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

The ouya is going to have a different target audience the 25-34 older gamers with more money then the 18-24 probably they will have a nice tv with surrond sound but not enough time to play long games 10 hour games anymore well thats okay because you can sit down there and play for half an hour. You are not going to be competing against the big boys or getting lost in the shuffle with 100s of games released per day on the app store, where you have to sell it for 99 cents so unless you are game goes viral and stays on the charts for months its simply not going to make any money. I think that is a much better place for indies but I guess we will see.

 

I can agree that for games that could only work on a gamepad and not have comparative on-screen controls, ouya is currently the only option for such a game to exist.

For iOS to stand over that Apple would have to enable some feature that wouldn't let you purchase the game unless you had a certain gamepad device.

But games could also just put in less than ideal screen controls and inform the player that its best to purchase a certain controller. Gameloft is doing something like that with their stuff, although I don't like their controller and think it is overpriced. But it could pave the road for better alternatives. OnLive was supposedly going to get a standardized controller out as well. iOS not having a good standardized controller out for it yet I really do think is Ouya's biggest advantage, but I doubt it will be like that forever.

The iPad 4 and the iPhone 5 already have faster GPU's than the GPU that is supposedly going in the Ouya.

And I thought airplay was good, if you plug the apple tv into ethernet, and have a good wifi router near the living room its pretty seamless. But still having an HDMI adapter is better and more ideal. Although I realize now that to get a HDMI adapter and a gamepad for your iOS device, you'll probably end up spending $60 atleast.... But eh, will have to see how it goes.

Maybe ouya's ease of use as a tv console with gamepad will get to the market before apple gets any viable standardized gamepad and ouya will end up making a deeply engrained niche market because of it.

But then again, Ouya is android, and any game made for Ouya will be easily ported to Android phones and (maybe) iOS. If Ouya starts demonstrating a high value for a standardized gamepad before Google or Apple does this might get Google or Apple to get moving on making one themselves for their devices.

 

Why get an OUYA when you can get something like this...

These guys reached their funding goal...
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cascadiagames/gamedock-for-iphone-ipad-and-ipod-touch-devices



Gives you old school style controllers, and hooks up to the TV... while charging my phone too!


These guys got funded almost three times as much as they needed to make this controller it's bluetooth and would work for iPhone and Android:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects...ontroller-and-key-finder-pocket-acce?ref=live

http://www.impulsecontroller.com/

Just hook up my phone or iPod touch or whatever to the TV and then use a couple of these guys.

The OUYA may be attractive to devs because of it's low barrier of entry, but... you want to go to where the eyeballs are. How many people are going to own a OUYA who you can't reach in some other way... who DON'T own a Computer, or a smart phone.

 

People aren't going to buy that thing. It's an accessory that looks like a 1990's nintendo device. The same reason why people aren't going to latch on to using physical d-pads on a touch screen - it's an accessory. Until Apple bundles such a control device with every iPhone/iPad/iPod it will not garner anywhere near enough attention from the public for people to just automatically know it's an option. And even then it's going to have to seriously change the marketing of the device so that the game pad is `standard operating procedure` and not just some optional extra that most people don't know what to do with. There's probably good reason why the iPhone etc doesn't already come with stick-on dpads and it's because it's awkward and needs explaining.

There are games for touch screens that very obviously suit a touch screens and tilt controls etc, stuff like fruit ninja, doodlejump, etc.. which are suited to those devices and no other. And then there are games like beatemups, shootemups, platformers, etc which totally suck when controlled on a touch screen. Has anyone played Sonic the Hedgehog on iOs and actually liked the controls? It's sucks, fingers slipping all over the place, losing track of where the control pad is, pressing in the wrong place etc. The control system is the key interface between the user and the device and this has a tonne to do with how playable a game is and how you experience it. Control systems are highly underrated - getting it right is very important, and there will be types of games like this and others that simply work FAR more beautifully from an Ouya handheld control. Anyone tried playing geometry wars on iOs? It simulates dual 360-degree sticks, it's totally horrible to play... there's so much coordination and thinking needed to make sure you're using the controls properly... it's a total buzzkill. Yet that game was/is very popular on a console. Actually there are a lot of types of games that really don't work well on any mobile device. And did I mention that phone screens are really small? Playing e.g. Draw Something on my iPod is pretty darn fiddly compared to playing it on an iPad. Obviously you probably won't be able to play it well on an Ouya either but I don't know enough about how their touch-screen control thing will work.

I've kind of felt for a while that while for people it seems really natural to want to use your fingers and body parts to control things, to actually TOUCH something to control it, and this probably extends also to the motion-sensing control systems, using your body parts to interact with a device is not exactly efficient and it can take a lot of effort. Everyone's all woo woo about it because they can relate to using their hands and waving their arms and whatever and it seems all new and shiny, it's a human thing, but it's also kind of slow and putzy. Subsequently there are many times on a mobile device that it just doesn't seem ideal to have to do all these finger presses and swipes and such to operate something - game controls being an example. Overall I think this trend has been more to do with what people seem to relate to in other areas of life, and thus buy into, rather than what makes for efficient operation. It's clumsy. Give me a mouse or some directional controls!

But anyway. I was just going to say that I own the highest-end iMac (from the previous generation) with a 27" screen and it has a `mobile` graphics card in it. Does that make it a glorified oversized mobile phone? Not even remotely. Just as Ouya is not in any way shape or form a mobile device, nor necessarily destined to have any kind of `mobile games` on it. There is no real connection here. It would be like saying the only apps and games I can run on my iMac are ones I download from the iOs store. Oops, there goes photoshop and whole bunch of other stuff. You could argue that because mobile devices have microchips and transistors, any computer with microchips and transistors is a mobile device. That makes no sense. Ouya is a game console, it will be marketed as one and it will be a whole different ecosystem.

 

There are also some new handheld Android 4.0 consoles recently :

DEA MyPlay : http://project-voodoo.org/articles/...nd-display-observations/1252103-dea-my-play-4



Archos Gamepad : http://www.archos.com/products/gamepad/index.html

 

Your 2010 iMac graphics card: "iMacs have 512MB Radeon HD 5670 graphics, while the 2.8GHz Core i5 iMac uses a 1GB Radeon HD 5750." - 27" Resolution: 2560-by-1440

It's no way a "mobile" graphics card... the Mac Mini has a Laptop graphics card, but it's not the same as a phone/mobile graphics card. My 2010 Mac Mini (not as good graphics as your iMac) can do 1 million triangles, while my iPad 2 gets nervous around 250k tris. (iPhone gets less)

 

I just know it's not a `full blown desktop gpu` ... it's a `high end` laptop/portable/whatever gpu with lower power consumption etc... splitting hairs here, my point remains that Ouya is not a mobile device just because it uses some of the same chips.

 

Your point is wrong then. The Ouya is basically a smartphone with an HDMI output instead of a screen. There is nothing special about that gray box that makes the thing any better than a smartphone.

BTW: I happen to own the same imac, and a pc desktop sitting next to it with a real desktop video card (Radeon HD 7850) the difference is extreme.

 

Again, by your logic, why are consoles still selling well? Just because buying this controller/charger is something you may plan to do doesn't mean everyone will.

 

It really doesn't boil down to tech specs or whether it's a smart phone with HDMI, it's about the `image`, the marketing, the concept, the idea, the social movement, the timing, the viral buzz, the coolness, the developers, the social aspects, etc... there are a lot of elements that combine to determine how successful it will be. If a Ouya is a mobile device with HDMI, than a mobile device is a Ouya with a built in screen. Go figure.

 

My comment on that thing with the plugin phone charger and what essentially looks like NES controllers?
It looks retro. Those controllers look painful (I don't want those sharp corners digging into my hand!) and, well, obsolete. They also depend on the games that you play on the phone actually supporting the controller input. Plus, it's impossible to play games like Shadowgun or Dead Trigger on them. Even an oldie like Doom would be difficult.

As for the handhelds, well obviously those are no competition for the OUYA (nor are they intended to be, I think). The OUYA is meant for sit-down-and-play type games, while those are meant for playing wherever you happen to be.

 

Speaking of sit down and play, that gives me the idea that Ouya players may not just be playing games, but also sitting down for some other forms of interactive `living room art`, perhaps stuff that begins to tap into the social element of people gathered around a tv, possibly much more multiplayer, group/team games, etc There could be some new markets there.

 

This was actually one of the big driving factors behind expanding controller support from two to four. And that's something that simply CANNOT be done on a mobile device.

Additionally, it has direct Ethernet support, which means in many cases far superior internet speeds for multiplayer games.

 

Went to all the links in the thread and those controllers are a nice idea but the market for controllers is minimal in most cases.

 

So after reading all your guys posts and pondering some more I think I'm going to retract alot of what I previously said.

If Apple doesn't move to make a standardized gamepad themselves, and somehow streamline the experience of gamepad + HDMI output from an ipad or an iPhone. Then I think the ouya probably will succeed purely on the fact it does have a standardized controller and streamlined TV out playability.

All these third party Apple controllers I just don't think are going to cut it, Apple needs to make an official one themselves. If they do make one, Ouya may be doomed, if they don't Ouya probably fairs a strong chance. I'm kind of 50 / 50 on if Apple will do this. Apple has ( I think ) demonstrated a strong interest in trying to cut into the video game market by continually outpowering all other devices with twice as much GPU power, which I suspect is because they want to declare themselves as the ideal game phone and tablet. They've also stated that they recognize that games are the top revenue producing apps on their platform. Apple also largely owns the music industry now, is closing in on the move and tv show rental/distribution business, its only another step for them to cover games. For me, alot of things point to Apple trying to work there way to become a viable game platform.

BUT, if they don't get some streamlined, and reasonably priced, way to stick your phone or pad into an HDMI out with a controller plugged into it in the next year or two. That chunk of market may go to something else like Ouya.

The one thing though, Ouya I think may have the opportunity to get a bubble of support and attention, but due to it's position it's in a risky space. If Ouya is demonstrably highly succesfull both Google and Apple only have to release a (ideally) $30 peripheral and some new flag in the App Store like 'Apple GamePad and Console Out Ready!" For Ouya to have any longevity it needs to be just succesfull enough to sustain itself, but not so widely succesfull that Apple or Google recognize it as something they should do.

I don't know at this point....

But thats why we're all developing in Unity and not native iOS or Android code

 

I'm not entirely sure Apple is even going to attempt to rival the OUYA.
Although they obviously do want to make their phones the top mobile devices for gaming, they've stated before that they do not want to break into the game console space at all (their last attempt was a miserable failure).
And as I've stated before, even streamlining the HDMI out functionality and making a standardized gamepad for iPhone won't hurt OUYA sales too much, since even in that case iPhone games will still be primarily designed for play on the iPhone by itself (since that's how 90% of iPhone users are going to be using the device). And of course, while OUYA will definitely see some awesome family/friend-oriented splitscreen multiplayer games, I predict that iPhone will see none at all (for obvious reasons).

Of course, as I've said before, I still wanna see OUYA stuff a big ol' full blown GeForce card in the next incarnations of the console (even if the Tegra4 is as powerful as NVidia is promising, the GeForce would push this thing way over the top and maybe even attract some of the big names)

 

I'm not quite sure what's going to happen with the hardware a year or two from now, or how long the `Ouya 1` will be around before it gets an upgrade ... because NVidia has like a 5-year plan of new models of Tegra being introduced, so you'd think maybe within a year or two there would be grounds for a new version? Are we going to see several shorter-term iterations?

 

I've been throwing this idea around in my head. I imagine that would be kind of fracturing for a "home console" esque system that has to be replaced every 8 months, even if it stays at $99.

 

Yeah, I do agree that it would be better for Boxer8 to wait and not release a new OUYA console every few months. In fact, it might be beneficial to wait the entire 5 years and then release a new version with the latest-and-greatest Tegra chip.

 

Here's good news for folks interested in developing for the Ouya - I got a sneak preview of the SDK release notes, which is gonna be released at midnight tonight, and it's got a lot of Unity support in the new version. I originally thought we'd have to wait for that, guess I was wrong.

 

Hells yesh, been waiting for the SDK for a while now!

 

I just realized something... Apple does not like buttons... they really really want things to be touch. So Apple will never make their own XBox like controller. It's just too many buttons. (i'm being absolutely serious).

 

Apple Magic Gamepad ?

Dual thumb thouchpads?

 

Just a hook up to a previous discussion, where I mentionned that Ouya owners would be expecting phone games to be Ouya compatible.
I was corrected with :

After reading a new Kotaku article, I have the confirmation why I assumed that masses were thinking that Ouya would run Google Play games.
Just look at the comments : http://kotaku.com/5971684/the-ouya-is-real-heres-an-unboxing
Most recurring reason why people want an Ouya is bascially : "to play my Phone games on my TV".
So my assumption was right

edit : and the first answer I got on the site was :

See ? ;-)

You should really read popular sites user comments about the console to see what I mean. People *are* expecting it to run phone games. And it's logical, or there wouldn't be such a massive gamer excitement if they knew the game list would be quite empty at release.

Also, a lot of comments are bypassing that Google Play incompatibility by saying stuff like :

So except for shady reasons like running pirated phone games on a TV, why is there such a widespread excitement ... ?
(considering there are also other Android consoles/handhelds)

precision : I'm not trying to be negative, but just to understand the trend
The product in itself looks very good (great design, great package, great price, apparently good SDK), but as it is not the only all-that-great Android console around, I just don't get the preference ?

 

For the price of a Unity XBox license... I don't think so.
Thus my case still rests.. since no indies are going to pay that to access to the XBLA platform.

 

If you all really want to be of concern to this then download the OUYA SDK, or what it's now known as ODK here: https://devs.ouya.tv/developers/odk
All your info about it is in the site. The ODK just released today, so go ahead and make something already and be the judge of what you think of it. ^^

 

https://github.com/ouya/docs/blob/master/unity.md

Do you think it possible to write games in Unity Script instead of C#, and work with the Ouya Unity SDK?

 

Oh no, you have to use C#?

 

Also to note here, I get tired of games like Call of Duty and Battlefield. They are good games, but I do get tired of seeing so many developers wanting to make the next big shooter. It's to the point that I don't want to see or hear about another announcement of a dag on realistic shooter. If anything, I would prefer to see a Sci-Fi shooter or something like Borderlands, Halo, Metro: Last Light and Resistance.

Anywho, I suspect OUYA to bring out more indie developers to the forefront and possibly have them end up being a 1st Party Developer. I am sure the creators of OUYA plan to make another console, maybe an OUYA 2. BUT to first do that, you need 1st Party and 3rd Party Developers, and of course you can't do that by taking away SONY, Microsoft, and Nintendo's 1st Party Developers. The best way to do this is grab a group of indie developers and make them 1st Party material. Reasons why the OUYA is built in with a free development kit, makes since right? They plan to challenge the next-gen consoles in some point in the future. I mean really, if you think along the lines of a console designer then that would be of a sure path to make.

So it does justice for both indie developers and the OUYA staff. Creating jobs in the indie game market and for game developers out there wanting to make games for a living.

 

Just in the SDK or as they call it ODK has been released link here

Will be interesting to see what people are able to make with this console.

O yea here's the unboxing of the dev console as well

 

Has anyone gotten the ODK to compile properly with Unity? I'm running into issues with the Android NDK... it is deleting, but not re-creating the lib. Grrr...

 

Neat. That circuit board is so small, but I suppose it compares to the tiny circuity inside mobile phones.

 

And tablets as well. Check out the inside of an iPad.

 

I received an email today that my dev console is on the way! Can someone from Unity please say if OUYA is going to be a separate license or will we just need an Android license?

I would personally prefer an OUYA license with builtin editor/lib support for OUYA including leader boards, achievements, IAP, resolutions, etc. I just don't want to have to wait to long : ) March is not very far away in terms of dev time.

Any other devs on here planning launch titles?

 

https://devs.ouya.tv/developers/docs/unity

Based on this, standard android license I'd say.

 

I thought we had to have a development kit but it seems like we can just use any. I wonder if its going to get flooded with shovelware apps like the other marketplace. Maybe we can make a suggestion that they put a 100 fee for each game they did listen to us over at greenlight.

 

Hm... I've been thinking.
A lot of people are saying that the OUYA being so open means it will be easily hackable and easy to pirate games.

But I think the OUYA already has a defense against that, to some extent.

If I'm understanding correctly, all games are essentially programmed on top of the F2P model.

• Standard paid games will essentially offer a single "Full version" item.
• Completely free games won't offer any items
• "Freemium" games may either sell in-game items (weapons/armor/powerups) or possibly sell in game currency (you purchase 100 coins and then use those coins to purchase in-game items)

If this is the case, for paid games there is only a single executable that itself detects whether or not you have purchased the "Full version" item and if not it defaults to "trial mode". In this way, there is no way to "pirate" the game since the full and trial versions are one and the same. (of course you could still probably figure out a way to trick the console into thinking the user has purchased an item, but that's a different subject altogether)

Damn I'm so excited! Downloading the ODK now...

 

This is precisely how IAP on phones work, and it has been already hacked. The Ouya is as much exposed to IAP piracy than phones (if not more, as a phone is far more reliant on staying connected than a console).

 

OK, but then even iPhone has the same issues (people have figured out how to set up proxy servers to simulate Apple servers), so OUYA is not much more hackable than existing phones.

 

Yes it is, as I edited in my last post, a console doesn't need an internet connection all the time, while a phone does.
Just wanted to clarify that.

 

By the way, for anybody who hasn't downloaded the ODK or read the docs, I can confirm now:

Unity games for OUYA will use the standard Android license (no special OUYA license), with an API provided on the OUYA website for accessing OUYA-specific features from Unity. Which is a relief, that means UT won't be able to sneak in another fee for an extra license (like they did with Flash)

 

Really good to hear. Looks like my Ouya port plans won't be too hard to follow through with.

 

Flash development has taken (and will continue to take) a tremendous amount of work on our side. It's not a license fee we just sneaked in.

OUYA, on the other hand, is not something that needs any low level changes on our end to work with Unity (as has already been demonstrated).

 

Yeah, I understand why the Flash fee is there. You guys need to make money in order to keep Unity going into the future as a great engine capable of producing some fantastic games. I was never really into Flash anyway. I prefer the Unity plugin for browser games

 

By my understanding, it's up to the developer to implement pay-for items in the game, or not, which means somewhere in your code is something that says `if user owns this item, proceed with this content`. ... and that single tiny little switch of data is easily modifiable by a hacker, rendering the entire game free. ... thing is, I guess, how to get that hacked game onto the console `shop`, or onto the device itself by any other means. Not that I'm interested in doing it at all. ... I'm more interested in figuring out how to best introduce elements of content that require payment.

 

Yeah, I guess presumably someone could figure out how to disassemble your game, figure out which part contacts the server to determine whether the user owns an item (I presume you'd use the Receipts part of the OUYA API to check this? which, by the way, is not stored locally - it has to contact the external OUYA servers for this data), and figure out how to modify that part of the code to not contact the server at all.
Not really "easy", but definitely possible.
On the other hand, all other platforms you could possibly develop for will have similar issues. I mean, many PC games are fairly easy to pirate, but PC still remains a very profitable platform to develop for, so I wouldn't worry about it too much

 

And anyway, as soon as someone has broken into your hardcode, it's a lost battle that doesn't need to be cared about anymore

 

True... though they could add in restrictions via EULA as they did for gambling, embedded and streaming.

 

Very true - today I spent a while trying to figure out how to encrypt private game passwords (since passwords have to be stored in the RoomInfo system, which is publicly available data from the lobby ) both client and serverside in Player.IO and being worried that someone could disassemble my game to discover the secret keys.... and then I thought about my art professor's saying: "Some people just need to be shaken."
The truth is I probably shouldn't worry about someone disassembling my game - there's really very little I can do at that point

 

Part of the fun of this new platform I think is that everything is up in the air and stuff still open to question, new frontiers to explore, new territory to be claimed, influences to be made, opportunities to be had, etc.