OnLive comes to Ouya, Controller Makes Full Frontal Debut | Hacker News Reader

OnLive comes to Ouya, Controller Makes Full Frontal Debut

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66 pointsaiham66 comments

This is where projects like this may fail brutally.

Controller-design is hard. Mapping small fast movements to the screen, especially when playing 3D-games, needs a perfectly for the job designed hardware. Consoles lack a good input anyway, compared to the mouse. That is why kinect was so promising, though of course movement-controllers have their own set of issues.

Their solution now is to cave. They didn't design their own controller. Instead, they oviously took the xbox and ps3 controller and merged them. Those controllers solved some issues when compared to the old controllers for the snes and such, with the circle-sticks (which unlike the one from the N64 aren't as high thin and probably therefore longer lasting) and the holdable form.

So the controller is nothing special, but from the conept-side it at least won't be much worse than the ones from current consoles. Maybe using such a generic one was a smart move.

>> That is why kinect was so promising

Perhaps it was promising, but it is fairly terrible in practice. Except for a few dance and fitness games. The thing about traditional controllers is they are both precise and abstracted. Button presses are clear, and work well with the complexity of most games. The analogue features give a higher degree of control but are still very discrete. As for their abstracted nature, one of the distinguishing features of humans vs animals is our ability to use tools, devices which are one step abstracted from direct action. This is why controllers, mice, keyboards, etc work. Why not embrace it instead of trying to work around it with immature technology like the Kinect?

>> Their solution now is to cave. They didn't design their own controller

So why do you think they need to revolutionise the controller? The original XBox had a mild stab at something new but they quickly reverted to a design much more similar to the Playstation Dual Shock. The target market for Ouya is XBLA and PSN players, people who want a cheaper, more open living room console. They are sensible not to try to reinvent the wheel when they don't have the resources to do it well and their audience likes the existing wheel.

>So why do you think they need to revolutionise the controller? The original XBox had a mild stab at something new but they quickly reverted to a design much more similar to the Playstation Dual Shock.

There weren't really that many changes from the original XBox controller to the 360's controller. The face buttons and the stick positions didn't really change. In terms of buttons, the only major change was the removal of the black/white buttons from the original XBox, and the addition of the RB and LB bumpers to the 360.

The major change was that the side grip rails were made smaller.

>So why do you think they need to revolutionise the controller?

I don't. I wanted to point out that they copied an existing, working design. Which is probably a smart thing to do for such a project.

>As for their abstracted nature, one of the distinguishing features of humans vs animals is our ability to use tools, devices which are one step abstracted from direct action.

Careful with such claims ;) Even birds can learn that.

>> Consoles lack a good input anyway, compared to the mouse.

I don't get why some people think that gaming is all about FPS's and RTS games.

Why on earth would I want to use a mouse on a game like Street Fighter IV, Tetris, Bust-A-Move, Pac Man, Mario, Virtua Fighter, Tekken, etc. I can name a lot of games that work better with a traditional D-Pad type of controller than they would with a keyboard or mouse.

The D-pad setup has a serious limitation in that it forces you to use your thumbs. I have ten fingers; with a keyboard, I can have instantaneous command over ten actions (though eight or nine is more usual). With a console controller, it's two. (Four if we count triggers, but console games tend not to have fully-reconfigurable controls.)

I ran into this playing the Tony Hawk games, which I loved on the PC; on the console, executing complex combos feels like a thumb workout.

Obviously it is still a stylistic choice; the keyboard enables faster, more focused play, while the controller encourages a more laid-back playstyle which still feels competitive. But it does that by deliberately crippling the control you have, and you should embrace that.

>> The D-pad setup has a serious limitation in that it forces you to use your thumbs.

O RLY?

I have been using D-pads with my right hand "piano style" for over a decade. I don't use my right thumb at all. Anyone who's been exposed to a fighting game on a console knows that for many moves, you need to press multiple buttons simultaneously.

That you wouldn't think to hold the controller differently is kinda mind boggling.

Okay, well, that's kind of the point. Why are you holding a device designed to fit the human hand a particular way in a different way to get around its design limitations while claiming it's superior to another device designed without those limitations? The PHP hammer springs to mind.

It's not a design limitation. Gamepads are designed to handle multiple use cases, not just one. That's why the analog joystick works as a substitute for the D-pad for many games.

To presume that there's only one way to hold it is just narrow thinking.

Hell, this guy (Brolylegs) was a top bracket player in Street Fighter in EVO and he uses his face on a gamepad to play a game that requires directional control and six buttons to play properly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Va2QO-qtb_Q

--edit--

>> claiming it's superior to another device designed without those limitations? The PHP hammer springs to mind.

So "hey, I can use a device designed for text entry as a game controller" isn't like a PHP hammer?

> It's not a design limitation.

Of course it is. The ergonomics of controller design are profoundly based on gripping the device with both palms while pushing buttons with the thumbs. The buttons are too small and too close together to rest several fingers on, while the button groups are spaced too close together to fit both hands over. There are buttons on either side of the device, and big paddle-shaped appendages that vibrate.

Is it the only way it's physically possible to hold it? No, and the very fact that competitive players need to hold it in a way it wasn't designed for indicates the fact that the design is limiting.

> Hell, this guy (Brolylegs) was a top bracket player in Street Fighter in EVO and he uses his face on a gamepad to play a game that requires directional control and six buttons to play properly.

Hey, don't get me wrong, consoles are great for accessibility. The same design tradeoffs that make them approachable and comfortable to gamers in general mean it's relatively easy to use assistive devices without sacrificing too much performance.

By contrast, the keyboard-mouse setup which is designed to wring as much speed and accuracy as possible out of the human hands is much less accessible.

> So "hey, I can use a device designed for text entry as a game controller" isn't like a PHP hammer?

It might be if there were something better. We're in the second decade of gaming keyboard design, but it's pretty hard to beat having a couple of buttons under every finger. The keyboard was designed, back in the day, to let you push a large number of different buttons quasi-arbitrarily and very, very quickly. It's hardly random that they work well for video games.

But, again, don't get me wrong. You don't always want to play a really serious video game. Most people never do. Consoles were designed this way on purpose, because most people just want to hang out on the couch and have a good time. There's nothing wrong with that at all.

>> Of course it is. The ergonomics of controller design are profoundly based on gripping the device with both palms while pushing buttons with the thumbs.

Let's agree to disagree on that then. The Playstation 1 controller introduced the exaggerated grip design language. Look at the "Classic" controller for the Wii, which looks similar to the Super Nintendo controller. Rounded but no appendages.

The original PS1 controller design has a flat backside that let people who were used to holding the old-style controllers (like me) to continue doing so. Believe me, the piano style of hitting the action buttons on a game controller predates the PS1. I basically hold PS1 controllers the same way I held Genesis/Super Nintendo/Saturn controllers.

>> The buttons are too small and too close together to rest several fingers on, while the button groups are spaced too close together to fit both hands over.

I have no problem playing piano style on any console controller of Japanese origin (that of course, excludes Microsoft's controllers).

>> We're in the second decade of gaming keyboard design

Again, the keyboard is a text entry tool that has been adopted by gamers. At its core, yes, it's a board covered in buttons. But, it's still designed for text entry.

That is a PHP hammer (devil's advocate hat on), especially if you're using it to play Tony Hawk, a game originally designed for a console controller.

>> It might be if there were something better.

See links below:

http://www.hitboxarcade.com/

http://shoryuken.com/2012/07/03/rts-x-fighters-check-out-the...

> Let's agree to disagree on that then.

Absolutely. We obviously have very different backgrounds, and I certainly don't want to seem like I'm telling anyone the right way to have fun :) If you'll indulge me for just one more point on keyboards, though:

> http://shoryuken.com/2012/07/03/rts-x-fighters-check-out-the...

Is this controller as effective as a good mechanical keyboard and mouse? Hell no, but that wasn’t the point!

That's an art project, not a gaming peripheral. A few companies do make more game-focused devices (https://www.google.com/search?q=gaming+keypad&tbm=isch), but they haven't seen wide adoption, partially because they look a bit silly, but mainly because one grid of programmable keyswitches is much like another. They just haven't conferred the kind of reliable advantage that a good mouse, or even a 120hz monitor do.

Yeah that second link was more illustrative of the idea than a proven market point. The hitbox is real and used by high level players though.

--edit-- On a side note, however, it's seems that you're coming more from a PC gaming perspective than an arcade/console perspective, which is probably the root of our ideological divide on the controllers.

I'd like to use a keyboard to play street fighter and super mario.

The reason I think keyboard is superior is that when using a keyboard, I can have few fingers on top of keys at the same time. Whereas when using the controller, I just use two thumbs. My thumb has to jump between buttons in order to switch different moves. That is slow.

I've tried it. It doesn't work well. It's easier to play those games with controllers.

The problem with those two games is that you're supposed to be pressing only one or two directional buttons at any given time in both of those games.

Directional inputs are single direction at any given time. It doesn't make sense to be using multiple fingers, because when you're switching direction from moving left to right with wasd controls(for example), you need to release the a key after starting to press the d key. There are two movements you need to do:

1. (while pressing a)Press d

2. Release a.

That's two separate finger motions, compared to just shifting the stick to from the left to the right, or shifting your thumb from left to right.

This is especially compounded with fighters like Street Fighter, where directional stick movements are important. For example, to do Ken's Hadoken, the motion is a quarter circle forward(down, down-right, right) then punch. With a d-pad or fighting stick, this is fairly easy to do. Thumb/hand moves down, then shifts right and up. The other hand then presses the punch button.

For a keyboard, it's:

1. Press s.

2. While holding down s, press d.

3. Release s.

4. While holding d, press the punch key.

So 4 discrete finger motions with 3 different fingers. Again, compared to a fighting stick, which is two motions with your hand(down, and basically move hand to the right, following the side guide), and punch. That's 1 less motion, and 1 less finger to care about. While it's certainly possible to train your muscle memory to do it, it's much easier to just use the proper controller.

And the Hadoken is an easy example.

Fortunately Street Fighter has gotten more forgiving in inputs with each release, but to do a 360, super, old school dragon knee or shoryuken, you really have to be nimble with your fingers.

It's actually the only Street Fighter move I can remember off the top of my head. :)

There seems to be a consenous(ish) among players of Super Meat Boy (a mario-like, very hard, platformer) that using a controller is slightly easier.

Certainly I have tried playing street fighter with a keyboard and found it extremely hard.

Also, I couldn't imagine how you would play a 2d platformer which used an analogue stick. You lose the analogue if you map to the keyboard, and it doesn't really map easily to a mouse (as you can't keep moving your mouse in one direction forever).

You should try using a stick with Street Fighter. I can't pull SF moves off very well with a pad, but with the stick (especially if it has an octagonal gate), it's super easy.

There is something called a "Hitbox", which is a fighting controller that is all buttons: http://www.hitboxarcade.com/

I think a few people at EVO were using hitboxes.

Personal opinion about game controllers aside, I'm worried about infringement. Game controllers are heavily patented and designmarked and their design is as much about avoiding legal pitfalls as making a good input device.

Similarly, doesn't their console UI look dangerously close to the current Xbox dashboard? Surely this infringes on Metro in a big way?

Metro is a design philosophy, not anything that can be infringed. Microsoft is actually heavily evangelizing Metro, and would probably be pleased to see the competition playing catch-up for once. That said, individual interactions can be patented, and OUYA would definitely have to steer clear of this. I would say the biggest issue might be the colored button graphics representing the actions to perform; this looks and feels like Xbox, and would probably be a grey area for sure.

If their controller fails horribly, perhaps they could use the OnLive 'universal' controller -- the one that works with OnLive's console as well as all laptops and android/iOS devices. It's actually a really nice controller -- better than the PS3, slightly worse than the Xbox 360 (but without the battery pack issues).

Wait, how can the OnLive controller support iOS? AFAIK iOS only supports Bluetooth HID keyboards, not joysticks/gamepads.

http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#featuredarticles/Ext...

See also Core Bluetooth (though that's somewhat different, being for Bluetooth 4LE devices).

http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/qa/qa1657/_index.html

According to this page the external accessory framework can only be used if the accessory developer is participating in the MFi program. I couldn't find any "Made for iPad" logos on OnLive's page.

Maybe it pretends it's a keyboard. It's not like they're tied down to gamepad drivers.

That's how iCade's products work.

not a problem as long as you support USB.

I don’t think this matters if it’s possible to plug in an Xbox controller. They are ubiquitous, cheap and competent.

The big news here isn't the controller, it's OnLive. With Google fiber rolling out, and eventually pushing the country toward gigabit, there will no longer be any reason why a cheap, weak box with an internet connection can't topple the console giants. Eventually this will spill over into general computing. There is a giant pie to be won here, and both OnLive and Google know how valuable it is.

Just pointing out: bandwidth isn't half as important as latency is in this context. We still don't know how good latency will be on Google Fiber.

Maybe the answer is to have local nodes. Think of it like a traditional video arcade, somewhere in your town is a small datacentre full of servers hosting various games.

And if that still isn't good enough then each gamer can have their own personal mini-datacenter in a box right by their TV or monitor! :)

There's no fundamental reason that things should play out either way (consolidation in a data center, or personal hardware). It will come down to economics, performance and convenience. Up until now performance (latency) has favored personal hardware, but it appears that may soon change, at which point the economies of scale of data centers, and the convenience of not needing to upgrade/store/maintain/move personal hardware, could very easily sway things in favor of consolidation.

I presume you're joking and therefore don't need a proper reply to this, but figured I'd check..

Well, to be fair, there is a lot of spare sillicon in most households. One giant powerserver per family, is much more efficient and should provide more bang for your buck.

If everyone has the processing power to run the games in their own home it sort of removes the point of OnLive..

Agreed. But the combined sillicon of the xbox, desktop, ps3, mediacenter and multiple laptops in my house, had a seriously high price attached, but using all that sillicon to do one task fast, isnt even an option.

We need an open standard to share spare cpu cycles within the local network. Imagine updating the performance of all your appliances at once, just by pluggin a server in your home network.

But yes, it kind of defeats the purpose of OnLive as a closed product. On the other hand, local ISP can start selling not just bandwidth, but also cpu cycles with low latency. (they could hook up the servers straight in your neighbourhood)

The problem with OnLive is that its not a standard, and its focus is not width enough. They get to choose what kind of computation i want to do.

OnLive do have many centers spread out around the US (and a few international ones I think? I'm not sure) and their software tells you if you're too far from one (I think they limit at 1000 miles). I can tell you that about 15 miles from one (I assume they have one at or near their HQ and that's how far I am from it) the experience over a reasonably beefy cable connection (20Mbps) is pretty dang smooth.

Honest question: is anyone here using onlive? How is the gaming experience? Are the visuals, performance and latency acceptable? How are they doing in terms of their sales/subscribers?

I remember reading about it a long time ago thinking that it would be a sign of the future and something I would definitely want to try. It seems to have fallen off of my radar and I don't know anyone who uses their service, and I would consider myself and my friends "hardcore" gamers.

I played through Arkham Asylum on the PC and Arkham City on the OnLive console, and found it ... adequate.

I tried the beta and it didn't even work, but went back when AA was 99 cents and was impressed that they were even able to make a reality. I pre-ordered AC because it came with the console for free, and it was pretty slick.

However, I subscribed to their "channel" and have been pretty disappointed, the games are mostly old or random indie titles that don't always fit the model, and a good number require a mouse/keyboard which you can make work with the console, but is much clunkier than the slick wireless controller (which is _very_ well done).

There are 2 problems: 1) Anything even smelling like a dropped connection boots you entirely out of the game, and can take a few minutes to get back in. This includes just pausing and walking away for 5-10 minutes.

2) The batman games worked because they have a slower, more deliberate input system, and auto-save constantly. Otherwise it just won't be able to keep up.

So, barring licensing, I just don't see it being able to play something that needs a good twitch response time, multi-player, or something that is hard to recover after an immediate drop. So, no diablo, CoD, real-time strategies, or MMOPRGs.

Without those titles, it won't be able to get a lot of traction.

Still, a really awesome technical achievement. The PC executeable is a couple of _megs_ and can then just stream anything, but a lot of gaming needs either fast response time (which you lose with the server round-trip), or the ability to just stop for a few minutes without losing everything you've got.

MMOs have lots of potential actually. They are built to deal with lots of lag on input, and hide it well.

Right, except that the problem is the client drops and you have to jump through a ton of hoops to get back to the service, which terminates the connection as soon as you drop. Its not really an issue of 'lag' as it is 'not recovering'

Yes, but in the context of OnLive, connection drops aren't any more horrible than they would be on a regular MMO client. In fact, since the whole problem with MMOs is the distributed nature of them and unpredictable latency to the clients, services like OnLive that put many clients very close to one another in latency could actually improve MMO lag issues.

As a gamer - I was excited to use the beta as soon as I got access, was keen to order the box as soon as possible (ended up getting sent one so didn't need to buy it, but I definitely would have), and I think the entire concept is incredibly cool. Truthfully I've hardly played it and the box is mostly gathering dust in between showing friends "look how cool this is", but then I haven't played any games for a few months, and even when I do play games I'm a PC guy, so take my thoughts with a pinch of salt. For me the performance wasn't quite good enough - could be my internet, might not be, I'm not sure - but it was good enough that it made me think that at some point it will be good enough. (And I have pretty high standards when it comes to FPS and latency.)

As someone who's talked to the company a fair bit through work - I don't have any figures to give you (not that I could say if I knew them, but I don't know them), all I can say is that I haven't heard of any problems or any negative news from them. As far as I'm aware they're doing pretty well so far.

I absolutely love it. Two player Harry Potter was glitchy, but other experiences (ie. Borderlands, DarkSiders) all performed perfectly. One of the big bonuses was the fact that it's almost device agnostic -- you can play certain games on touch screen, PCs, Macs, and on the OnLive device itself.

OnLive has been amazing to me. I've bought a few games on it and rented a handful. I live in San Francisco, so my internet was fast enough for good graphics. When I bought Borderlands, there were plenty of other people to multiplayer with.

I'm kind of hoping to never build a gaming PC again.

The compression quality is typically rather poor (meaning you get artifacts). The graphical quality as of a few months ago was also poor in comparison to your own rig. It's also got latency issues. They get 80ms or higher on average. So, for fast-paced gameplay, that can be an issue. Also, the stream is only 720p, not 1080p or higher. It's amazing for what it does, and I'm sure that some budget-restricted gamers/families use it, but it's not a replacement for powerful hardware 2-3 feet away from you.

Not going to lie, that controller is looking pretty ugly. Any word on if they'll support USB controllers? Obviously you'd lose the touch functionality...unless you plugged in a Wacom or something, lol

Well, the system is open and hackable, I'm sure someone will write drivers to allow PS3, Wiimotes, 360 and generic USB controllers to be used.

PS3 and Wiimotes would be relatively easy, as both are just Bluetooth devices and the OUYA has that built in.

Xbox 360 controllers would require either wired or the RF adapter that MS sells for PC use.

Actually there are also dedicated PS3 USB and Xbox USB controllers, most commonly used in tournament fight sticks.

One of the fun things I get from that is that OnLive are going to make an ARM build of OnLive. That means it should be Raspberry Pi compatible! (OnLive have released ARM builds of their desktop service to run on tablets which shouldn't be too far from the full on game product, but afaik this is the first time they've promised an ARM-targeted version of it).

Maybe... Rasberry Pi has an older ARM core without the v7 instructions and a much simpler GPU than the Tegra 3 chip that's in the Ouya. I'd not expect it to work there.

This has been mentioned before, but by simply using colored circles for their controller buttons, they are ignoring the needs of a lot of color blind gamers. This is why every console manufacturer has symbols on the buttons. Color coding doesn't work so well when a significant percentage of your players can't differentiate between green and red.

This could be solved very easily by picking some symbols to go along with the colors. Of course, our patent and trademark laws are ridiculous and it's highly likely that Microsoft has already patented the letters X, Y, A, and B...

They state at the bottom of the post:

"P.S. We're still deciding on the buttons. For now, we've stuck with the colored circles as placeholders. But don't fret, we won't leave out colorblind gamers. :)"

Not only has it been mentioned before, it is clearly described in the article as an interim solution that will be relaced by something accessible to coulorblind people in the final design.

Seems like a no-brainer to use: O, U, Y, A.

there will be letters. and yes, O, U, Y, A. http://cdn2.sbnation.com/entry_photo_images/4547820/ouya2_ga...

Funny story, an early version of the OnLive controller used the letters L,I,V,E, which spelled EVIL when read a certain way.

http://9to5google.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/onlive_control...

>> Microsoft has already patented the letters X, Y, A, and B..

Wouldn't Nintendo (Super Nintendo), Sega (Genesis and forward) et al. have prior art on this? Microsoft was far from the first to use those letters.

Designmarked, not patented I believe. So the green A, red B, blue X, yellow Y are owned by Microsoft. Sony have the circle, triangle, square and cross.

In terms of patents, Nintendo have the cross-shaped D-pad, Sony have the segmented d-pad and Microsoft are left with the awful spongy rocker pad.

> This could be solved very easily by picking some symbols to go along with the colors. Of course, our patent and trademark laws are ridiculous and it's highly likely that Microsoft has already patented the letters X, Y, A, and B...

That'd be a shame. X, Y, A and B sounds more Super Nintendo than Xbox.

>> ... it's highly likely that Microsoft has already patented the letters X, Y, A, and B...

Nintendo and Sega have both used this scheme since SNES / Dreamcast respectively (as well as Nintendo DS).

The pipe is not going to be bottleneck in this case. It's the device's speed/processor/etc.

haha! ugly as sin

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