Ouya Developer's Kit - First Look

[Frezzato]

Looks kinda cool:
http://www.slashgear.com/ouya-developers-share-console-first-impressions-30262535/

I can't post in the news forum. Pay close attention to the little touch screen at the top of the traditionally styled controller (4 minutes, 7 seconds). Granted, the final feature list may change.
Slashgear actually posted their unboxing on December 28 [http://www.slashgear.com/ouya-details-special-translucent-dev-consoles-as-sdk-thrown-open-28262375/].

1,200 developers got dev kits, or at least the people that coughed up enough cash on Kickstarter. Considering that the pre-order price is just $109, it's pretty much a purchase for me. I'm skeptical of most Kickstarter campaigns, but Ouya has proven me wrong.

Spoiler: TL;DR

 

[number2301]

It's nice to see it really coming together, although I am a bit concerned by the hardware spec and the time to market. The Tegra 3 looked quite impressive when the Ouya was announced, but now it's well behind the latest chipsets in Android phones and a long long way behind Apple's best chip.

I guess the problem is this is just a bit too early to market. ARM chips are still improving massively and will very soon be up to speed with the current gen of consoles, but just not quite. And why would you buy a new thing not quite as good as your old thing?

 

[D Moness]

that small touchpad to control the mouse looks terrible clunky to use also the fact it doesn't support touch and drag (at the moment) is in my opinion a terrible oversight.
i know it is a dev kit but some things should have been thought of before.
btw or his wifi is bad or the browser has trouble loading youtube vids (and is slow as heck)

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well it certainly needs work before we see anything of consequence, until the store and games come out we won't even know if it's usable for more then decoration.
And that controller is missing buttons, plus the touchpad might be a cheap way to bridge that Android market gap but unless it's precise/big enough for proper use it's actually just a waste of space.

Does show us a few good things:
- they actually ship what they sold
- the product works (in however limited form)
- if that dev is to be believed then Android games can run pretty much right away

The thing we really need now is a technical break down so people will know how far this can actually be pushed in terms of games and terms of service, will it actually be possible to tweak the whole system or will devs need to sit on their hands and wait for the company to fix the system.

 

[Frezzato]

It's nice to see it really coming together, although I am a bit concerned by the hardware spec and the time to market....

Not to bump my own thread, but last I heard the Ouya had 1GB of RAM, which doesn't sound too promising. That won't stop me from buying one though.

Oddly enough, I think Ouya would be perfect for running emulators, but I was reading that Google started killing off emulators last year due to legal action from Sega. It's a shame really with all of these legal trapdoors. I would love to be able to play a properly running Mail Order Monsters or C64 Aliens with console controls.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Not to bump my own thread, but last I heard the Ouya had 1GB of RAM, which doesn't sound too promising.

Well it's not much compared to a PC but as consoles go that is double of what Xbox or PS3 can offer.

Oddly enough, I think Ouya would be perfect for running emulators, but I was reading that Google started killing off emulators last year due to legal action from Sega. It's a shame really with all of these legal trapdoors. I would love to be able to play a properly running Mail Order Monsters or C64 Aliens with console controls.

Oh don't worry if Ouya is even slightly open the community will make emulators happen, obviously no third party company can offer these in an official capacity without getting into massive legal disputes.
It would actually be quite the business if Nintendo and the others made some of their own and put them on offer along with ancient titles at a couple of cents a piece, but Nintendo doesn't ever share and Sega went ape shit quite recently so that won't happen.

 

[number2301]

Its actually mentioned in the linked video that you can install apk files directly, so emulators will be fine. My Xperia Play runs them great with significantly worse hardware.

Funny thing about the ram, while it is more than the current gen consoles can offer, my Nexus 10 has 2gb and I'm still not 100% convinced on that. Waking Mars was sluggish at times, so somewhere it isn't up to it, and the Nexus 10 is an lot more powerful than the Ouya. Its got a pretty much market leading CPU and GPU, excluding Apple cause their GPU is so far ahead of the competition.

I do really want it to be successful, but they need to raise their game already. On the positive side, dropping in an better chipset before it hits market shouldn't be difficult.