Ouya Developers Share Their Experiences 88
RogueyWon writes "Four months after the launch of the Ouya micro-console, Gamasutra has pulled together a round up of the experiences of indie developers who have brought their games to the platform. There's both positive and negative news; developers seem to like the ease of porting to the platform, but have concerns regarding the approach that its marketplace takes. Perhaps most crucially, sales of games on the platform are far from stellar."
Re:Steambox will murder it with steam sales (Score:2, Interesting)
"I think Ouya would have been fine if it weren't for steam box."
I think both platforms are doomed. I already have a perfectly good platform for playing all of these games. I can't imagine anything less interesting to me that playing those games on my television. Add in crappier controllers, the lack of any other platform content, and that I have to pay for the privilege?
I don't think I'm alone in my total lack of enthusiasm. I'm finding it difficult to justify upgrading the PS3, which spends the vast majority of its time turned off.
Explain something to me: (Score:2, Interesting)
If a Kickstarter is very sucessful, does it not mean that the majority of people interested in the project has already committed money to it? Thus, huge Kickstarter successes are less likely to do well financially after it is launched?
Can the Ouya play games? (Score:4, Interesting)
I installed XBMC on mine, and been using it exclusively as a HTPC.
Been thinking about installing MAME or something similar though, but so far I haven't played a single game on mine.
Oh and by the way, even with good ventilation, it gets hot!
Re:Steambox will murder it with steam sales (Score:3, Interesting)
If you play a lot of games then a console is the very last thing you want to buy. I just got an alert for Mass Effect 1 and 2 being on sale for less than a pack of cigarettes. You will never get games as cheaply on a console.
Which takes us straight to the Ouya. On the cheap games front the Ouya competes with the PC(SteamBox) and loses out on every aspect. Except on price. I will keep buying Ouyas because frankly it is a great idea with two major flaws: it takes a lot more experience to build a proper controller and their business model is too much a hurdle for straight ports.
So yes, I agree with the GP.
My Ouya (Score:5, Interesting)
I recently bought an Ouya myself. Having looked at the system for a bit its not really THAT bad, but you have to go into it knowing the limitations. It's not an Xbox or a Playstation. Its basically a toy for tablet level games but just gives you a way to play them with a controller (which despite the explosion of tablet/mobile games is still a better way to play many things).
The only real games I've used mine for have been Final Fantasy III and emulating consoles. It has worked well for that.
Considering that my original motivation was that I wanted another XBMC box and setting up another Raspberry Pi would have been around $75 (with case, remote, power, etc), I figured that the extra $25 to have a basic "console" wasn't bad. I certainly won't be tossing out my "real" game systems any time soon though.
Re:Why Ouya is Doomed (Score:2, Interesting)
It's underspecced and can't do anything different to your laptop or desktop PC.
If it worked, it would be an acceptable deal for $100.
It's shit.
That's why it's not an acceptable deal for $100.
Notably, the controller completely punts on handling touch. It doesn't even have gyros. It would have been better to punt on the controller, and work on making PS3 controllers work properly.
When I had my Ouya, a bluetooth keyboard would inevitably work its way towards being controller #1. Then you couldn't play any games until you unpaired the controller and the keyboard, and repaired the controller. And the PS3 controller support was spotty at best, as well. The launcher would crash, and games would crash, and games that were on the launch poster weren't launch titles, and and and. The most notable "and" is that the development was completely closed (in spite of the Ouya being billed as "Open") and users have to wait for updates.
I was and remain an outspoken supporter of the concept. It's too bad Ouya failed so hard to anticipate the future. If they had worked with Google to create a controller standard instead of striking out on their own, they might have secured a place for themselves in the Google Play gaming ecosystem.
Nothing in particular is stopping them from going that way, except perhaps competence. But if there is a sequel, I suppose it will tell.
I love my Ouya (Score:4, Interesting)
Just to give a second oppinion I can say that I really enjoy my Ouya that I bought in August. I payed $149 (one extra controller) and honestly almost felt it was repaid after the first weekend of playing games and having a blast with my girlfriend (Hidden in plain sight, Bomb Squad, Suction co-op). And now that I've discovered XBMC and spend countless hours playing Nimble Quest and Knightmare Tower the cost is completely written off.
I really like the simpleness of most Ouya games. I just don't have the time to get into some long complicated game any more, so most new AAA titles don't attract me. But my previous console was a Super Nintendo, so my reference frame might be different from many hard-core gamers :) In contrast to many other commenters here I also like the fact that it has its own store. That means that all the games I find has been tuned to work for the hardware. If it used the Google Android app-store I imagine the titles that worked well would drown in all the games that didn't make any sense to run without a touch screen.
I have experienced some un-responsiveness with the controllers which went away after a reboot, but none of the other problems you describe. Maybe many of the issues that the Kickstarter supporters experienced in the beginning has been fixed providing me with a generally more positive experience. Also I just feel completely amazed at the power you can pack in such small item and for such a small cost. The same goes for the games, I mean, most of them are cheaper than my lunch!
So, thank you very much for supporting the Ouya on Kickstarter, allowing people like me to enjoy it. I'm sorry it didn't live up to your expectations. For me it really doesn't matter if the Ouya is "doomed" or not, I'm enjoying mine plenty anyway.