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

Well, for me the biggest fun of all in this platform is that I finally have a chance to see my creations on the TV screen on a real game console - and the fact that I get to keep using Unity for it!

 

*Sigh*

 

This is why I am excited for OUYA!

and this is why I want to develop for it!

 

Same here. I just downloaded the ODK and was thumbing through it. Unfortunately, I didn't get the early bird model, so I have to wait until March before I can actually start testing things. I can't wait!

 

One thing I realized about the OUYA (one of my hunches confirmed).
When watching the OUYA unboxing video, I saw that there's a big ol' fan mounted on top of the motherboard.
Presumably that means the Tegra can be pushed a lot harder without having to worry too much about overheating, whereas in a mobile device the cooling is drastically more limited. So I think the OUYA should be more powerful than comparable Android devices (such as the Nexus 7)

 

Have the official `final` specs been released yet, like how much it will be overclocked to?

 

I don't know, I do know the Nexus 7 has been successfully overclocked to 1.6 GHz (it's also been overclocked it up to 2 GHz, although they reported that it started acting a bit unstable at that point)

EDIT: Doing some research, it appears 1.7 GHz is the "safe" maximum speed. Again, the OUYA's superior cooling may help to push this further.

 

After seeing so many people taking key interest into the OUYA, I wonder if anyone has started to build development teams for it. Thought I might hear some interest projects going around as well as the OUYA release date.

 

I'm planning on recruiting a team around an OUYA exclusive title I'm working on.
The game is a multiplayer Unreal Tournament/Quake style arena shooter set in a post-apocalyptic/dystopian setting, with an RPG-style character progression mechanic. Working title is Nukefall Tournament, although this may (and probably will) change.

 

Definitely would like to see something along those lines. Since that's all Sci-Fi in an RPG style game, let their be upgradable weapons and abilities if any as a level system.

 

This is actually how the system is going to work:
Essentially the leveling mechanic works with character attributes Stamina (affects how much HP your character has), Defense (affects your character's minimum Armor level), Agility (affects how fast your character can move and how high you can jump), and Aim (affects your character's chance of landing a critical hit for double damage). Upon leveling up, you can choose one out of these four attributes to upgrade.
Additionally, since players who've played longer have an obvious advantage against new players, I will also allow hosts to choose whether to restrict player level when creating a game (players must be within 5 levels plus or minus that of the host in order to connect).
Other than that, much of the gameplay will be comparable to Unreal Tournament or Quake.

 

Hmmm wonder if anyone can get OUYA to run on a virtual system for those people who don't have dev kits but want to develop games for OUYA.

Big shame if they limit how many people can make stuff for OUYA by requiring the hardware to develop on.

I know with the SDK you can make stuff for OUYA without the dev hardware but can you test them in an environment that is what you would expect to find on the OUYA?

 

Every Ouya will be a dev platform. Also it seems you can test on any android device?

 

Personally havent seen any interest in OUYA for myself. I mean, its just android on the big screen. Just as S***e Now the steambox, thats what im waiting for.

 

Which will just be Windows on the big screen, so...

 

Touche, I suppose its because im a mac user and I am far to lazy to switch over to my windows partition. haha.

 

You sound like you're judging a book by its cover. I'd say give it a fair chance before you judge a platform that could potentially make you and others some income.

 

You know what determines how good a game is? The OS it runs on.

Yeah. That's logical.

 

so aside the fact its android games on the big screen, could you summarise what makes this particular console special? aside from its cheap price.

 

It's opening up the living room console market more to the indie developer.

 

Price is a big factor though. On top of that, it doesn't require the excessive fees that come alongside XBLA releases, it's possible to get on compared to PSN, and it likely won't suffer from the same payout problems that the Nintendo eShop goes. Adding to this, the pricing model is a radical departure from traditional games, with a free component such as a demo having to exist. It's all handled on its own curated market, so it's not like the default Google market has anything to do with this.

 

Things make more sense now, thank you, still not a market I am personally interested in entering.

 

Well, on the plus side, if it ends up being a success and you change your mind, publishing to it with Unity is genuinely the easiest thing ever with the current version of the ODK.

 

I'm betting on this.

The games industry seems to be open to new people with new ideas that blow everyone else away. The original playstation, the DS and the Wii.

The market is screwed at the moment, recessions everywhere, consumers more price selective. It could be the perfect console at the perfect time.

Unity and its asset store is perfect with it. We need something like that to speed up development, and stop so much wasted time in redoing code that someone else did before.

Of course it'll depend on the content and the marketing. Developers with imaginations and bold ideas.

 

Someone asked about testing on devices other than the OUYA.
At the moment, the developer console is essentially running vanilla Android with a special "OUYA launcher" app preloaded. Likely the final release will have custom firmware instead, but for now they probably just wanted to get something out the door.
Anyway, you can actually download this launcher app and load it onto your Android (for example, a device like the Nexus 7 would be ideal so you can get an idea of performance) and then you can test your games there.
I believe the launcher is actually included in the ODK.

 

Interesting.

Also to note here, everyone on here wants to make a game. Am I right? I'm sure everyone has a dream game idea that they want to work on despite the fact that the indie scene isn't as national to the public as the big company's of gaming is. Yet we're saying whether to believe in the OUYA platform or not? I can say the same for the IPAD and all those touchscreen games as I never thought they would of gotten as big as they did today. Again it's because of what us, the indies have created to prove those platforms can bring out potential games. To what I know of playing games on both the PC, Consoles, and touch devices such as phones and touch-pads. I definitely prefer a controller to all the games I play, it just seems to feel right in my hand. PC games are also good since I use the keyboard anyways, but that is as far as I go to playing a game that will have good mechanics. Besides that, OUYA is already making a name for itself in the indie scene. If one don't take the opportunity, someone else sure will try to get the jump over the other. Simple as that...

 

Plus, look at all these indies wanting an OUYA so bad (mainly for developing).
Us indies play games too, amiright? So at the very least there's a bunch of indies who are going to be playing games as well as developing.

 

It'll succeed if there's good enough content, that's all.

 

BTW, I have verified that the OUYA will overclock the Tegra3 to 2GHz (someone posted that they had discussed with Julie and she mentioned that it would be 2GHz).

 

And I think we all have to agree, Android in comparison to other markets, tends to have a track record of being pretty S***ty.

 

Which isn't really the same situation here. Android had S***ty content because of severe device fragmentation across things as simple as basic specs and awkward support for different resolutions and aspect ratios. It also has a VERY uncurated market. These aren't really problems the Ouya has though.

Seriously, stop getting hung up on Android. The only thing Android does here is function as a software launcher.

 

Exactly. The singular reason they ever even mentioned Android was so that developers knew what they were working with long before there was even a hint of an ODK.

 

didn't read in details all the thread but for the few I see and various argument about is OUYA will be success or not , well I believe that any opportunity for a new platform allowing indie to release game on it should be welcomed and supported ( by making game for it ^^ )

I also agree that be able to dev then play your game in the same way you would play on other console should be quite addicting in the end.

porting unity game to OUYA seem to be straight forward without all the mess that smart phone can give you usually, so well people should have a go for it , and for what it will cost , I do not think you take a big risk here.

I am a paddle lover , so anything that can get me a bit out from Touch s**** controls ( specially virtual stick ..beurkk) is welcome ...I am playing with ps suite mobile sdk for this simple reason...button feel good ..

soon as I can get my hand on OUYA ( I am not sure how and if that stuff will be available in japan when official release ) I definitly give it a go..and if this fail..well ..c'est la vie

 

Yep you seem to be mistaking the Google Play store with Android the OS.

The Kindle Fire runs Android. The Kindle App Store doesn't have the same problems the Google Play store has. Same goes for the Nook. Now the nice thing about these two devices is that if you have some knowledge you can root them, giving you access to the same Android OS you have on your phone for example.

This is exactly what you will have with Ouya: a device with it's own interface and it's own store, which normal users will use as is and others will root. To the normal gamer it will be like any other console, phone or tablet with it's own OS and it's own games.

When we developers mention fragmentation of the Android market we are mainly talking about the Google Play store and the fact that any phone running Android can potentially gain access to our game, which means we have to try and support it or exclude it in order to avoid negative reviews from users running less powerful devices.

 

Not to start a parallel debate here, but my personal guess is that Google Play has poor content because of piracy, nothing else.
Devs don't want to invest on that platform, it's just too easy to pirate a game. Hell, even the biggest marketting juggernaut, Rovio, did put Angry Birds for free only on this platform.
There has to be a reason, and for a multimillionaire, multiplatform business like Rovio, device fragmentation really doesn't sound like a problem.

 

Which would be nice if true, but angry birds was also free on the Chrome Store.

 

Angry Birds Chrome is HTML5, which is even more open to asset leeching than an app ;-)
(or at least as much as a flash Game)
So it kind of follows the same logic of "people wouldn't pay on that platform anyway".

 

It's not just that, but the complete lack of gatekeeping. Google Play is kind of a flustercuck of poor decisions, from a lack of anti-piracy measures to no gatekeeping to a ridiculous amount of device fragmentation.

 

It is indeed a flustercuck

 

Thanks for the insight on the store

 

OUYA pretty much solves all of these.
As for gatekeeping, I think we'll see at the start a lot of crappy shovelware (beyond the titles they've announced I mean, those actually look good), but the net result will be what you see on Kongregate: these games are rated/reviewed poorly (and players can play them for free before they ever even think about pulling out their wallets), and disappear to the darkest corners of the market never to be seen again. And people will realize that it just isn't profitable on the OUYA and it will die down at least a little.
For anti-piracy, the way games will work is the user downloads the game for free, and then can purchase the full version of the game with IAP. The game contacts the OUYA servers and checks whether that item has been purchased or not, if so unlock the full version. That means people won't be able to just rip the APK and give it away online, since it always does this check to ensure you've purchased the game. Sure, it means you always need an internet connection, but on a download-only console it's not unreasonable to assume the user will have one
Finally, of course as for fragmentation, obviously the OUYA is far superior

 

I think the OUYA has what could be a rivalry. Check the link:
http://www.indiegogo.com/eSfere

All I can say now is that the eSfere controller design, I for one don't exactly like it. But who know's what everyone else might think.

 

A touchscreen that can't display anything?I think not.

 

I think eSfere or whatever is doomed to fail, it looks like a bad copycat project, too gimmicky and not professional enough. It's also raised only a really tiny amount of funds so far so I think the public knows this is not a good project. I think it's not compelling enough because it basically is `take what already exists and put it on a bigger screen` with a somewhat awkward/confusing controller and goofy `looks like a kitchen timer` console design. Ouya is much better designed, more compelling, much better marketing with the whole people-power/indie theme, seems more like a proper console and not just a way to regurgitate the same content, thus promising new games/frontiers to explore, etc.

 

Wow! I wonder if this will be the thing now.... companies making their own Android consoles. What happens when Samsung makes an android console. or Amazon makes an android console... what happens to OUYA then?

Will 2013 be the year of "Android Consoles"??

(I think we'll see 3 Android consoles by end of the year)

 

The eSfere is a failed idea from the beginning. Its a lesser concept, trying to ride on the success of Ouya. They don't have the same industry experience that the Ouya team has ("We've made PC and Android software, and we know some engineers"... yet they plan to do this with a third of the budget of the industry veterans), and the eSfere is only planned to run Google Play games. They have no plan to build their own library.

 

Hm, competition eh?



Between that and no physical buttons and just using the Google Play store I don't think Ouya has much to worry about.

 

The success of OUYA will most likely be directly tied to their App Store/Dashboard - if its easy to find content, easy to install and easy to make IAP then it has a really good chance of succeeding. Also social features will play heavily on success for titles like friend recommendations etc. because the store will be an open market but just like Apple I think OUYA will want the higher quality apps to rise to the top and will curate a good store. They are putting a lot of effort into their Dashboard so lets hope that quality titles are easy to find.

As for specs, staring off with a Tegra 2 with a constant power supply and a fan should allow for some really good looking games. At least as good as the newer iPads.

I cant see why anyone would dis the OUYA - we just all want to make games on the TV and this makes it possible : )

 

I agree that I do believe it will fail. OUYA on the other hand I can believe for sure!

 

"Touchpad. OUYA’s controller also has a touchpad (but no touchscreen). The touchpad will only support single touch."
hm, this will make porting tablet games little bit harder.
Still I hope they will be able to delver this console at 99 usd price point, same price as 1 year ios developer subscription and you get console included in the price.

Great way to popularise game development, I will be getting one.