Hacker News Reader

Comment by ergo14 | Hacker News Reader

I actually think that as an inexpensive XBMC TV device + emulator gaming Ouya is an outstanding offering for its price. But if someone expected current gen console compatition here - it means that the product was misunderstood.

View on HN

Yes, I've been thinking about getting one specifically for that purpose: a cheap way to play NES/SNES/GBA/etc. games on my TV (I'd imagine that a Ouya filled with such games would be a great present to a niece/nephew whose family can't afford to pay for modern consoles + games). The Ouya also has Towerfall, which is apparently a fantastic game.

Comparing it to PS3/Xbox/Wii U is missing the point.

NES/SNES/GBA? Since you mentioned costs of original games, where will you get legal ROMs for those consoles?

where will you get legal ROMs for those consoles?

You don't. You put on your eyepatch, grab your cutlass, and raise the Jolly Roger.

You've both missed his point, which is: why pirate SNES games but not Xbox 360 games?

I, for one, have zero moral qualms about pirating something that isn't being produced any more. I'd even argue that pirating abandonware is a net-positive to society--it keeps the past intact (much like a museum or a library) and as a bonus, the people that work on the (usually open source) emulators get to dig in and understand yesterdays technology.

There's pretty much zero downside.

Whose point?

People don't pirate 360 games because it's probably fairly annoying - you need a 360 console to begin with, then mod it which might need an older one running an out-of-date OS, and likely can't play multiplayer without the risk of your account being banned. Plus the size of games means torrents which means letters to your ISP. And if it's a couple years old you can probably buy the game for $10-20.

Pirating games for older consoles is trivial in comparison - any computer you have and most smartphones can emulate a PS1 or older almost perfectly. And the game sizes are tiny.

If you were asking about a moral justification, there's always the "it's not being sold new, so the makers won't get my money if I buy it used anyway." Though by now at least 95% of games that people actually play have been re-released, so that justification doesn't hold much water.

The "makers" of the games (i.e. developers) don't get the money for re-released games, just the publishers do. It does not cost them anything, it's full profit and they own all rights to their distribution. I don't think it makes it more reasonable to support them for making fresh, full money out of completely outdated games.

I can't speak for the OP but the main reason for me would probably be nostalgia. The second reason is that I could probably download every single ROM ever produced for these systems and store it on an average sized flash drive. Finally, I don't know much about pirating on the 360 but I'm personally not inclined (read: lazy) to mod an XBox.

Because people love classics.

Who said anything about legal?

Anyway, he could perhaps rip ROMs himself if he really wanted to bother.

http://www.retrode.org/

Even ripping your own, legality is still probably a bit of a grey area.

Another cheap way to play SNES games; your computer and a $10 controller.

Sometimes I leave my primary laptop at work.

Sometimes my girlfriend may want to play a SNES game while I'm using my laptop.

Sometimes I want to reinstall my laptop and don't want that to impact my gaming console.

Sometimes I may not want to bother with having to plug in my laptop in the TV and find the controller, to play 20 minutes of Dr. Mario. (I'm very lazy)

I'd rather have several cheap, interchangeable devices rather than everything from a single one :) (that applies to my laptop too; I did all of my programming and work from a 300$ netbook for a couple years, that was nice and I wasn't too heartbroken when my gf at the time spilled water on it and killed it)

I found this forum [0] that lists Android USB sticks, which are more portable than the Ouya, and cheaper. This "Tronsmart CX-919 Quad Core Google Android 4.2.2 OS Rockchip RK3188 Cortex A9 1.6GHz Mini TV BOX Dongle HDMI HDD Player 2G/8G BT/HDMI/External Wifi Antenna-Blackis" is $65 [1].

[0] http://forums.redflagdeals.com/android-tv-stick-convert-norm... [1] http://www.geekbuying.com/item/Tronsmart-CX-919-Quad-Core-Go...

Oh that's neat, thank you! (although I may pay the Ouya premium because Towerfall looks really fun)

Yeah, no sweat. Supposedly games like FF will be Ouya optimized so I'm imagining FFIV will have better graphics. We'll see, it might turn out like the 3DS and have games come a little late.

It's not super cheap, unfortunately (well, apart from the used models you can get), but the Open Pandora would nicely fit some of your requirements. It's excellent for emulation, among many other things. It also plays many Android games pretty well.

Why do this when the Wii with Homebrew is perfectly capable of running a myriad of emulators that are a pleasure to use, has a superior controller, and runs it all really well?

I couldn't agree more: mine runs XBMC well and, for me, is worth the $100 just for that. That there are emulators that work well and some fun games are pure bonuses, really.

It's something that slots in alongside other consoles rather than replacing or even competing with them.

Is its 1080p performance perfect? It'd be an interesting option here, if so. The Pi isn't up to the job, which seems to leave something of a toss-up between this and an Apple TV, suitably jailbroken for Matroska support.

So far so good — I threw a 1080p file at it last night and it did fine. Admittedly, most of my content is in 720p, because that was about all the Apple TV I used to use could deal with.

Mine still crashes XBMC, but once that's fixed I'll be happy with it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com