I hope everybody is excited about Ouya, it’s going to breed a new kind of gaming. We haven’t really seen anything like it before, and the marketing lot actually seem to know what gamers want.
Since launch we’ve seen gamers practically wetting themselves over Ouya, reaching full funding ($950,000) in a stupidly short amount of time. They’re mixing innovation with tradition, we’re seeing tablets getting some great games lately, but we don’t like tablets, I mean I didn’t spend a stupid amount of money on a fancy TV, surround sound and gamer chair just to have a pissing tablet. So, Ouya hits them together, by using Android to power it but as a console. We see console heads pushing developers away, think about the indie marketplace, they dust it away with no push on players to buy any of them. And while no one likes to have adverts smacked in their face, a little nudge wouldn’t hurt. So, talented little developers go to mobile gaming because they won’t be treated badly.
I hate freemium, but they seem to have figured out a nice formula “We’re handing the reins over to the developer with only one condition: at least some gameplay has to be free. We borrowed the free-to-play model from games like League of Legends, Team Fortress 2, Triple Town, and many others. Developers can offer a free demo with a full-game upgrade, in-game items or powers, or ask you to subscribe.”
Ouya is also using a tile lay out, much like what we’ve seen Microsoft trying to use recently. I’m skeptical, but it looks like Ouya’s is a little nicer, it could be down to something simple like the colour scheme. Or the proportion of the boxes, it just feels right, where as Microsoft’s is just plain wrong.
Working with hackers! Yes, in what I would call brilliant words of Guillaume Rambourg of Good old Gaming “You will never beat hackers and pirates, stop ruining games with DRMs, it won’t work.” And he’s right, you can’t keep pirates and hackers back, so let them, help them. Ouya has a warranty that actually allows you to take it apart. They actually ask you to surprise them with what you can make!
So that’s the basics down, let’s take a look at the actual thing, we got a pair of new pictures recently:
Smaller than a pair of monkey nuts, but sleek.
Take note of the simplicity of the console, 4 screws to hold it together that’s it, because they want to make it very hacker friendly.
They’ve also released a special edition console just for Kickstarter:
Now let’s be honest, we all thought “I saw that in my toilet this morning.” right? No? Maybe I should stop eating cubes.
Onlive then sent out a press release about teaming up with Ouya! Onlive will bring in hundreds of their games from over 80 publishers to Ouya for play on demand. In true Onlive style, you can play the games on Ouya, PC, Mac, tablets, or phones. Onlive have always had the vision of playing a game pretty much anywhere. And finally, Onlive bring us demos, many of them. 30 minutes of gameplay on everything from tiny indie games to Darksiders 2, and they’re doing that whole “You don’t have to do it all again if you buy the game now” at the end of the demo thing. Which is good!
Finally, today we hear that Ouya is teaming with XBMC, now I hadn’t heard of XBMC but they’ve had a lot of demand just about everywhere for support on Ouya. According to the website XBMC is an open source software media player and entertainment hub. It’s a step up over traditional media players because it can run just about any and all audio and video formats. They’ve not released much in terms of details yet though “The conversation between our two teams is young, but talk is ongoing and positive. We look forward to providing more exciting news on this front as it develops.” Ouya seems to be taking leaps and bounds, but as a side note it will have online radio support too in the form of TuneIn.
And finally, specifications:
Tegra3 quad-core processor
1GB RAM
8GB of internal flash storage
HDMI connection to the TV, with support for up to 1080p HD
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
Bluetooth LE 4.0
USB 2.0 (one)
Wireless controller with standard controls (two analog sticks, d-pad, eight action buttons, a system button), a touchpad
Android 4.0
ETHERNET! (Announced by Muffi 7/18)
Now, go and pre order for time is running out! http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-video-game-console
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