Razer Acquires Ouya's Storefront and Technical Team 91
An anonymous reader writes: The Ouya Android-based gaming console was one of Kickstarter's biggest successes — and one of the biggest letdowns for all the backers. The console never really took off, and the company behind it has limped along over the past couple years. Until today. Razer has now acquired the Ouya technical team, as well as their online storefront — but not the console hardware itself. Razer intends to dump of all these new resources into its Forge TV product, also an Android game console. "Razer went so far as to kick a little sand in the face of the little-console-that-couldn't—by advertising its own Forge microconsole as a 'more advanced' system and telling Ouya owners that they will receive 'a clear path of migration' to buy the company's current $100, AndroidTV-compatible box." The fate of Ouya's hardware is not explicitly mentioned, but the news article suggests it is simply "discontinued."
Awesome! (Score:1)
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You seem to not like Razor's products and yet you own the rest of their catalog?
I think you need to step out of the closet and admit your Razor product addiction.
Kickstarter forever (Score:1, Insightful)
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That's right! Let's throw away the whole system because of a few corrupted people!
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You are free to piss away your money on any damned thing you want to.
But, in general, I'd say it's a fair observation that Kick Starter mostly serves to fund people who have an idea, and nothing else ... who may or may not reach their goals, and who will probably still go under, leaving all of your stuff in the hands of an entity you wouldn't have started a business relationship with.
From the stories we see, it really has the hallmarks of a Ponzi scheme as a bunch of guys play the get-rich-quick game by pre
Re:Kickstarter forever (Score:4, Insightful)
Remember: "Man pays $50 and gets what he paid for!" doesn't make for very exciting news. The vast majority of Kickstarters work relatively well, perhaps with some delays, but nothing too serious.
Certain projects categories are a bit more volatile than others. Software and gadgets are among the most risky, which happens to be the categories of primary interest to slashdotters. In comparison, board games are an extremely safe bet. In the vast majority of cases the creator already has a print & play version available. Kickstarting is becoming positively routine in the board games world, and that's despite having one of the most famous kickstarter screw ups (The Doom that Came to Atlantic City).
No, he problably isn't. (Score:3, Interesting)
I have funded 40+ kickstarts. One flaked out and cost me the whole $20, at least 6 had delays greater than 50% of the estimated delivery time. But more than half nailed it and I got what I purchased.
I backed the Ouya, and kept careful track of what they were up to. It was a good idea, it was well executed. It worked... But anyone who guarantees you a successful venture in the gaming console market is a liar. It's an unpredictable space. Just look at the money that Microsoft and Sony have had to dump
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not to mention, Ouya came along the time when both M$ and $ony were going to force always on walled garden camera integration into your living space... and for a lot of people it was a FU to the establishment and mayhave forced some change on the online behavior from the said vendors. It was to establish a third (4th 5th) console option showing there was demand for a less anal intrusive product on the market... if that is Razor or Ouya or steambox or whatever else... the point has been made.
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In general you only hear about people screwing up and making mistakes, so of course you think the majority of Kickstarter projects are run by thieves and crooks.
I have only participated in one Kickstarter project [kickstarter.com], but it went really well and I'm extremely pleased with the products that I received.
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:) saw that, was thinking of kicking in for a friend at one point.
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You are free to piss away your money on any damned thing you want to.
But, in general, I'd say it's a fair observation that Kick Starter mostly serves to fund people who have an idea, and nothing else ... who may or may not reach their goals, and who will probably still go under, leaving all of your stuff in the hands of an entity you wouldn't have started a business relationship with.
From the stories we see, it really has the hallmarks of a Ponzi scheme as a bunch of guys play the get-rich-quick game by pretending they have a business plan.
I've never heard of either Razer or Ouya, but the news stories I've seen over the last few years says I'd never pay into a Kick Starter.
Who you give your money to is your damned business.
It's like PT Barnum said, there's a sucker born every minute.
Razer has been around for years. Known for making "gaming" peripherals for the PC such as keyboards and mice. They're not running any kickstarter campaign here, they're absorbing some technical talent from a former kickstarter company to do something similar to what that company did. RTFA.
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Razer is one of the biggest manufacturers of specialty gaming hardware for PCs, including keyboards, controllers, mice, high-performance mousepads, and headsets.
They've been around since 1998 and have around 400 employees. Don't confuse them with a kickstarter campaign.
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Don't confuse them with a kickstarter campaign
Considering their QA and build quality, it's an easy mistake to make.
The only Razer product I ever bought that didn't shit out on me a week after warranty (max) was up was a mouse pad.
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i've kicked into 7-8 kickstarters now, probably nowhere near what many have, but all have been moderately successful.
i've also kicked in with the understanding that it'd be nice if they succeed, but there's no guarantee.
and if people like me don't kick in, this product that i think is neato may never get made.
Timelines have been blown, but all my "purchases" have been good. Even if i used them less than i thought i would, it's no fault of the campaign.
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Some of the earliest kickstarters I kicked into fell into two buckets.
1) Something like "We want to make a second season of our video series, please kick in, we've got rewards at various tiers." This is great...I'm not really buying anything because the reward values are less than what I am paying. Also, they were generally making followup work or were established people starting a new project...so you knew what was coming.
2) Some craftsman wants to make som
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my first contribution was to the hexbright.
it kinda fell into bucket 2, and i haven't contributed to a project in a while now. bulk discount definitely there, timeline blown the hell away, but the product was solid, and i mean that literally, i think i could brain someone with that flashlight and it would still work. software was kinda meh, but still a solid product.
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So you're not really familiar with the concept of investment risk, eh? If you don't do your own proper research before backing something, then who is to blame again?
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Kickstarter isn't an investment.
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Sometimes that works out. Other times it doesn't, and it behooves anyone who's contributing to a Kickstarter project to do a bit of research about the company or individuals behind it, how feasible their plan is, and overall how risky it is.
Re: Kickstarter forever (Score:1)
It is absolutely not an investment. It's a gift with the hope of getting something out the other end.
It's much more like buying a lottery ticket and nothing like buying a share of stock. If the lottery ticket might eventually pay-off at its own face-value, that is.
People who "buy" things through KickStarter are deluding themselves if they think about it that way.
I donated to a KickStarter project, and IMH it was wildly successful (Planetary Annihilation): they were /way/ over-funded (I think they got ~2.5x
Re: Kickstarter forever (Score:1)
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the action or process of investing money for profit or material result.
The Kickstarter backer rewards or eventual product is the material reward in this case.
Also, have you ever heard the phrase "Improving education is investing in the future of our country." or something similar to that effect? Clearly no one is talking about owning some part of future generations or anything along those lines.
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I don't actually think I've ever seen a kickstarter that I would qualify as an investment. For me, an investment is something where I give somebody $x and at a future point in time there's a reasonable chance that I could end up with cash or negotiables worth $x+y. Of course, there's always some risk that the investment doesn't work out and I end up with $x-y or even when x=y and you get $0. But there should be a chance of actually increasing your money.
For every kickstarter project I've seen, the buy i
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Now define kickstarter investing.
If you're getting a guaranteed return, it isn't called investing, it is called "buying."
Purchasing a stock certificate in order to hold onto it is called investing. That's different than "playing the market" even tho you buy stocks in companies in both cases.
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first, define "angel" investor. Now define kickstarter investing. If you're getting a guaranteed return, it isn't called investing, it is called "buying." Purchasing a stock certificate in order to hold onto it is called investing. That's different than "playing the market" even tho you buy stocks in companies in both cases.
If we are going to classify Kickstarter Projects as an investment, then we have to understand this: The maximum possible ROI is 0% (value of product equals what you put in ), and it goes down from there.
Re:Kickstarter forever (Score:4, Interesting)
And part of why it works is that there are people who (at least for some projects) who value the proposed project enough that they put forward the money ahead of time. Maybe some of them are foolishly overestimating the value, but that's how it goes sometimes. Sure, you can wait until it's actually produced, but then you're not one of those people who wants it enough to do so - and I certainly wouldn't argue that you should do anything but wait and see, in that case, because there is indeed risk that the project could fail and you'd be out that money with nothing to show for it.
I'd say it's more of an investment than anything, given all that - it's not a donation if you're expecting/hoping for something tangible in return that is at least commensurate in value, with a degree of risk that you might wind up with nothing at all. You're just investing in the possibility of getting a copy of a particular proposed game/console/etc, rather than getting a certain amount of monetary profit back.
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But the problem I see is that you'll never get more than your initial investment back. With the Ouya kickstarter the buy in was $100 if you wanted them to send you a console if they ever eventually released one. The problem was that when they eventually did end up releasing the console, it was $100 even for those who didn't invest initially. So there is nothing to gain by being an investor. You'd be much better off just putting your money in a bank and then buying the product when it ultimately comes out
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At the time Ouya was going to offer something that the major console makers weren't. In the end, they simply didn't execute well enough,
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Damn idiots keep treating Kickstarter like a damn shopping mall. It's not an investment, and the backees don't owe the backers squat. These morons can be pissed all they want, it's their own damn fault for treating these projects as something they're absolutely, explicitly *not*.
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So you're not really familiar with the concept of investment risk ...
You're obviously deluded about the concept of investment. Please enlighten us on what the investors who funded Ouya through Kickstarter got when the owner cash out and sold it to Razer.
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Well it failed, so nothing. Duh.
No, it succeeded very well for the guy who collected all of the money.
Re:Kickstarter forever (Score:5, Interesting)
Sorry, but Kung Fury was worth every single penny.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
It's also better than anything that Hollywood has produced in the past 40 years.
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They delivered the product as promised, they just never gained the market share to go much further.
This is the same risk you take if you buy any new gizmo in a store.
Remember HD-DVD players?
Nobody got screwed here.
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They delivered the product as promised
Well, no. Not really. They promised an open and hackable platform. But they didn't deliver that. They released a shitty and broken platform. Many units overheat. All original controllers were shit, they had to do a second run. And the "recovery" is shit. It's implemented at the same level as the OS, so if you ruin your OS, your Ouya is really and truly bricked. Nobody has figured out how to get JTAG on it. USB keyboards become controller #1 so nothing works until you unpair them and the keypad (which will h
Mod Parent Up (Score:2)
Here's what the Kickstarter page said about openness and hackability:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-video-game-console [kickstarter.com]
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Let us not forget that it was supposed to have fully working XBMC at release time (if not included, then downloadable) which still hadn't materialized over a month later. Did that ever really happen? Before I took my Ouya back to Gamestop, I tried numerous nightlies and none of them were ever anywhere close to stable, nor did any of them really work properly anyway.
Ouya really set Android gaming back substantially with their incompetence. It's good to see that some other manufacturers are now bringing devic
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Ha ha. I remember you arguing how Android was going to the platform for games because of Ouya.
So it really was a shit as I sad it would be.
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Ha ha. I remember you arguing how Android was going to the platform for games because of Ouya.
Well, I do think I left in some weasel words about how they could screw it up, and how it might be some successor which would dominate on the same basis. But yeah, I bet on Ouya, and I was wrong. It does happen.
So it really was a shit as I sad it would be.
Yep.
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they didn't get screwed as such.
it was just that for some reason they were hyped up into thinking that an android box from company B would somehow be upermegasupadupacool compared to just any other android box(and usb controller) that's on the market and for some reason they got into thinking they'd get cooler games than on android even though it's the same frigging thing.
thing is, an used 100 bucks laptop would do the role much better. but majority of ouyas backers were people who have used 100 bucks lapto
Ouya? Razer? (Score:2)
Screw that, I just got my Raspberry Pi 2 and RetroPie will fill all my needs.
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Tegra 3 in the Ouya is still faster than a Raspberry Pi 2. (RPi2 is faster than a Tegra 2 though)
My hope was they would release an update of Ouya with the Tegra K1. But that never happened. The SHIELD console has a Tegra X1, but the base unit costs twice what Ouya did, so it's a bit hard to justify the purchase. It's certainly more than twice the performance, but is it twice the fun?
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The Ouya is/was more expensive than the Raspberry Pi 2. You get what you pay for, but with the RPi2 there's a huge community around it.
Ouya was all false promises. (Score:3)
When I finally got mine, I turned it on and the first thing it did was ask for my credit card number. Tried to skip it but it was not possible.
I left it collecting dust ever since. So much for revolution and freedom, not going to miss it.
Keeping a roof over game developers' heads (Score:2, Insightful)
They promised [...] freedom [...] for everyone to develop.
When I finally got mine, I turned it on and the first thing it did was ask for my credit card number. Tried to skip it but it was not possible.
If no one is willing to pay for games, then how should everyone keep a roof over their heads while developing games? Or by "freedom" did you mean free as in FSF, with all games having DFSG-free code and assets?
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No, I think he meant what he said: that when he could not even play one of the included free demos without entering his credit card # he turned it off...permanently. I would do the same thing.
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How can someone demonstrate that he is willing to pay for games without entering his payment credentials?
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If you can't use a piece of technology out of the box before you get prompted for a credit card, you pretty much have to assume the rest of the experience will be even worse.
Things which go straight to the "give us your credit card" are generally not to be trusted, and is a sign it's going to be asking for money pretty much constantly.
If you bought a TV, and the first thing it did was prompt for your credit card, would you actually do that?
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My TV did do that the first time I turned it on, but to be fair that's only because channel 2 is QVC.
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If you bought a TV, and the first thing it did was prompt for your credit card, would you actually do that?
Perhaps if it was a device specifically intended for use with electronically purchased copies of works of authorship, not a device primarily intended to decode and display HDMI or ATSC signals. A Kindle reader, for example, needs an Amazon account.
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Fact is they promised something to backers and delivered the complete opposite.
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I get that prompting for a CC# at boot is not particularly friendly, but I fail to see how it is even related to being "a home console for everyone, freedom from the big publishers and for everyone to develop". Fact is very few (any?) big publishers put anything on the platform, there were tons of indie games, and you certainly can turn any box into a dev kit. Seems like they fulfilled those promises.
The fact that it was underpowered and the games didn't appeal to me is what made me sell mine (at a profit,
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you can turn any xbox into a dev kit of some level and any windows phone into a dev phone.
provided that you're willing to shell out your credit card number ;D. anyhow, you can develop on windows without giving a credit card number too.
aaaaaaaaanyhow, they originally marketed it as an open kind of box, while actually making it as closed as they could get away with without stomping on licenses of the stuff they used pretty much.
the whole marketing was to more or less market it as an "OPEN" "new kind" of conso
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I disagree about Steam Machines. There are real problems I have that I hope Steam Machines solves. I want a fully powered, gaming PC that just works, but doesn’t lock me down in what I can do with it.
- I want the benefits of mass production commodities and be able to buy a good PC gaming machine off-the-shelf for a lower price.
- I’m tired of spending so much time building my own custom PC and doing OS installations.
- I’m sick of Microsoft charging me many times more than everybody else for
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I want the benefits of mass production commodities and be able to buy a good PC gaming machine off-the-shelf for a lower price.
The Steam Machine won't give you that, because it's small and because it has a brand stamped on it. It's going to come at a higher price.
Iâ(TM)m tired of spending so much time building my own custom PC and doing OS installations.
So buy one prebuilt.
Iâ(TM)m sick of Microsoft charging me many times more than everybody else for a Windows license because I didnâ(TM)t buy a pre-configured machine from an OEM.
So buy a pre-configured machine from an OEM, which is what you are proposing to do.
Iâ(TM)m sick of Windows blue screening and corrupting my EFI boot partitions so my dual boots wonâ(TM)t work.
So stop putting multiple OSes on one disk. Segregate onto different storage devices. Problem completely solved.
- Iâ(TM)m sick of Windows nagging me about turning on Secure Boot. I donâ(TM)t want it.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2902864 [microsoft.com]
Iâ(TM)m sick of big giant PC towers that take up massive space and donâ(TM)t fit well in home theater cabinets (or anywhere else).
Buy a SFF PC.
- Iâ(TM)m sick of loud PC fans and the unnecessarily high power consumption and heat
Buy a low-power CPU and GPU
I want a gaming PC that is fully utilized for games, not loaded down with needless background processes sucking up CPU and RAM
So disable the indexing service etc.
- Hardware driver updates for Windows is such a chore.
It is? The only ones that see many up
My Ouya (Score:3)
I've had my Ouya for a little over 2 years, and it's probably the longest amount of fun I've gotten out of $100 in a long time. Even if it ended today, which it won't, I will still have been happy with my purchase.
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Ah, so HE'S the guy who caused Ouya to fail by only playing the game demos without buying anything. You bastard!
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Ha, yea. I didn't buy a lot of stuff for it, but I didn't include that in my total. I did confirm that some things do run on non-Ouya hardware, so I've not really wasted my money. I backed up the APKs for the things I paid for in the inevitable time when Ouya is gone.
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You shoulda got a used original Xbox. You can often pick one up for $20, if you can solder you don't need to buy anything to mod most of them, there's a ton of games and a ton of indie software including a crapload of emulators. You could have saved it from the landfill and saved eighty bucks at the same time
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I have an Xbox, it died. I still have a lot of games for it, few of them play correctly on the 360.
I have two broken PS2's, I gave up replacing them, they all seem to die if you put a lot of hours on them with RPGs.
Ouya developers (Score:1)
And yet nobody covers the story of contracted developers that were promised thousands of dollars to develop free games for Ouya and with this buyout Ouya just cancelled the contracts, leaving any loans they took out to develop their games unpaid. http://puu.sh/jfvRQ/605c4e5a90.png