IndyDDR.com

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouy ... me-console

There's been some buzz lately about this. Essentially, an Android console. It takes the mobile gaming explosion and tries to put it back on the TV. What do you guys think?

Disruptive? Redundant? Vaporware? Evolution?

Discuss.

I dunno, it basically all depends on how much independent developers put into it. I doubt any big companies are going to support it so it will likely end up filled with a bunch of short, fun little platformers, creative puzzle games, and a schload of trash.

It's cheap enough to give it a shot. Also, since it's running Android and will be open, it can act as a media top/netflix box. It'll be interesting to see how it does.

I am definitely interested in seeing how this turns out. In particular, how would development for this work since it will be notedly different from the standard android setup of tablets and phones?

A lot of people have been criticizing it being Android based because of the limitations of the Android platform. All Android applications are ran in Java. It's possible to write the code in different languages and convert it to Java, but ultimately everything is restricted to the language. It would be easier for a lot of small indy devs to create fun little games for it, but bigger developers may be skeptical because of these limitations. I'm imagining it's going to bypass this with another or modified OS, but we'll see.

I'm not sure, but not unsure, I want to spend $100 on something that may never exist. It isn't really investing, and is barely even preordering. One of the lower pledge levels might be better for me.

Can't you just hook a computer up to a TV, call it an Ouya, and effectively have the same thing? I don't see what it offers other than being dirt cheap.

Merk wrote:Can't you just hook a computer up to a TV, call it an Ouya, and effectively have the same thing? I don't see what it offers other than being dirt cheap.

Sure, but not everyone has the know-how to put something like that together. Look at the Roku.

http://www.roku.com/

People love that thing and it does even less than the proposed Ouya would do. Haven't you ever bought a console because it just works out of the box?

http://www.destructoid.com/ouya-intervi ... 1474.phtml

I hear the word 'scam' pretty often.

Fluffyumpkins wrote:I hear the word 'scam' pretty often.

Pretty sure life itself is a scam.

Pokebis wrote:A lot of people have been criticizing it being Android based because of the limitations of the Android platform. All Android applications are ran in Java. It's possible to write the code in different languages and convert it to Java, but ultimately everything is restricted to the language. It would be easier for a lot of small indy devs to create fun little games for it, but bigger developers may be skeptical because of these limitations. I'm imagining it's going to bypass this with another or modified OS, but we'll see.

While it is true that it isn't possible to get away from Dalvik, developing on Android is not as restrictive as it used to be. Thanks in part to the XobotOS project, improved utilization of C# is possible on the platform now. (http://blog.xamarin.com/2012/05/01/android-in-c-sharp/ has more info on this.) In addition, using solely C/C++ for development has been possible since r5 of the Native Development Kit. (http://cplus.about.com/b/2011/01/18/and ... bility.htm has some notes on that.) In the interest of full disclosure however, I will mention that if Ouya does wish to get developers onboard, it would benefit greatly from making their version of Android have native support for C/C++ instead of relying on conversion (I have experience in developing for both Java and C++, and while Java allows for some great object oriented designs, C++ serves as a federation of languages which gives it some major advantages) and improving the security on Android.

Edit: Just saw that this console is going with wireless controllers. Seriously, they need to give wired controllers some love cause there are some games that simply don't work on wireless.

There's been some discussion around the purpose of the Kickstarter. $5,000,000 isn't a whole lot of money to cover all of the manufacturing and logistics overhead for something like this, but almost 40,000 backers is enough to catch the eye of angel investors. I'm still not sure how much I want to donate.

Finally got around to playing one. Holy crap how can a controller be so laggy. It all but ruined the gameplay experience.

Otherwise it was pretty cool. Tower Fall and Get on Top were especially fun, but the half-second input lag was miserable. This isn't me complaining about mild syncing issues in a rhythm game. This is big time way the hell off 56k modem lag. If you point the controller away from the Ouya, it gets even worse. Once Tower Fall comes out on Steam, well, enjoy your emulators.

Shit emulators.
Wii has better emulators than Ouya, everyone has one, it's piss easy to mod, and everything works like a charm. Ouya is pretty much useless aside from spending a day playing some gimmick games.

But what a fun day it was. We'll see what happens over the next year, but with even more android powered consoles hitting the market I don't have high expectations.