Comment by cowboyhero | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cowboyhero | Hacker News Reader

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The problem is that this space gets oversaturated easily and the fallout is quick and brutal. Remember the Jaguar? 3DO? Dreamcast? The Phantom?

All of them had fan support and all of them failed in the marketplace (and the "open source" Phantom never even made it to market).

There's less vendor lockin with consoles now. Fewer titles are platform exclusive. Online services are much important than they used to be (notice there's little to no mention of this in the promo video). The question becomes bigger than, "How does this console compete with the Xbox?" (which is already a HUGE question), it becomes "How doe this console compete with Xbox Live?".

This product is going to be openly competing with big, established players with lots of cash and decades of experience. And it's not just the big 3 console makers. They're competing with SmartPhones and iPad gaming too, basically any electronic gaming experience you can having sitting on the couch in your living room.

Fans of hackable linux boxen and hardcore gamers are always super enthusiastic, but I don't think that demo is large enough to help a company succeed in the way this company needs to succeed.

"All of them had fan support and all of them failed in the marketplace"

But the people who are most likely to buy it day one just did, on Kickstarter. Ouya just crowdsourced the customer, the product message, and the marketplace.

"The question becomes bigger than, 'How does this console compete with the Xbox?' (which is already a HUGE question), it becomes 'How doe this console compete with Xbox Live?'."

How does Steam compete with Games for Windows or EA Origin if it is orders of magnitude smaller than both? How does the iPod Touch and iPhone compete with (and dominate) the dedicated gaming devices PSP/Vita and 3DS? How did the Wii compete with the 360 and PS3?

Smaller players with cheaper devices that require no initial player investment or outlay can be adopted en masse. Think about where HTC or Huawei or LG or Vizio were before they became near the tops worldwide in consumer electronics. Vizio wasn't even on the radar 10 years ago, now they are the #1 maker of TVs in the largest market in the world.

> How does Steam compete with Games for Windows or EA Origin if it is orders of magnitude smaller than both?

Did you swap this around? Steam is much larger and more profitable, and has been around longer than either.

> How does the iPod Touch and iPhone compete with (and dominate) the dedicated gaming devices PSP/Vita and 3DS?

The iPhone competes because the hardware as a gaming device has an effective cost of $0, because you already bought it for it's phone functions.

> How did the Wii compete with the 360 and PS3?

And it seems weird to compare Nintendo with Ouya, Nintendo is a large game company with a lot of experience in this field, and competes due to a cheaper console that is innovating in a new and novel way.

Funny you should bring up the Phantom. This thing reminds me so very much of the phantom. I remember trying to buy a Phantom dev kit and just being told that they're "coming soon" for ages. Then they came out with the Phantom lapboard, and folded.

I don't know if it's the look of the console, or the way this was all presented, but it's all far too reminiscent of the Phantom for me. I'm staying well clear of this.

Just an aside: I miss my dreamcast, best controller ever.

In what way does this company need to succeed?

I think that the point is that it's unlikely to.

Great. Many people have stated that and given why they believe that will be the case.

But my question is what will count as success? What will it take for this company to succeed? What are the pieces?

As a visitor to this site, that's the kind of thinking I'm really looking for.

I think the problem is that it's difficult to think of a realistic scenario in which this could succeed.

I think the hardware could become popular as a cheap way to run pirated games, however this would probably scare away developers.

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