The $99 Ouya game console: Exciting, innovative — and probably doomed

http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/132751-the-99-ouya-console-exciting-innovative-and-probably-doomed

by evo_9 • 14 years ago

40 53 14 years ago

JVIDEL12• 14 years ago

I really don't want to see the Ouya fail, but then again I didn't want the Dreamcast to fail either, and it did. SEGA was sort on cash back then, and because some hackers found a way to play pirated games without a hardware mod (the PSX needed a modchip soldered in the mainboard) it was the last straw for that company, and when developers started to flee and hyped games like HalfLife:Blue Shift were cancelled the dream was over.

I know some indies say piracy is not a bid deal for them, but it might be for the Ouya: at $99 the company is either breaking even or losing money on every unit, and the only way to get that money back is through games and microtransactions, but if piracy is dead-easy then they may never recoup the money, and like it happened to SEGA they will eventually run out of funds.

guard-of-terra2• 14 years ago

First owners of Ouya will be the people who paid 100$ for it, on kickstarter, up front.

Those people will have near-zero interest in pirating games for the sake of not paying. And that's who the first generation of Ouya users will be made of.

JVIDEL12• 14 years ago

Really? just 25-40k users for an entire console generation?

slantyyz7• 14 years ago

> the PSX needed a modchip soldered in the mainboard

Nope, the way people played copies on the first PS1 (before the modchips arrived) was to use a spring loaded weight ($5) on the door sensor, boot a legit disc and then swap to the copy after the boot sound. No modchip required. The Sega Saturn required a mod, but it required no chip, just a few wires and a switch.

If you didn't want to "spring for the spring", so to speak, you could do it manually with a little more difficulty.

JVIDEL12• 14 years ago

On the Dreamcast it was all software, not even a jailbreak, just some code on the pirated game. It left no traces, you could boot a legit disc and connect to SegaNet, try doing that with LIVE and not get banned.

Right now pirating on a X360, either with LT, RGH or JTAG takes so much work the vast majority of users don't bother to even try, but if it was like the Dreamcast you would have a totally different situation.

pbreit3• 14 years ago

I don't think piracy will be a problem at all. Price points are going to be more like iOS ($1-10) than console ($40+). Comparisons to Dreamcast, et al are irrelevant.

farinasa• 14 years ago

This article is written on the assumption that if someone can get it free, they won't pay. I find that truly hard to believe. The piracy demographic is usually limited to two groups- people who believe they are beating the system, and people who don't know they're hurting the system.

I think the attitude of the company plays a big role. For instance, music companies won't fund music unless it is guaranteed to produce insane profits. If people know that the company is offering good services at intentionally fair prices, they will be more willing to not cheat the system.

Look at Louis C.K.: I'm a huge fan of him so I would have bought anyway, but since he cut the cost down to $5, I think many people bought simply because they believed the price was worth the content.

I think piracy is a result of a disconnect between users and creators. The more middle men there are, the less people will care about the people involved. When the writer is appealing to you that hey, please don't steal from me, more people will have a heart about it.

guard-of-terra2• 14 years ago

There is also third group: people who don't have the money (think students). But as I said they would not kickstart 100$ and therefore will not enter the community in numbers until later in cycle.

talmand• 14 years ago

Actually there are a large number of groups within the piracy label. That's part of the problem because too many want to ignore that fact and pigeonhole all those groups into the same "lost sales" bucket. That's why such people usually have problems with addressing piracy and how to properly prevent it, or at least soften its impact.

aidenn0• 14 years ago

No, it's written on the assumption that content-creators will assume that if someone can get it free, they won't pay.

jerf• 14 years ago

Personally I wouldn't consider it even remotely controversial that by XBox 360/PS3/Wii standards, the thing is doomed. There is an effectively zero chance that this is going to sell into the tens of millions.

But that's a completely uninteresting observation, really. Who cares? The question is, will they be successful on their own terms. That's probably "profitable" rather than "took over the video game industry". Since they're building on the Android base, their "success" or "failure" won't look like a conventional console. If the entire thing is a miserable failure, games will still be made for it, because there doesn't need to be Ouya-specific games. If the company ships hardware, then blows up, it'll probably still have games coming out for it, if for no other reason than the fact you can probably root it. Conventional consoles don't have that characteristic. It changes things a lot.

No, that new corner restaurant going in downtown probably isn't going to threaten Applebee's... but... so?

sharkweek• 14 years ago

even more -- I think it's a pretty great step away from traditional video game consoles. I applaud any effort to change what has been a pretty stale market for the past couple years

JVIDEL12• 14 years ago

No console out there failed because it wasn't #1, it failed because it takes money to support hardware, lots of money, and the companies behind those consoles couldn't keep losing money and had to cancel it. The first Xbox lost about $4 billion, but with MSFT behind it money wasn't a problem.

Even before the Wii Nintendo had been either #2 or #3 for the past 3 generations without a problem, because it was still making more than enough money to even make their own games and design new hardware.

The new corner restaurant you mention is not going to beat Applebees, but is not going to stick around for too long if nobody goes there to eat either.

SoftwareMaven3• 14 years ago

Designing your own hardware (and the entire OS on top of it) is expensive. Using off-the-shelf components and an Android base will help that immensely. If Ouya can manufacture its console for slightly less than its $100 price (assuming the kickstarter pledge level to be the price goal), it can build its profits off the game store.

If they can make it reasonably easy to Ouya-fy an existing Android game, there will be reasonable incentive to add games to the store. In my mind, this is the riskiest part. Tablet and phone games are designed around touch. Many of them won't convert to a controller well, which will limit the number of games ported and make them more dependent on made-for-Ouya titles. They'll need to be a good-sized market for that.

stcredzero3• 14 years ago

> The new corner restaurant you mention is not going to beat Applebees, but is not going to stick around for too long if nobody goes there to eat either.

It takes a lot more money and marketing to start a franchise restaurant chain than it takes to start a restaurant, or even a local/regional chain. Ouya is more like the latter.

slantyyz7• 14 years ago

In Nintendo's case, you might make the argument that it's their exceptionally good first party software that allowed them to survive those years of not being number one.

First party software is also the reason (in my opinion) that the Wii was so successful. There were only a handful of titles that were actually good, with the free pack-in (Wii Sports) being arguably the killer app.

drivebyacct23• 14 years ago

>The new corner restaurant you mention is not going to beat Applebees, but is not going to stick around for too long if nobody goes there to eat either.

See:

>Since they're building on the Android base, their "success" or "failure" won't look like a conventional console. If the entire thing is a miserable failure, games will still be made for it, because there doesn't need to be Ouya-specific games. If the company ships hardware, then blows up, it'll probably still have games coming out for it, if for no other reason than the fact you can probably root it. Conventional consoles don't have that characteristic. It changes things a lot.

I and others have already ordered this that have no intention of ever using it for gaming. But then again, there's also the raspberry PI, Cubox, ODROID-X. This is easily the most consumer friendly so far.

jondcampbell• 14 years ago

I wonder if everyone realizes that the money OUYA has "Committed" isnt really committed yet, you can go into your kickstarter account and remove your pledge any time before the time is up. It's a bet and a risky one at that, dependent on the betting confidence of thousands of other people.

pyoung2• 14 years ago

I highly doubt that people are going to de-fund the OUYA project in large numbers. And what is the point of actively encouraging people to remove their pledge anyway? By now, I would assume just about everyone on kickstarter understands that there is a good deal of risk involved. Even if this project never makes it off the ground, people are giving OUYA money not necessarily for a console, but for the dream and hope of the disruption that the project will bring to the market.

SoftwareMaven3• 14 years ago

I talked with a guy who raised $220k. He saw about 8% of that "disappear" in failed charges (things like the card had expired). Of course, anybody can unpledge, but those numbers are reflected in the current total.

laserDinosaur2• 14 years ago

So if a friend of mine had a Kickstarter project and I wanted to get it some attention, I could use a credit card, donate $10k, and then cancel my credit card straight after? Kickstarter would show it as a pledge but will never get the actual money. It seems like very dangerous idea of course =)

gamble• 14 years ago

Ouya reminds me of that open-source smartphone project everyone got excited about a few years ago, Openmoko, before everyone also realized that it's extremely expensive and difficult to put together a modern smartphone, and that openness isn't compelling enough to make people tough it out with a half-baked device.

chaostheory3• 14 years ago

I think creating and selling a smart phone is much harder than making an open game console with cheap hardware and a working OS / platform. Ouya doesn't have to deal with carriers.

omgsean• 14 years ago

People only want to carry one phone, but dropping $99 on an Ouya isn't going to prevent me from also being able to buy other consoles or PC gaming hardware.

I'm thinking of buying one for the emulation alone.

laserDinosaur2• 14 years ago

"I'm thinking of buying one for the emulation alone."

Holy hell, I didn't even think of this. Android already has a bunch of emus. Exciting!

Zenst• 14 years ago

Sad thing is that whilst alot of people would love for something like this to be available and have the games available to for it to do well. Well its too easy to point out the mistakes or the worst case situations and play of on those gaming more hits and adverts on a article and that maybe why the title of the article is all doom and the content a little more pragmatic and mindful.

If the article had the title "The $99 Ouya game console: Exciting, innovative - a new hope" then people would read it in a different vain. Sadly that is not the case.

Sure it's in all effect the same specs as the nexus tablet witht he added bluetooth controller and no dsplay in many respects but thats not all what its about.

Even if it fails, it has the potentual to create a niche android gaming market/portal.

Good luck to them

pbreit3• 14 years ago

All these Ouya doomsday articles are frustrating. The team behing Ouya is legit. The idea is reasonable. The iOS/Android-style development community is completely different from console. Wii showed that a brand new console can take off in a huge way with little marketing spend.

danso2• 14 years ago

Are you serious? You don't think "Nintendo" in the name wasn't at all beneficial? Or the library of first party exclusive games?

pbreit3• 14 years ago

Yes. Yes. No. And my comment was about "marketing spend".

yk• 14 years ago

I surely hope that the Ouya will be a success, but I am far less sure that it will be a success. On one hand, making a game for a regular Android device with a touchscreen is a lot different from making a game for a gamepad. ( For example drawing games simply do not work with a gamepad, while football games do not work with a touchscreen/acceleration sensor). Atop of this the hardware seems to be rather low spec, especially the lack of a real GPU seems to be a problem.

On the other hand, with the feature list of the Tegra 3 and a bluetooth keyboard, it would make a really nice streaming client/HTPC. And it is fairly open, which should ensure hackability for stuff like a nice TV interface for HN, home file server and probably even gaming ;)

In conclusion, I have the somehow wired feeling that it could be a rather huge success but not as a gaming device but as the break through for "smart TV." And it is somewhat raising hopes, that the developer specials (at $699 and $leet) are sold out.

[edit] I forgot to add: The $99 price point is very nice, since this is about the highest amount many people are willing to spend without a good reason. So many casual gamers will probably buy one and figure other uses out later.

The $99 Ouya game console: Exciting, innovative — and probably doomed

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