“We just licked the stamps and waved a fond farewell to 1200 OUYA Developer Consoles. These are the early versions of OUYA that developers will use to start making games. They’re on their way to developers around the globe – by land, air and sea. OK, only by air – we want you to get them quick. Devs, expect them on your doorstep within the next few days.” The SDK has been released as well.
Looking forward to trying my hand at development on the OUYA. I got it because even if it doesn’t make it as a console, it’s a nice cheap dev system for Android.
With the way the other console makers treat their customers and developers, I was just looking for something more open.
I wonder how long the life cycle for this console will be. Tegra 4 is launching in a few months and if the projections are true high performance arm cpu’s will reach Xbox 360 capabilities in 2014.
I really cannot see them releasing new ones in 4-6 increments like MS and Sony.
Edited 2012-12-28 18:39 UTC
I don’t think the specs matter very much. Ouya is targeting indie developers and for the most part those just don’t have the resources to produce the expensive high quality art assets that would be needed for a high-end console. I’d say the fact it has relatively weak hardware is a bonus here.
And they can release a new one almost every year and it would still be cheaper then an XBox or Playstation
/Uni
Bought a regular console on the kickstarter, really looking forward to it. Even if it doesn’t end up working as a console I’m looking forward to having a decent android device connected to my TV.
As much as I want OUYA to succeed, I highly doubt it will. The whole idea of being pro independent and pro open source always equals a big negative in the eyes of major developers due to the piracy. Piracy made a major blow to the Dreamcast. What is going to stop an even more open console such as the OUYA from suffering the same fate? The OUYA won’t have the major games the Dreamcast did either, such as Soul Calibur, Sonic, and Skies of Arcadia. And major developers drive the gaming industry. They have the resources to make the high quality games people want to buy. Independents do not. An independent company would have a hard time making a game like SoA even now days, nearly 12 years after the original release. The price of the console doesn’t matter if the console only has games of quality equal to games on the iPhone.
Yes, because piracy is a HUGE issue on a console whose games are ALL free.
Actually, it will be. Huge in fact.
They don’t have to be free, they have to have some sort of a free to play option. Trials included. Major developers are not against offering free trials. But when pirating the full version will be so easy and practically encouraged, that will be a deal breaker.
No, it won’t. A trial is plenty of time to see if you really want the game or not. Piracy has never killed a platform – it’s been rampant on the PC since day one and PCs are still here and stronger than ever. Most developers see piracy for what it is – free advertising. I hate when people claim piracy killed the Dreamcast when nothing could be further from the truth. People keep using it because it’s the ONLY example that people won’t laugh off instantly… it takes them a little research before they finally laugh it off.
Please, let that tired lie die! No one is concerned about piracy except big legacy media distributors. Those dinosaurs need to go extinct already and leave the rest of us to get on with life. >.>
Never before has there been a platform that was designed from the ground up to easy to hack. And like it or not, those dinosaurs are the driving force of the industry and not having them on board will kill the OUYA to the general public.
I never said piracy was the reason for the Dreamcast’s demise, but it would simply be incorrect to say it did not contribute. Despite the GD-Rom, pirating Dreamcast games is unbelievably easy and it did have a major impact on developers opinions of the Dreamcast.
Easy to hack?. You forgot OpenPandora.
http://openpandora.org/
But to get a half decent Pandora, you are looking at the price of a reasonable Laptop. I looked a few weeks ago and the cheapest model was ~€249, but with a major warning about only buying it for underpowered usage, the other two were over €400 and for the ultimate over €660. I’m not even sure it that included VAT, certainly didn’t include shipping. Those prices are kind of insane when you see how cheap the Nexus 7 is in comparison. I’ve no idea if the specs are comparable, but it seems disproportionate. I mainly want to play PS1 and older console games, so I’m honestly better off hacking a PSP 3000 to run homebrew. I already own one, but it was about half the price. The Pandora obviously can run a full desktop Linux, but I’ve done that in the past (Zaurus and Angstrom on an old HP WINCE, as well as N800/N810) and it’s no more useful that owning a tablet and using that for “work”.
OpenPandora which never really went anywhere, was DOA as a console.
Edited 2013-01-03 20:29 UTC
OUYA won’t have more or less piracy than Android phones and tablets. Which have games by companies like Electronic Arts and Gameloft. Also, OUYA can always use the on-device encryption Android is supposed to support if things get really ugly.
That’s why there are no big PC games, right?
The PC is not a console. Nor is the hardware designed out of the box to be hacked. The OUYA is.