When the Ouya was first Kickstarted it gained lots of attention and sparked widespread knowledge of the Micro Console, while some would say the Ouya is a failure it did gain the attention of large companies such as Amazon and even Google which have begun making competitors.
As a developer I often wonder the worth of developing for these tiny consoles, most have limited customers even devices like the Amazon Fire TV has a limited audience, however I think that as this market grows it will become one of the most lucrative markets for indie developers targeting old school games and people interested in playing with their friends in the same location.
I don’t often get buyer’s remorse, but when I bought an Ouya that all changed. I think the big question right now is: “why buy a whole new device when my phone can do that?”
My problem with the Ouya is that it fundamentally failed to deliver on anything it promised. What’s more, instead of Ouya encouraging developers to write for their system, by ensuring that it’s possible to make money by releasing for their system, they instead started doing all sorts of BS like spamming campaigns on developers. Suffice to say, I neither play nor develop for Ouya. It is a failure.
That’s what I thought from the beginning. I kind of saw it’s biggest problem to be the disconnect between it’s target audience and the audience it actually got. It’s target was the casual market that have wii’s but only bought about three games, yet still play a lot on their phones. The problem with that market though is that they don’t know the Ouya exists.
The audience it actually got was mostly developers and people who wanted games from a simpler time. I can’t help but think that what they wanted was a better version of those retro arcade toy (whatever you want to call them) you plug straight into the tv.
I was quite excited about Ouya, all the hype, the people’s console, good for indies etc… but became disappointed. The quality of most games is poor… there are some exceptions which are quite good, gameplay is good on some, some have decent graphics, but mostly across the board there is a lack of polish. Then there’s the lack of presence by bigger name companies, and the tiny size of the audience, and the fact that hardly anyone ends up buying anything. It just sort of didn’t grow into a big huge market. I’m sure it’s still expanding but it just sort of stayed small (micro?). Also the hardware performance sucks bigtime, it really limits what you can do with it. Certain types of games, ok… but major compromises needed - think ipad1. Also then I was a bit put off by their transitioning into this sort of software only ouya, which kinda is a reliving of the nightmare of the Amiga struggling to keep up and always being behind the game in hardware in the past decade, and then people trying to shovel the software/os off as the essence of what makes it what it is, amiga everywhere, amiga forever… kinda seen it all before. Kind of a last resort for a dying platform. So I’ve lost a tonne of interest in it. I poked around on it the other day after not using it for like 2-3 months and only found a small handful of new releases (since last time) worth trying. I think it has definitely improved (user interface, selection etc)… but it still is just a hobbyist/enthusiasts kind of arena.
I’m quite happy with my Ouya, I’ve found that I don’t use it that much to play games and the hardware is extremely weak for outputting 1080p video, I also have found that the Ouya controller hardly works with the Ouya(And especially my Unity stuff) but fine on PC. Considering IIRC it cost around $150 I’m not disappointed. It’s the best device I have for playing movies and media via XBMC or VLC on my TV and the controller works very nicely with PC as the touchpad works as an actual touchpad to control the mouse.
Sad to hear about the OUYA, I had high hopes for it, but I think they made too many fundamental marketing/management mistakes.
If they can release a next gen OUYA with improved controllers and Tegra 4 or K1, it might gain some traction if they can keep the price low. There are a lot of people in this world who don’t want to pay $599 for a gaming console and $99 every time for a new title.
The next step is for OUYA to win over more quality developers, and get some big name or really polished titles on the platform, perhaps some titles that take advantage of a new chipset that could really make the console shine.
I played a few of the games and wasn’t impressed. Most of the games were disappointing.
But I think its a good concept, and definitely think micro consoles have a future.
I’m quite disappointed with my Ouya. I like the concept, but it’s buggy as ****.
One of the controllers has a faulty right joystick, I get serious input freezes on one or both controllers every other minute or so, and the wifi connection hardly works unless I lay the Ouya on it’s side right next to my router.
Even when using PS3 controllers instead of the original, they freeze or lag so bad during play that it’s not even funny.
Still, I play from time to time since I like some of the released games, and I have also spent about $100 on games in the store to support developers.
I think there’s a huge potential for microconsoles as a gaming platform for the common man, but I don’t think that the Ouya (V1 atleast) is the answer. I actually avoid informing my friends about the Ouya since they would get seriously negative towards microconsoles in general if they bought it.
I can’t speak about the Ouya don’t own one and it never interested me much but I do own the fire tv and must say I like it a lot. Currently play hungry shark (controller required), bombsquad (controller not required but basically needed), hill climb racing (great even remote only), and ski safari (great even remote only) and while those are all available on other platforms as well Its nice playing on the big screen tv. Would it have justified the $99 price tag for just the games probably not. But considering the other uses (media consumption) I think it’s a good device. I’m sure only a small % play games but the device (like the roku and apple tv) will undoubtedly have high sales numbers so it’s becoming a not so negligible gaming userbase. The last I checked a few days ago the number of games just crossed 300 so it might be one of those platforms to deploy to if your app is getting lost in the vast ocean of IOS and android marketplaces
For non gaming I must say its also a nice device. It is in my opinion better than the apple tv and roku (I own both) even if it didn’t have gaming.
I do look forward to the android TV devices and hopefully one of these days apple follows suit with the apple TV and allows games. Also, look forward to Playstation TV (Vita TV) when it comes out in the fall.
I have an OUYA, and I like it. It is a bit extraneous for me, but then I helped out the Kickstarter specifically because I wanted micro-consoles to succeed. In that sense, I think it was a great success, and well worth the trouble.
What the OUYA helped to achieve is to demonstrate to the market at large the viability of smaller-scale gaming initiatives and low-cost console-style gaming. The market in general has truly taken this lesson to heart, and now we’re seeing all sorts of interesting developments.
The OUYA itself may never become a true commercial success. But that’s fine. I think that the Google Android TV is likely going to sink any possibility of the OUYA and other micro-consoles rising to prominence. When micro-console style hardware is built into your TV itself, there is no need for a secondary box. That’s an ideal scenario for a lot of different styles of games.
Though, people don’t generally buy new TV’s every year or so. But hardware develops fast, so a cheap box you could replace whenever something more appealing comes out might still interest a lot of people.