but as far I can think it through, iOS is going to be bigger and ouya will struggle.

    I see ouya as becoming alot like dreamcast, alot of people will buy them and it will create this cool little ecosystem of indie games and modders and whatnot, but gradually fade out.
     
    Last edited: Dec 27, 2012
  44. PhobicGunner

    PhobicGunner

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    Not true. Many people purchasing the OUYA may not already have a cell phone. I certainly don't (even though I want one).
    If/when I do get a cellphone, I certainly won't be upgrading it every time a new one comes out because, in all honestly, I simply cannot afford to. And I can't be the only person on planet earth who thinks this, right?
    Additionally, I make the argument that gaming on a phone simply cannot and will not touch a console, not because of graphics power and hardware, but because touchscreen controls just don't feel like physical gamepad controls. Sure, you can plug in a USB gamepad on some phones or possibly even a Bluetooth gamepad, but games on mobile are first and foremost designed for touchscreen controls, and any gamepad support is either accidental (as may be the case in some Unity games) or an afterthought (after all, very few people will even think to buy a third party gamepad and try it with the game).
    There's also the matter of fragmentation. Android is traditionally very fragmented, but OUYA will not suffer from this issue. All games developed for OUYA will work on every single other OUYA.

    EDIT
    Transition? There never was a "transition", or at the very least what did happen I don't think could be called a transition. (the word implies that PCs were phased out, which of course they never were even in the slightest)
    Some (in fact quite a few) people purchased an Xbox probably because they loved console games and it seemed like a good choice of console, not because they didn't want to mess around with PC hardware. A lot of those people still owned gaming PCs and regularly played games on them, too.
    The fact is console games, PC games, and mobile games are all aimed at entirely different audiences. You can't compare them in an either/or sense because they are each unique in how they are presented and who they are presented for.
     
    Last edited: Dec 27, 2012
  45. techmage

    techmage

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    I agree gamepads lack on iOS devices.

    It's my personal hunch that this will change over time as it gets more popular. As more gamepads emerge, more games will have explicit support, a gamepad will become standardized. I think in probably about 2 years we will see a gamepad emerge as the most popular for iOS and it be standard that any game that can support will support it.

    I have no solid evidence to back this notion up, only time will prove it. But I think it's a sound assertion. If iOS lacking a standardized gamepad is the only thing ouya has going for it, I think ouya is doomed.

    As for the cost of cell phones. I think its inevitable that everyone will have one that can play games at some point. A $200 cell phone now, will be a $40 cell phone in two years, and probably free in four years. Plus cost of entry into the smartphone market is getting cheaper each year. In 5 years I think anyone who wants to play a game will have a cell phone that can play that game.
     
  46. Hendrixlt

    Hendrixlt

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    The Ouya isn't even out yet so how are phones beating it now.

    As someone has already stated, your logic is flawed. I could buy laptops that beat the 360 in specs for $500 3 years ago. It's just as portable as a console and can plug right into most HDTV's. Yet the 360 is still selling and selling well.

    You may need to get out of your bubble more and realize that not everyone is of your mindset.
     
  47. Hendrixlt

    Hendrixlt

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    That logic assumes that everyone who buys a smart phone wants to play games on it and vice versa. Nothing can be farther from the truth.
     
  48. techmage

    techmage

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    Inside the context of the theory I laid out in this post:
    http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/16...-Get-Better)?p=1120124&viewfull=1#post1120124

    It doesn't matter if a $300 laptop could be comparable to a $300 xbox. Laptops didn't have the ease of use that a xbox had. Thats why laptops continued to lag behind xbox for gaming for some time.

    However I do think that is actually changing with Steam. Steam is making the ease of use of gaming on windows much nicer. I think we may see PC gaming take back some market share in coming years due to the combination of windows not being such a laborous task to deal with and fix any more, viable PC gaming hardware getting cheaper and steam making the gaming experience much more streamlined. Not to mention there being alot easier to access, and lower spec games (facebook games and zynga) which make playing games on pc much easier.

    Some stats have actually showed this happening:
    http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/97047-thank-you-farmville-pc-gaming-will-soon-overtake-consoles
     
    Last edited: Dec 27, 2012
  49. techmage

    techmage

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    Back in the early 00's, console took a huge bite out of PC gaming market share. Thats what I refer to when I say 'transition'. Albeit, you are right, it is not a full transition where everyone threw out their gaming PC's, transition is the wrong word to use. But I am just referring to the tipping of scale towards consoles.
     
  50. Dreamwriter

    Dreamwriter

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    Have you played iOS games via airplay? The lag is HORRID, the framerate takes a serious hit, and the colors suck. It's not good for action games at all. The HDMI hookup is far better, though too expensive and still not a very good solution. The company I used to work for made us use Airplay with an Apple TV to show off our games to the company directors, and we kept having to remind them that our game actually looked and ran much better on real hardware. Modern Android devices have better TV hookups with micro-HDMI, but that also comes with a large performance hit, because the display is being rendered twice (there is no option to only render to the TV and not the device screen).


    How is it a "horribly gimped" cell phone? It's going to be more powerful than most cell phones. It's missing the touchscreen, true, but the same way those cell phones are missing decent physical game controls. As a developer who has been programming commercial smartphone games since before the release of the iPhone App Store (my first one was a launch title for the App Store), who is now working on an Ouya game, I'd say it's far from a cell phone - sure, it has cell phone guts (though clocked faster), but my game would suck being played on that tiny screen, and would suck even worse with virtual controls. The game is playable on my 7 inch tablet, but even then it's just not very good; my game is very fast action and thus requires a large screen to be able to see a decently large chunk of the game world. And it definitely requires a real game controller.

    Now, it is true you can get game controllers for cell phones and tablets. And it's true that (with mirroring and some performance loss) you can have also output to a TV. But that's just not normal for iOS and Android - you can't really make a game that is dependent on that, so it would be a horrible waste for games like mine to be released for those platforms; my potential customer base would be very low, even given the large number of people who own those phones. But the Ouya is setup as a real game console with game controller and TV set - I know that when I release my game on Ouya, every single owner will be able to play it exactly as intended. And I'll be able to optimize my game for it, and know that everyone will get basically the same experience; that is how systems like the XBox 360 have been able to do so much with such outdated hardware (Xbox 360 graphics hardware was basically based on two-year-old tech when it launched).

    You really shouldn't think of the Ouya as a cell phone or anything like a cell phone - it isn't one. It's a budget game console, that has more to do with the original XBox than it does with a cell phone.
     
    Last edited: Dec 27, 2012