OUYA day 1

[sharpfork]

I picked up a retail OUYA yesterday morning but only got to play with it for about 90 minutes last night.  First thing I did was make sure our KADE miniArcade works with it as expected (it does) as well as some other new KADE hardware we are working on (that works too).  Some of the games need a bit of config love for 3rd party controllers for sure.

My first impressions are positive but I knew what I was getting into.  I bought it for KADE testing, community support, hackability, Indy games, emulation (gonna see if it will drive a cab at some point), and xbmc.  The hardware is nice, the ouya software needs some polish but is promising.  The games are hit and miss but also promising.  Some are really ugly but Super fun!

Hardware

This thing is super portable and moving it around or bringing it to a friend's is super easy.  The Tegra 3 is solid compared to my Tegra 2 tablet.

My computer monitor with HDMI was nice.  The living room TV was nice once I changed the over scan settings. 

I tried a 4:3 dvi monitor with a hdmi converter and it works but the resolution was ass.  I tried a cheapo USB audio stick with PC speakers and it didn't work after making a slight sound on the boot screen.  I expect both of these things i want to try to power a bartop to be resolved via updates to ouya or just moving to cyanogen or some other ROM.

galaxy SIII-cyanogen-tapatalk 4 beta

[knave]

I like the look of that device but I think it's in a different category than the Ouya. The gamepad 2 is for mobile gaming, I'm sure you can hook it up to your TV but its not a "console" its a "portable".

It is clean looking though...but you do loose some while paying almost twice as much as a $99 Ouya. According to Google - "120 British Pound Sterling equals 182.81 US Dollar"

Just at first glance you loose 2 cores and a bit of processor speed over the Ouya and the Jellybean is one revision older. No Ethernet port. Not to mention that it will be more difficult to play multiplayer games on a 5 inch screen or add stock controllers.

It is a cool toy I'm just saying though, If I wanted to play android games on a small screen I'd use my 7" tablet with or without a controller.

[Howard_Casto]

I never thought I would take ark's side on anything, but you are grasping at straws knave.  If it has hdmi out then it's just as much a game console as the ouya (which imho isn't one either). 

That being said, you are right... those specs are a tad weak and he paid a bit too much for it.  I think dx.com has that one for around 70 bucks US. 

[404]

I have ordered one of these:




All for £120.

Looks much better than the OUYA and it has a touch screen for Angry Birds.

I will give a full review and advise how well this works with KADE.


Edit: I decided to buy a superior device.

Friend of mine works for a video game website. He reviewed the JXD and thought it was pretty good. He gave it to me and i thought it was just 'meh'.

 Honestly it could just be me though. I'm just a bit sick of and completely jaded on android. It's just too fragmented to get anything universally working on it any more.

[knave]

I never thought I would take ark's side on anything, but you are grasping at straws knave.  If it has hdmi out then it's just as much a game console as the ouya (which imho isn't one either). 

That being said, you are right... those specs are a tad weak and he paid a bit too much for it.  I think dx.com has that one for around 70 bucks US.

Its kind of fun to be right and wrong in the same post. 

I can clarify: I don't and wouldn't want to use a portable device as a console. If I wanted to go that route I would use my existing tablets hdmi out.
Also since the JXD has a screen and battery it may be optimized to conserve power rather than provide performance.
I thought it was cool as a portable but that one could find a non-Ouya device more optimized for the television. Gamestick, Mojo, or Shield.

BTW the JXD S7300 is ~$140 on DX.com

I'm perfectly able and willing to leave the straws alone.

Oh, and Ark...Why use a true game device to play angry birds? any tablet or phone will do...

[edekoning]

Oh, and Ark...Why use a true game device to play angry birds? any tablet or phone will do...

No, the real question should be, why bother with angry birds at all?

[Howard_Casto]

It's kind of fun... the first time you play it... after that... meh...

That being said, tablet users will hate this, but the best way to play angry birds is on a pc.  The mouse gives superior precision compared to a cruddy touch screen.  I played it on the pc first and just couldn't get into it on my tablet... too imprecise. 

[Generic Eric]

I picked up a retail OUYA yesterday morning but only got to play with it for about 90 minutes last night.  First thing I did was make sure our KADE miniArcade works with it as expected (it does) as well as some other new KADE hardware we are working on (that works too).  Some of the games need a bit of config love for 3rd party controllers for sure.

My first impressions are positive but I knew what I was getting into.  I bought it for KADE testing, community support, hackability, Indy games, emulation (gonna see if it will drive a cab at some point), and xbmc.  The hardware is nice, the ouya software needs some polish but is promising.  The games are hit and miss but also promising.  Some are really ugly but Super fun!

Hardware

This thing is super portable and moving it around or bringing it to a friend's is super easy.  The Tegra 3 is solid compared to my Tegra 2 tablet.

My computer monitor with HDMI was nice.  The living room TV was nice once I changed the over scan settings. 

I tried a 4:3 dvi monitor with a hdmi converter and it works but the resolution was ass.  I tried a cheapo USB audio stick with PC speakers and it didn't work after making a slight sound on the boot screen.  I expect both of these things i want to try to power a bartop to be resolved via updates to ouya or just moving to cyanogen or some other ROM.

galaxy SIII-cyanogen-tapatalk 4 beta

*Necro*
Was there ever a day two?

[Howard_Casto]

Well considering the Ouya is now officially defunct (at least the device anyway) does it matter?

[Generic Eric]

Well considering the Ouya is now officially defunct (at least the device anyway) does it matter?

People still use XP. 

[Howard_Casto]

Well considering the Ouya is now officially defunct (at least the device anyway) does it matter?

People still use XP.

But they don't ask for a review of XP, now do they? 

[Generic Eric]

Well considering the Ouya is now officially defunct (at least the device anyway) does it matter?

People still use XP.

But they don't ask for a review of XP, now do they? 

I'm just wondering Sharpfork had anymore input on it. 

[sharpfork]

*Necro*
Was there ever a day two?

I used it every day for about a month and wanted to love it but didn't.  I don't think the OUYA front end added enough value over standard Android to make it worth it.  The hardware is underpowered and the controller is so-so.  It is a nice XBMC and Plex player but I have other devices that do this better.

I took another look at the MOJO when they dropped the price and announced the OUYA deal.  Even with a Tegra 4 and a $199 price tag, I am not going to pick one up unless it gets a decent community of folks supporting it.  I think that Android will be a strong option in our hobby at some point but that is still another year or so away.

Maybe Google buying Green Throttle will get them in a position to support android set top gaming better:
http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/12/google-buys-green-throttle-games-assets/

[knave]

Well considering the Ouya is now officially defunct (at least the device anyway) does it matter?

So much mis-information out there. OUYA will always have hardware, from the mouth of Julie OUYA CEO herself.

LOL.

OUYA 2 is coming...probably at the end of the year...but thats just a guess.

Since Howard is often wont to argue: Link to OUYA CEO Blog

and for those who don't want to click...

We call this effort “OUYA Everywhere” and we are already in discussions with a handful of partners. Of course, we’ll always have an OUYA console you can buy, but you might start to see OUYA in other places. More to come.

[Generic Eric]

Well considering the Ouya is now officially defunct (at least the device anyway) does it matter?

So much mis-information out there. OUYA will always have hardware, from the mouth of Julie OUYA CEO herself.

LOL.

OUYA 2 is coming...probably at the end of the year...but thats just a guess.

Ya, I googled that quick and I didn't find anything.  Not sure what this is about.

[pbj]

I honestly wanted to buy one as a gift last year, but couldn't find a single decent list of games. 

Even their own website would only display 10 at a time and you couldn't search or sort them in any fashion. 

So what did I do?  Bought some $80 tablet and went with the Google store instead. 

[Generic Eric]

I honestly wanted to buy one as a gift last year, but couldn't find a single decent list of games. 

Even their own website would only display 10 at a time and you couldn't search or sort them in any fashion. 

So what did I do?  Bought some $80 tablet and went with the Google store instead.

This link shows over 700 games https://www.ouya.tv/games/

Boost 2 and No Brakes Valet are my current faves. 

[pbj]

Oh well, genre tags would have been nice 4 months ago.

[Howard_Casto]

Ignore knave, he's been inexplicably a ouya fanboy this whole time. 

Kotaku broke the story a week or so ago.  The Ouya software is going to be whored out to various other devices, most notably the MOJO by madcatz.  They had to do this due to extremely disappointing sales.  The current Ouya's they have in stock are it... they won't be making any more.  Now could they make an Ouya 2?  Sure, but why the hell would you buy it now that you are going to have the option to run the software on better-speced, more competitively priced devices?  Also are you willing to re-buy the ouya every year or so, because that's typically how fast android consoles become obsolete.

Now in a couple of years, IF the brand still exists and their structure stabilizes it would be a good idea to buy one.  Right now though it isn't anything more than a throw-away novelty specifically because it's unstable.... the whole marketplace could shut down tomorrow due to poor sales.

One of two things are going to happen.  Games are going to start being made for the higher-speced ouya devices and thus the current gamelist becomes locked.  Either that or the over-saturation of the software on various devices, even devices less powerful than the ouya will result in even less quality in the games then they have now.

Before you argue that I don't know what I'm talking about, I pretty much said that within a year the Ouya would either be dead or severely re-branded/re-structured.  Damn it hasn't even been a year yet. 

[pbj]

Some day it'll come out that the entire fiasco was a scam to burn venture capital. 

Kotaku is certainly a harsh mistress once you quit advertising there.... 

[Howard_Casto]

Some day it'll come out that the entire fiasco was a scam to burn venture capital. 

Kotaku is certainly a harsh mistress once you quit advertising there.... 

Well Kotaku isn't exactly known for it's "Journalism"  but that is where I heard about it first.  Went to other sites to confirm. 

The problem is this was a kickstarter project.  Kickstarter is for getting widgets made.... you pay your fee, you get one widget.  Kickstarter is NOT for funding companies or some sort of marketplace network.  That requires a company with business sense... and if they had business sense they probably wouldn't have to resort to kickstarter for funding. 

So for people that wanted the Ouya as a physical product, no games or anything expected, it was an overwhealming success.  (Except for the nearly unusable controller of course).  For people that wanted it as a brand, with new exclusive games coming out all the time, continued support ect, it's already a failure.  I mean tower defense and a few of the other popular Ouya exclusives are already going to steam and android. 

My point is to understand what you are getting.  Think of the Ouya like a plug-n-play games system.  Not in terms of quality, but in terms of what you get.  See what it shows on the box and what is available currently in terms of software?  That's all you can expect from it.... significant updates or new exclusives you'd actually buy the console for are extremely unlikely at this point.

[Generic Eric]

Some day it'll come out that the entire fiasco was a scam to burn venture capital. 

Kotaku is certainly a harsh mistress once you quit advertising there.... 

Well Kotaku isn't exactly known for it's "Journalism"  but that is where I heard about it first.  Went to other sites to confirm. 

The problem is this was a kickstarter project.  Kickstarter is for getting widgets made.... you pay your fee, you get one widget.  Kickstarter is NOT for funding companies or some sort of marketplace network.  That requires a company with business sense... and if they had business sense they probably wouldn't have to resort to kickstarter for funding. 

So for people that wanted the Ouya as a physical product, no games or anything expected, it was an overwhealming success.  (Except for the nearly unusable controller of course).  For people that wanted it as a brand, with new exclusive games coming out all the time, continued support ect, it's already a failure.  I mean tower defense and a few of the other popular Ouya exclusives are already going to steam and android. 

My point is to understand what you are getting.  Think of the Ouya like a plug-n-play games system.  Not in terms of quality, but in terms of what you get.  See what it shows on the box and what is available currently in terms of software?  That's all you can expect from it.... significant updates or new exclusives you'd actually buy the console for are extremely unlikely at this point.

OUYA was definitely not the disruption that it was purported to be.  I bought my widget, but not a fanboy.  I totally concur that a person should know what they are getting.

Having said all of that, to include the other things I have said about the OUYA in the past, I started the project thread to illustrate the headaches.  I plan to do the same thing with my *free w/purchase* coby tablet eventually.

[knave]

Ignore knave, he's been inexplicably a ouya fanboy this whole time. 

LOL Howard...
 

Sounds like you are saying, "shutup knave,...your right!

I don't know if the OUYA "brand" will be a success...I'm one of those who wanted the hardware. And it works great for me. I just bought a 2nd one for another tv and it is still awesome.
I have been an OUYA advocate mostly because you are so hard on it. Oh, and I've explained why I like it so I guess you just don't understand.

...to be honest your original criticism of their marketplace is still a real problem...I don't see how their will ever be a financial draw for developers to want to make games. There is not profit in it, I mean successful games make like $400. I don't think this will change much by porting the OUYA marketplace to other devices. I do think that it will continue to be a great place for indie developers to make games, and perhaps move on to bigger and better things. There are a lot of really fun games on the OUYA now, More every week. The entry to develop for it is so low that even I am looking into making a game or two...just to learn.

Well Kotaku isn't exactly known for it's "Journalism"  but that is where I heard about it first.  Went to other sites to confirm.

Exactly, most of the press is just wild speculation and misinformation...If one guy on the internet thinks the OUYA is dead (and it is copied all over the internet) then it must be true.
...I don't expect you to take my word for it. Which is why I included my Direct-from-OUYA source.