Ouya tops $8.5 million as Kickstarter campaign comes to a close
joystiq.com
joystiq.com
The console video gaming world has become, mostly, stagnant; full of sequels upon sequels. Current games are chocked full of DRM for overplayed, non-innovative titles. The market has become less about making great games that people love, and more about making executives money. It's terribly depressing and is directly responsible for me stopping my, over 25 year, love of gaming.
I, along with others, have doubts about the platform. However, I would absolutely love to see it affect some change in what the video gaming market has mostly become. I would love to see more independent developers making lots of money and pumping out cool, fun to play, games on a system that is accessible beyond the PC.
Honestly, when your target audience are people so devoted to a frivolous activity that they willing buy devices with no other purpose than to consume carefully curated content, it becomes hard to see them as anything other than a paycheck.
TV's entire model is funded by advertising, the sole purpose of which is to get you to buy things. So, again, I wouldn't take it over, say, a PC where I occasionally stream/pirate videos or, even better, pay artists directly for the performances I enjoy.
Mmmmmm, how deliciously condescending. I wonder if that's how musicians, actors, and iOS developers feel? I make software for desktops, so I respect my target audience (of course, frivolous workstation abuse is quite common, but it's too much effort to maintain a high horse for all those edge cases)
First, what is condescending about a simple statement of fact?
Games are frivolous (by definition, see http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/frivolous) activities which are pursued for pleasure; if you would like to argue about professional gaming, I'll posit that that applies to a small enough part of the target audience that we won't need to consider it--everybody else plays for fun.
Game consoles are single-function devices whose purpose is to consume carefully-curated content. They aren't made to write art, games, or software; they aren't made to help you create music; and they aren't made to help you pay rent.
Knowing this--and let's not even go into the absurd and abusive criticism that a lot of games get, for better or worse!--and knowing that your audience will never use what you've given them to create anything, and that you probably (given the deathgrip publishers/vendors have on the console industry) didn't even get a fair shake in the production of your title, why would you think of console gamers as anything else?
Seriously, why? Literally your entire interaction with them is that they buy consoles, buy games for the consoles, play the games, and then praise or damn those games on the internet. Oh, and probably trade in the game as soon as there is a reason for doing so.
Contrast this with, for example, how we treat other programmers. We submit bug reports, we release new code, we do things as a community. I believe that this is so because we know the people who receive our work are using it to do something, and that they are capable of creating their own things which one day we too may use. This is not the consumer relationship that console gamers enjoy with publishers.
iOS or mobile developers I would be hesitant to speculate on. I will, however, point out that a lot of freemium apps are driven by ad revenue, and a lot of games are monetized by clever application of psychology to trap the dollars of "whales"--so, please, draw your own conclusions about the sort of respect they must have for their consumers.
Actors and musicians I'll not speculate on either, mostly because there is a big difference to me between buying a device whose only purpose is consumption and buying a ticket to go enjoy an experience--the goods in question are a great deal different.
You say that with scorn. And yet here you are, talking about frivolity on the internet.
So any consumer of content deserves simply scorn and ridicule? What high and mighty bs.
So any consumer of content deserves simply scorn and
ridicule?
Forgive me for not according to gamers qualities that on the whole we can't know.
(and, hazarding a guess from your username: come now, what would Heinlen say about your imprecision of argument?)
With the nexus 7 finally bringing a non-sucky open tablet to market, and Ouya proving that users and developers want open (Or at the very least that open products have a chance in the market.), I'm feeling more comfortable with a technology landscape full of tablets, smartphones and purpose specific devices like gaming consoles.
I'm also happy that an open-source based operating system is becoming the mainstream. It's an exciting time to be a developer or an entrepreneur :) (these technologies becoming mainstream enable so many things, I don't know where to start!).
7755 Ouya + Controller
2500 Ouya + 2 Controllers
826 Ouya Dev Kits
By April 2013. Good luck guys~
It's interesting to note some figures; if you assume $50 US per ouya that's $2,910,350 or 33% of the collected costs to make the hardware; double that to a guess of $100 per unit and you looking at ~68% of the collected Kickstarter.
Realistically the hardware is probably relatively cheap to manufacture in bulk, and it'll probably end up towards the $50 rather than $100 mark, especially if they decide not to upgrade to newly released hardware.
Just interesting numbers.
>7755 Ouya + Controller
I thought that sounded odd. All have a controller, the second is 'limited edition brown'.
As for costs.. i am guessing they will probably make an order for 100k? (They have the cash, plenty of time for more pre-orders, and surely expect to sell some after launch, and they are tiny so easy to store). At those quantities my guess for a cost breakdown; SOC; $15, nand $3, wireless radios $6, case $5, power $4, controller $10, battery $2. So i think $50 is realistic, they will need FCC certification etc. Keep in mind they are (planning) making them for almost 9 months out, tegra 4 will no doubt be out, nand prices will be lower, tiny case, low power, cheap looking controller (sorry).
If anything, the money raised only proves the fact that over 60k people jumped in on the bandwagon of a non-existent console with no controller design that plans to ship in an almost unrealisable timeframe.
I want people that try bold things to succeed as much as the next guy but my (and others') concerns about the OUYA are far more elaborated than their ability to raise money.
Even if you are trying to make a point about the long run average cost of console production, I still don't see the direct connection and I'd like to know what you're getting at.
Funny, from Day 1, I've always looked at the Ouya as a cheaper Boxee Box that also plays some games as gravy.
If it can do MAME or Final Burn (which I expect some enterprising hackers will have made a reality by the time Ouya's available for the masses), even better.
I'll probably pick one up when it's released to play videos and music, and hopefully there are some good games on it, especially if that Namco-Bandai relationship turns out to be real. If the games all suck, it's no loss, because I'll still have XBMC. If the Ouya team's paying attention, they'll also make sure Netflix is available on day one too.
I'd like to see them do well, but I'm personally not going to treat it as something special until they show that it is. So far it sounds like a shovel-ware conduit to the TV and that gets people nothing.
A platform. That does not even exist yet. Has a tiny user base.
We have a genius here.
I'd bet money (and am in fact betting my own time, which isn't entirely dissimilar) that the userbase of modern Android devices--say, from as far back as the Nexus One phone to the current Nexus 7 tablet--is so much bigger that if even one in twenty users care about games it's a more viable market.
The scale isn't there for a freemium or $0.99 app economy.
Yes, the big console makers sell that many every week, but they are not a big console maker, so they don't need lots of numbers to sustain themselves, that's what growth is for, and they are showing better indications of it then Nintendo or Sony when they first got on the market, assuming they actually deliver the product they will see more. and their price point puts them in closer competition to a PS2 or Roku.
To make money on their app store, they need games.
Not many developers are going to write games for a platform with around 1/16th of the user base of your average front-line Android phone. (Please don't say "it's an easy port"; it's not and the Ouya people's claim that it is is fucking dishonest.)
A few companies have committed to bringing their products to the Ouya. I am interested in seeing how many of them follow through. Of those who follow through, I am interested in how many just push shovelware because doing a real port to a platform with 60,000 guaranteed users, many of which are probably going to be hacking the shit out of the thing (and making software security a non-starter), is not economically viable for most people.
Every July and December gamers on Steam go crazy over sales - twice yearly excitement in general that the big three consoles only get at launch and with major title releases every few years.
If corporate behemoths want in, they can do the same thing as everyone else and write SN app for it.
What was it, maybe 7-8 years ago Google was still a scrappy start up sticking it to MS and AOL?
Another point is the openness, it being so open for not only software hacks but also hardware hacks, will it also produce a lot of cheaters in online multiplayer games?
I pledged, and personally, I can't wait to get my hands on it! I think the media player capabilities and Android compatibility will make the product succeed anyhow. Certainly, the campaign (904% of Kickstarter goal) already has.
The controller hasn't changed since the mid-1980s. Almost all the game console makers make the same damned controllers with exception to the Wii there's been almost no innovation.
It's about time to rethink the standard controller design. I'm not talking about game-specific controllers, like the gun or joystick. I think there needs to be something more attached to actual human body movements.
I know this project was about an open game console, but I think this creates the opportunity for innovation in hardware accessories (i.e. the controller). I think we could do a lot better than the same old formula:
Up+Down+Left+Right A+B+X+Y R1+R2+L1+L2 Select+Start (ALL BUTTONS)
Changing controller design would be a foolhardy adding of risk. Something very familiar is a great choice for it
Also, not sure how many Ouya-specific games will make it out, but it should be great for emulation and media streaming.
Google could've had this advantage as well with Google TV, but they never cared about making Google TV a console, or better yet, a "console platform". Too bad. I'm hoping OUYA succeeds, although I still can't get myself to buy one unless it has a 2013-worthy mobile chip inside.
This "just port to our completely different model out games, no big deal bro" messaging is actually what the Ouya people have themselves said and it's a major reason I'm convinced they're not competent or want cheap, bad games. If they bothered to study what has come before,they would have looked at the difficulty of a good port from the 360 to WP7 via DNA. But either they didn't our they did and want is to pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
Oh--and they want to release for April 2013 and have zero developer documentation. Reminds me why these guys are seen as being on the up and up?
I want Ouya to succeed, but I just don't see how it can happen. They are extremely aggressive both on schedule and pricing, and more than that, the team has no experience shipping consumer electronics - and hardware manufacturing is a huge, huge expertise in and of itself.
So you have a very, very inexperienced team trying to ship a consumer electronics device faster and cheaper than pretty much any other experienced manufacturer who have been doing this for decades.
I'm not sure if most backers realize quite how big of a leap this is.
More fundamentally, many apps and games on the Android market don't support the extra large screen category that Google TV uses and therefore won't install. Of apps and games that do install, many do not test for a 10' experience. We've seen that with tablets it took quite some time and a lot of hardware sales to get devs interested in making tablet layouts, so I'm not sure that the base of people interested in Ouya will be enough to have devs even look at the TV experience.
That's why I like Ouya, it focuses on another market, a market where consoles generally have done really great, arcade style games. Also, with the possibility to use it as a media center is a killer feature for many people.
It's seems like there are very two distinct paths that gamers come from: 1) arcade/old-school consoles and 2) computer FPS, RTS, MMOs.
Coming from #1 myself, I find it interesting that the majority of people from #2 really only consider their path to be "true gaming". They're the ones who are always demanding more CPU power, more memory, etc, and basically seem to ignore that there are games that are not FPS, RTS or MMOs.
Coming from #1, I don't have any complaints about underpowered consoles, and I play plenty of games running off 3D engines like Street Fighter IV, Tekken, Burnout, etc. I don't even touch FPS, RTS or MMOs. While I'm sure #1's are in the minority these days, there are still large numbers of us who buy consoles to play games that aren't best played with PCs, keyboards and mice.
If you really want to be at the very bleeding edge of what's possible in gaming, the PC market is alive and well. The console market is more affordable and consequently more inclusive.
> "This kind of money is clearly a message the world needs a product like this."
I doubt this. There's a [very small] market for a product like this. The power of the internet is that this [very small] demographic can come together, pool their resources, and create something they all want. This does not mean that there's a mass-market or mainstream product waiting to jump out.
Sure, it might be able to run 1080p games faster with a few more effects.
A TV console, however, doesn't need to incrementally improve as fast as a gaming computer, because the TV gamers aren't constantly upgrading to higher resolution monitors.