Ouya No Bigger Than a Rubik's Cube

[Vault101]

so how are they going to play skyrim on this thing?

 

[Space Spoons]

I'll be genuinely surprised if this thing actually makes it to market. I'm getting a really strong Infinium Labs vibe from it.

 

[sneakypenguin]

If this releases 2nd quarter of next year the tegra 3 chip is already going to be lagging behind current mobile chipsets. Heck a GS3 probably would smoke it, much less whatever is in the pipeline. Its basically a cheap tablet (nexus 7) for 99 buck cheaper, without the android market, no screen, and limited mobility (tied to tv/monitor).

Why would anyone get this, much less be excited about it? Indie already has a multi million install base of iOS and Android(android activations hit 900k per DAY last month) and then there is PC. This is the most unnecessary thing ever. the only logical reason to buy one is you have no tablet/smartphone, your PC can't run low budget games(which if your reading this your PC could probably play android quality stuff). I fail to see who this thing is for...


Somewhat on topic, fold your smartphone in quarters and it to would be much smaller than a rubiks cube, now take away screen, battery, camera, radios, and thats the OUYA...

 

[Goofguy]

As long as it doesn't sacrifice performance for design, I think it looks great. Looking forward to seeing what this thing can do.

 

[Gatx]

I don't know if this is really a big achievement hardware wise. I mean, it plays Android games, which obviously smart phones can also do and they're not exactly huge either.

 

[rupang886]

How can you internaly mod this thing?

Seriously I've been building computers back to front all mapped up in the back of my hand. A console touted as "mod-able" sized in a cramped rubix cube must be thinking of Ben Heck style modding instead of simple upgrades inside the case like adding a water cooling system.

I wonder what kind of cooling system they use...

And I also like to add, is it me or is the funding became stagnant this week?

 

[Zer_]

I can't believe why this is being hailed as something innovative? It's basically a computer in a tiny box.

Hardware wise, it's not very innovative no. It's the open source nature of it that appeals to everyone. The open marketplace certainly helps too.

...So it's a tiny computer.

Yes, using the Tegra 3 means she has a Quad Core with a GPU coprocessor. It'd be more accurate to call it a Cellular Phone Console. The reasons many of us are so excited are mainly the fact that the entire thing is going to be based off of an open platform (Android). This sets it apart from its 360/PS3/Wii brethren. It lets developers produce and sell games on their own terms without having to answer to Microsoft, Sony or Nintendo or any publisher for that matter. The engineers not only allow, but they encourage to us to open it up and change the storage (8GB) to something with more capacity.

Some of you have expressed concerns about heat, and to be honest, I don't see that as being a problem. The small size is still much larger than any smartphones out there (which don't have any kind of air cooling to begin with). It's a low power CPU. We can expect this iteration of the Tegra 3 to use the maximum TDP, which will likely mean more performance than the smartphone counterparts of the Tegra 3 with any extra heat being handled by standard air cooling/heatsink.

I'm really only curious as to how the Tegra 3's GPU will handle outputs at 720p or 1080p/i resolutions.

 

[rupang886]

My 4th gen I-pod Touch is heating up after 3 hours of gameplay. How can you explain this?

 

[gorfias]

This still looks like a phantom to me. I suppose we shall see though.

Shouldn't be a big problem. Look on youtube of older, small, reasonably cool tablets running games with controllers. Example of a guy using Wifi and USB controller. ASUS tablets hook up to HDMI so you can connect it to LED/LCD TV sets.

This should be very doable. Tablets can sell for as little as $300, and that includes a very expensive display. This cube will just attach to your TV, no display. I think this is coming for real.


EDIT:

This is a top Android game that should be playable on the Ouya. As for storage, it would be great if this thing has USB and/or micro SD drives for additional storage like many tablets.


EDIT: People are concerned about only 1 Gig of RAM. The excellent PS3 has only 256

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3_hardware

and the great 360 (not being sarcastic, love these things.. but check it!!!) has 512

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360_hardware

EDIT: Last one, honest! Example of guy with tablet hooked up to larger screen:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gL6GGwI2Myo&feature=autoplay&list=PL2E8D73B9D757086B&playnext=2

 

[DTWolfwood]

it plays smartphone games ppl. why should we be surprised that its small?

can't imagine having to upscale some graphics will require that much more hardware/power.

 

[Mrsoupcup]

Yeah... This sounds like a bad idea.

I mean a good idea, but a pipe dream.
10 minutes in a room without air conditioning and this thing could probably fry eggs.

Also, 8GB memory. Fallout New Vegas Ultimate Edition is like 6G, and that's WITHOUT 5 GB worth of dlc.

 

[The Funslinger]

Oh cool, though I wonder if the small size is going to make it more difficult to tinker with.

That's what she said!

I'll leave quietly.

 

[Zer_]

My 4th gen I-pod Touch is heating up after 3 hours of gameplay. How can you explain this?

Cellular phones heat up not only because of the CPU, but because of the battery. It's also important to remember that these phones have NO cooling beyond small amounts of passive cooling. In fact, the iPod Touch uses the metal backplate as a heatsink.

 

[chadachada123]

Having spent several years of high school lugging around multiple types of Rubik's Cubes, I can say that carrying a cube around with non-cubes is pretty inconvenient. Book-shaped rectangular prisms are far better.

I hope they change it to look a bit more like the Wii in terms of shape. Still, the small size seems pretty damn awesome.