Have you guys heard about the OUYA? It is a new console that is currently on kickstarter and its built on Android. It has been on the site for about 4 days and was looking to get $950,000. At this moment they have $4,226,664 with 33,041 people backing the project with 27 days remaining. What do you guys think about this?
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-video-game-console?ref=live
Yes, read about it yesterday. They got a decent amount of attention thru their kickstarter project.
To be honest, I do not see the whole point of it - you can connect nearly every tablet to a hdmi tv… just imagne what happens, when sony decides to add a external gamepad to the xperia play … ugh?
So Developers already(!) do make use of DPAD controls (we have to) because some phones actually have a DPAD.
The only(!) reason I could see for game developers is, that there would be a single hardware base so the dev can get the best out of his game. For maybe 1 year, than the hardware is old and has to be replaced - so it’s not very helpful.
They may get support from nvidia - but they does serve other console makers.
So, clearly, I do not see where this could be a wealthy project. handy makers just need a blink of an eye to add hdmi output to their phones.
Imagine, that I could just plug my S3 into the tv … devs will still aim for full compatibility.
So, it would need to be much more cheaper like 50$ max, than it could really be a business hit
Well, I’ve backed the project as I like shiny things. I have a few thoughts about it which I’ll bullet point below as I don’t have time to flesh them out.
I agree even as high as $200 it would still be worth considering. True I can plug my phone in and get a bluetooth gamepad and have the same thing. But if it is always there hooked to the tv my kids can play games on it whenever they want without me giving up my phone. There should be a lot of free or very cheap games for them to play. It could be made to run media apps as well and be a full functioning media streamer.
I’m wondering if the nexus Q will turn into something similar? Does Google have bigger plans for it that they haven’t told us yet that would justify that price tag more. Or will it be the hacking and dev community that turn the Q into something more without google’s help? And what is going to become of google TV if they do plan to make the Q into a multipurpose media/gaming/home automation controller?
No matter what I think the more platforms android can run on the more opportunity us devs have. It would be good to be first to support these new platforms too. Imagine being one of the first to make your game compatible or get into OUYA’s store (if they plan to have their own custom store???) it could be a huge boost for your game and even drive people to get it on their phone as well.
another store … ? g tegra has also its “own” store … 
If you break it down, you will just get a phone without touchscreen, without mobile capacities, without accl sensor and without force feedback (sure, the gamepad can mimic some of that, but look what a force feedback controller does cost). Sure, that spares a lot of money, so it should possible to make it but it removes everything which makes the phone games different from console games.
There may be some games on the phone, which do not use a touchscreen … like all the AAA first person shooters I would never play on a phone. They would work better with a gamepad. But AAA FPS Players usually get a XBox
But most of the smaller, casual games, are explicitly built for use with a touchscreen and merely even rely on it. Do you think Angry Birds, Bubble Shooters, “Where’s my water” or Jewels will work with a GamePad? Or Dev Story? Farmville like games?
Merely, most of them would (and actually do) work on the computer playing with the mouse.
Makeing the phone itself being a gamepad would be something special - that’s the reason why Nintendo is still alive. Think about having phone connected to tv and use the touchscreen as a controller - you will get a GameBoy DS with a bigger screen but without games explicitely made for the system.
Without all of that, what you get is an atari or NES with better graphics than 20 years before. Perfect working for NES or GameBoy emulators, I admit, but they will not work on a commercial base without licensing issues xD
An Android Media Station - I REALLY would love it!! But don’t forget, that android is open source, so it will NEVER work with blue rays or even dvds without ripping them in a commercial (legal) manner. (Blame GEMA, but also - sadly - the GPL, as far as I know)
And there is my point, why I do see many different possibilities for an “android console” - I do not see much potential to make it a sucessfull business without approaching many different aspects.
So I am looking at it completely business related (currently), which does not mean that I do not appreciate their idea, I just think, that it will not be successful in the current concept and I am not sure the guys in the front of this project are aware of many things.
But hey, I will not act against them, maybe they come out with a really good product in the end, and I was completely wrong … 
I’m definitely impressed with the funding they’ve raised so far. And it’s good to see another Android-powered device being produced - every device is another opportunity for us devs, in theory.
What I’m not so happy about is the idea of yet another marketplace to sell apps. Now, if you build a game you’ll have to prepare packages for Google Play, Amazon, and Ouya. I’m not sure there’s any easy way to avoid this from Ouya’s point of view, but I’m still not keen on fragmenting the market even more.
That said, I’m not a big gamer so some of the appeal is lost on me. I’m sure for gamers, an open platform where games don’t cost exorbitant amounts, and devs can distribute apps cheaply, would be a good thing.
@david - don’t forget about SlideMe - I get quite a few downloads there. Anyway Ouya is very interesting. I would probably not find any use for it (unless I would use is as a media center), but still, I will definitely try to make my games compatible with it (which shouldn’t be hard).
I agree with reiti that most mobile games will NOT be a good fit at all for this. The touchpad seems lacking (it even looks like it’s going to be U-shaped, how the heck are to handle that? And if the curve is not part of it, then it’s going to be super small! And a touchpad that isn’t a display is not much use these days…)
HOWEVER, and this is a biiiiig one, people have been unsuccessfully (or with sad levels of success) trying to re-create the controller experience on an open platform like Android for years!
This isn’t a place for Angry Birds or Cut the Rope, but this is the perfect place for platformers, racing games, and fighting games.
We shouldn’t think of this as “Another store we have to deal with” or even “another place to sell our mobile games”, this is a whole other animal, even though it’s running Android too. This is more like XBLA than it is like the Android we’ve all come to know. Except it’s open.
I think this will be a huge hit (40.000 units 9 months before launch isn’t something to sneeze at!), it’s created by product geniouses (jambox and jawbone were perfect executions), and it’s going to be an indie developers’ favorite from day 1.
Those indie developers who can get a stunning game on launch day will get first-to-market rush and rise to the top. But you have to choose if you want to build games that are just right for this system (which means they’re probably not that great on anything else Android…)
It seems, they get some exclusive games to oyua … well, they have some sort of hype, which is quite healthy for them.
I think it will be a stand alone console - nothing to do with android phones. It is even possible, that google will buy oyua when it’s finished. The project itself has nothing to lose.
But I bet, in the end it will be just a normal console without the graphical capabilities of acutal consoles, next gen consoles will be able to throw out immense amounts of graphics.
So everything left is the cheap price … and a lack of good games … in the end it is just a gameboy without games. problem is … what if nintendo takes the gameboy, make it cheaper and let it connect to tv with hdmi …? (dont know if it is possible currently) … bum - fail for noya.
but well, let’s see what happens, it is an interesting story and I may be to pessimistic all the time xD
I think the reason why a lot of people are giving it a hard time is that they’re trying to box it into an existing category, but this doesn’t fit any current category.
It’s not trying to be a next-gen console, definitely not interested in being host to the next Call Of Duty. It’s also not interested in being host to super-small, super simple phone games. This is an interrupt for the industry, just like the Wii and the iPhone were when they came out. They created their own category, and that’s what’s happening here.
So I definitely agree with you reiti, this to me has nothing to do with android phones, and from a game design standpoint, it’s going to require a completely different approach for the most part, but it offers new possibilities.
And the reason why Nintendo can’t mess with this is first of all, they’d have to add a heck of a lot of buttons to that thing in order to be on par with the Ouya’s 8 buttons, 2 analog sticks and D-pad, hehe. But more importantly, the beauty of Ouya is it’s the first and only OPEN platform for the living room. We’re spoiled, we live in the Android space so we take “open” for granted. But indie developers absolutely HATE having to go through Nintendo or Microsoft in order to publish their games to a console. This is the real magic of Ouya, and it’s why it’s attracting so many indie devs.
This is for the most part a niche product, but it’s a VERY hungry niche so I wouldn’t discount it. It’s got a long ways to go and TONS of stuff to figure out (like a good store), but I’m sure they’ll figure it out, they’re brilliant dudes
I for one, am VERY excited about the potential for devs that get in at launch.
Well, the console will be heaven for emulators that one is for sure. Also it should be an excelent media center - for watching movies, listening to music, browsing YouTube (etc.) on TV…