OUYA Review - More Whimper Than Bang

KungFuJazzHands

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Mar 31, 2013
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Biased article is biased. I personally have zero interest in buying an Ouya, but I've been following its development since day one and well aware of all its shortcomings. I have a strong feeling the author of this piece had a bone to pick with the system before he even broke the box open -- a lot of his complaints are just pure nitpicking.

Come on Escapist, we expect better of you guys.
 

Ed130 The Vanguard

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Sep 10, 2008
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Chairman Miaow said:
Ed130 said:
Chairman Miaow said:
Ed130 said:
Chairman Miaow said:
Yeah, If you are just buying it for emulation, just get a decent phone or tablet. Then you can do it on the go instead.
A $400+ phone/tablet that doesn't have HDMI or a controller or a cheap, portable console with full HDMI support, a USB port for easy swapping of games/emulators and a controller?

Gee I wonder which one sounds like a good choice for a emulation machine?
Well, I got my Tablet free with my £18 a month phone contract that I was going to get anyway and it can emulate anything ps1 and earlier. There are plenty you can get for a lot less than $400 and you will use them for a lot more than just emulation. Your analogy is invalid.
Just because you can get a tablet for cheap doesn't invalidate all my other arguments.

Have fun with your 8 inch screen and crappy touch-screen controls, I'll just sit back, relax and emulate on my wide-screen TV.

Hell I could even use one of the HDMI enabled lecture theaters if I really wanted to go all out.
Errrm..... I can still connect my Tablet to a TV and plug in a control. Plenty of people can get cheap tablets as well.
So a tablet costing 432 pounds (assuming standard 24 month plan) without a controller and (if lucky) a micro HDMI port is a better deal than a $99USD dedicated console?

Oookkkaayy...
 

Guybythestreet

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May 31, 2009
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Xennon said:
Gonna post this here as well as the Facebook comments section.

Honestly, I find this review poor. Really hasn't done much research.

- Shrink wrap left on the controller? Really? Took me all of a minute to get it all off.
- Not sure why you were expecting there to be a toolset like LBP. That was never promised or planned. An SDK for developers to get their games on the platform was all that was expected.
- Agree that the library of games isn't great, but there are some decent ones. That is why the press playlists are all the same, because they all found the same good games.
- Not tried the wireless range, but I wired it straight away. Everyone I know who is serious about gaming has their machines wired. I don't know anyone who stored their Ethernet cables years ago :-/
- This review misses 2 real strong points of the system. a) The emulators. You can side load emulators for practically every old system. b) A media player. Install XBMC on this thing and it becomes an excellent and very inexpensive media player.
- The main menu seemed perfectly descriptive to me.
- Side loading apps gives you access to lots of additional content.
- The apps, like flixter, give access to additional movies and other items of functionality.

The OUYA is by no means perfect, but for $100 it is an excellent piece of kit and as the game library starts to grow it should get better and better. Frankly, if all it did was run XBMC as well as it does, I'd be happy with it! :)
This, I don't have an OUYA but the reviews complaints about the game seemed mostly pointless. Using an ethernet cable and having the minor inconvenience of signing up for an account and having to put in your credit card info isn't something that would damn a console. If this was the PS4 or XboxOne people would have written this off as mildly bothersome but not ruining the experience.

I also wanted to emphasize this posters remark about the game making remark. I don't think at any point did anyone think the OUYA was an engine for creating a game directly on it. Wasn't one of those major ideas that any indie developer could get their game onto it?
 

Chairman Miaow

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Nov 18, 2009
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Ed130 said:
Chairman Miaow said:
Ed130 said:
Chairman Miaow said:
Ed130 said:
Chairman Miaow said:
Yeah, If you are just buying it for emulation, just get a decent phone or tablet. Then you can do it on the go instead.
A $400+ phone/tablet that doesn't have HDMI or a controller or a cheap, portable console with full HDMI support, a USB port for easy swapping of games/emulators and a controller?

Gee I wonder which one sounds like a good choice for a emulation machine?
Well, I got my Tablet free with my £18 a month phone contract that I was going to get anyway and it can emulate anything ps1 and earlier. There are plenty you can get for a lot less than $400 and you will use them for a lot more than just emulation. Your analogy is invalid.
Just because you can get a tablet for cheap doesn't invalidate all my other arguments.

Have fun with your 8 inch screen and crappy touch-screen controls, I'll just sit back, relax and emulate on my wide-screen TV.

Hell I could even use one of the HDMI enabled lecture theaters if I really wanted to go all out.
Errrm..... I can still connect my Tablet to a TV and plug in a control. Plenty of people can get cheap tablets as well.
So a tablet costing 432 pounds (assuming standard 24 month plan) without a controller and (if lucky) a micro HDMI port is a better deal than a $99USD dedicated console?

Oookkkaayy...
It is when for that you also get a phone with really good minutes, unlimited texts and decent internet(which absolutely everybody has and needs in this day and age) and a tablet (which can do a lot more than just emulation.

I also don't see why you are being so rude about it either.
 

JasonBurnout16

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The one thing not mentioned in this review, or any other review that I've read is the average price of a full game on Ouya.

That's something I'd quite like to know.
 

batterj2

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Mar 10, 2009
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Pretty poor review as has been said repeatedly. Credit card registration no different from mobile markets, wireless performs well enough, in-game editors are down to the game, not the platform etc. (that last point was completely irrelevant). No, there aren't many games because its only just launched and not enough developers have had a device to test it on until recently (trust me, if you're serious about development you don't upload your product without testing on the hardware first). Give it time and the right games will appear - hoping for Skyrim is utter nonsense but you can bet a fair amount Epic are working on an OUYA port for UDK.

In regards to some of the comments made here, the fact its running on Android is irrelevant and there is a common misconception that you can't contact the hardware - truth of the matter is, you don't need to for the games you're designing for this platform (if you do you're over-extending your reach and it is unnecessary - the standard libraries are fine, you don't need direct access to FSBs etc.). What you CAN do is significantly optimise your code with assembly as it allows the NDK - this is actually a viable option for a change because its fixed hardware.

The whole point of this console is to shake up the very sector its in - current AAA consoles are still following on outdated and crippingly expensive way of doing things, forcing only the big developers to be the only ones capable of taking even a slight risk on it. Indie/small/medium developers can't afford to make new IP for them - no way. Whilst the OUYA might not be the silver bullet, its sure as hell a sign of new markets to come - Google are making their own box as are Apple. We're finally going to see more varied/interesting IP because it doesn't cost anywhere near as much to develop for these new consoles. I think the mobile market is peaking (if it hasn't already) and its going to be much more satisfying to see your game on a TV then on a mobile/tablet.

I'm sure you can tell - I'm excited to see how this pans out over the next couple of years, as a gamer and a developer. :)
 

MorphingDragon

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Aardvaarkman said:
Why did anybody think Android was a suitable OS for a game console? That's a mind-boggling decision.
As apposed to what, Big Chunky Windows?

NoeL said:
RicoADF said:
Aardvaarkman said:
Why did anybody think Android was a suitable OS for a game console? That's a mind-boggling decision.
Theres no reason Android as an OS can't be used on a console, it is after all basically Linux which PS3 also used as a basis for their OS.
That's not the problem. Being "Linux-based" means almost nothing. Android is a terrible gaming OS because programs are forced to run on a "virtual machine" rather than the actual hardware. While this is good for stability (if a program crashes it doesn't take the system with it - you can just force-close the program in question) it's terrible for efficiency. Where just about any other OS will let programs interface directly with the hardware components, Android only lets programs interface with the virtual machine, then Android interfaces with the hardware. This causes a lot of unnecessary overhead and why emulators tend to suffer from audio lag. There's just too much unnecessary shit going on under the hood that prevents games using the hardware to its potential.
That's not true, at all.

You don't need to run everything inside the Dalivik VM. There is the Android NDK which allows native code, hooking into native libraries and interfacing directly with the userland.

http://developer.android.com/tools/sdk/ndk/index.html
 

klaynexas3

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Dec 30, 2009
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I'll buy it after I get my PS4 and my friends old graphics card. I don't care much that at its current moment people aren't fully developing for it, and mostly just porting, but sooner or later I'm sure some people will design specifically for it. It's a cheap console that allows anyone to put their game on the store, that alone makes me want to buy it, simply due to the openness of the console. It's like homebrew, without having to mod.
 

Itchi_da_killa

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Jun 5, 2012
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Why the hell would anyone expect this to be "so awesome" at first? It takes time to build up to that point. Ouya never led anyone on with false hopes. It's a good idea and it will take time to build up to the big vision. It's new and has not had time to fully realize itself.
 

Itchi_da_killa

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JasonBurnout16 said:
The one thing not mentioned in this review, or any other review that I've read is the average price of a full game on Ouya.

That's something I'd quite like to know.
You bring up a good point. So I checked it out a bit. It seems the pricing will be much like google play,$5 and up. Here is a link. http://30plusgamer.com/ouya-the-game-price-debate/
 

WarpZone

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Nasrin said:
OUYA Review - More Whimper Than Bang

An unfulfilled promise of revolution.

Read Full Article
I really don't get understand the criticism you're levelling at the OUYA in this article. (Except for your treatment of the games menu. That part made sense to me and I hope they fix it.) But "too hot to pick up your set-top console while it is running?" "You have to use a wire?" "Android games require an account with payment details?" These aren't a problem with any of the other consoles in my house, why would they be a problem with the OUYA? I don't see you complaining because you can't dribble your Xbox 360 like a basketball while playing it, or because your iphone account has access to your credit card details.

Oh, and boo hoo! In order to make games for the indie platform, you have to ACTUALLY MAKE A VIDEO GAME! That one blew me away... actually, no, you know what? I take that back. EVENTUALLY, it is almost INEVITABLE that someone WILL design a game for the OUYA that more or less works like LittleBigPlanet. So I honestly can't rip into you too hard about wanting it. That's the beauty of an open platform, see? There's no gatekeeper saying what someone can and can't make for the system. There's no minimal dollar amount you need to spend in order to get in. That's why there's already 200 games at launch, with new ones coming out all the time. You think we're gonna have a library of 200 games when the Xbone comes out? No way. You'll be lucky to get 20 games, with a big 6-month lull after the launch because the entire freaking industry blew its load during a single quarter to cash in on holiday sales.

I'm just honestly not sure what you're basing your expectations for the OUYA on. It's as if you simultaneously know too much about consoles that aren't out yet and too little about how video games actually get made for your imagination to make any sense of it.

And then your conclusion was "this games console is only good for people who want to play games." Like that's a bad thing. Really? Wow. Heaven forbid my video game console only be good for playing video games!

Honestly, that just hurts. :(
 

Crazie_Guy

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Mar 8, 2009
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I like the idea of a super cheap, super portable console. Not to mention the idea of a new, lower power but indie-driven console tier below the 'big 3'. But I think in this upcoming console skirmish I'm leaning more towards the Gamestick.
 

Lyvric

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Needing a credit card on an open device that does kind of a retro themes so far does feel gimmicky/limiting, but maybe that's 'cause I don't have a CC :p