The $99 Ouya game console: Exciting, innovative — and probably doomed | Hacker News Reader

The $99 Ouya game console: Exciting, innovative — and probably doomed

extremetech.com

40 pointsevo_953 comments

Personally I wouldn't consider it even remotely controversial that by XBox 360/PS3/Wii standards, the thing is doomed. There is an effectively zero chance that this is going to sell into the tens of millions.

But that's a completely uninteresting observation, really. Who cares? The question is, will they be successful on their own terms. That's probably "profitable" rather than "took over the video game industry". Since they're building on the Android base, their "success" or "failure" won't look like a conventional console. If the entire thing is a miserable failure, games will still be made for it, because there doesn't need to be Ouya-specific games. If the company ships hardware, then blows up, it'll probably still have games coming out for it, if for no other reason than the fact you can probably root it. Conventional consoles don't have that characteristic. It changes things a lot.

No, that new corner restaurant going in downtown probably isn't going to threaten Applebee's... but... so?

even more -- I think it's a pretty great step away from traditional video game consoles. I applaud any effort to change what has been a pretty stale market for the past couple years

No console out there failed because it wasn't #1, it failed because it takes money to support hardware, lots of money, and the companies behind those consoles couldn't keep losing money and had to cancel it. The first Xbox lost about $4 billion, but with MSFT behind it money wasn't a problem.

Even before the Wii Nintendo had been either #2 or #3 for the past 3 generations without a problem, because it was still making more than enough money to even make their own games and design new hardware.

The new corner restaurant you mention is not going to beat Applebees, but is not going to stick around for too long if nobody goes there to eat either.

Designing your own hardware (and the entire OS on top of it) is expensive. Using off-the-shelf components and an Android base will help that immensely. If Ouya can manufacture its console for slightly less than its $100 price (assuming the kickstarter pledge level to be the price goal), it can build its profits off the game store.

If they can make it reasonably easy to Ouya-fy an existing Android game, there will be reasonable incentive to add games to the store. In my mind, this is the riskiest part. Tablet and phone games are designed around touch. Many of them won't convert to a controller well, which will limit the number of games ported and make them more dependent on made-for-Ouya titles. They'll need to be a good-sized market for that.

That they made the system hackable and open, however, means there's the possibility that the Ouya can use a smartphone or tablet as a controller in a similar fashion to the Wii U.

I think that the creativity from the side projects that come out of Ouya have more potential to be disruptive than the console itself.

Why not play the game on the smartphone/tablet then?

And you could get the same deal with XLIG and Smartglass

Having hooked my iPad up to the tv so my boy and I can use our iDevices to play Fifa Soccer, I can attest that the differences between playing on the tv and playing on device are significant.

> The new corner restaurant you mention is not going to beat Applebees, but is not going to stick around for too long if nobody goes there to eat either.

It takes a lot more money and marketing to start a franchise restaurant chain than it takes to start a restaurant, or even a local/regional chain. Ouya is more like the latter.

You don't get the analogy do you? see Jerf's post: the restaurant was never meant to be like applebees, but is not going to stay open if they don't make any money, same as the Ouya: odds are it wont beat the X360, but if it doesn't make enough money then how is it going to survive?

For some reason, I think the Ouya's more analogous to the Boxee Box than it is to something like the XBox 360.

At ~$100, the Ouya's throwaway technology. If the platform fails, you can always root it and make it a media player. It's a low risk purchase compared to something like the Dreamcast or 3DO (remember that one?).

If they keep the games cheap, casual and social, they might actually develop enough of a base to reach sustainability. In any case, I hope they succeed, because I've bought way too many $60+ games that I only ended up playing for 5 hours.

The Dreamcast went as low as $50 and even that didn't save it, price isn't everything when it comes to consoles.

And casual gamers are already migrating away from consoles because they can play those social games on the smartphones and tablets they already own, why would they buy another console that plays the same games?

For any game that I want to play for more than 15 minutes, I'd rather relax on my sofa with a proper controller and play it on a screen that is not on my lap requiring an uncomfortable neck position.

You were talking about casual gamers.

Playing Tetris for an hour is pretty casual compared to something like an RPG that requires 30 hours to complete.

> You don't get the analogy do you?

No, but you don't get my application of it. Nice talking down to somebody while you clearly didn't consider what was said.

> odds are it wont beat the X360, but if it doesn't make enough money then how is it going to survive?

Something is broken in your logic here. Local/regional restaurants don't have to "beat" Applebee's in marketing expenditure, selection, serving sizes, or price. They don't even necessarily have entirely the same customer base. Why are you equating beating the 360 with making enough money? Their kind of operation doesn't need nearly as much money to survive.

Did you even bother to read jerf's original post?

No, that new corner restaurant going in downtown probably isn't going to threaten Applebee's... but... so?

And it doesn't needs to beat the X360 or any big consoles, but if it doesn't makes enough money to at least cover the expenses of the company behind it then what?

> Did you even bother to read jerf's original post?

Yes. Your repeated key point -- wow, that's kinda vacuous and tautological. Basically you're saying, "What if you die, then what?" Well, you're dead. Duh.

Ouya the company could be run very cleverly with very low expense. It could be an unkillable cockroach in the way that a lot of bootstrapped startups are.

If run by employees who have day jobs, with open source hardware, it could have nearly zero expense for long periods of time. They could find corporate sponsors who could give them server resources for their marketplace, then it would be zero expense if they wanted.

The company could die and the Ouya community could still go on, so long as someone paid for the servers.

In Nintendo's case, you might make the argument that it's their exceptionally good first party software that allowed them to survive those years of not being number one.

First party software is also the reason (in my opinion) that the Wii was so successful. There were only a handful of titles that were actually good, with the free pack-in (Wii Sports) being arguably the killer app.

>The new corner restaurant you mention is not going to beat Applebees, but is not going to stick around for too long if nobody goes there to eat either.

See:

>Since they're building on the Android base, their "success" or "failure" won't look like a conventional console. If the entire thing is a miserable failure, games will still be made for it, because there doesn't need to be Ouya-specific games. If the company ships hardware, then blows up, it'll probably still have games coming out for it, if for no other reason than the fact you can probably root it. Conventional consoles don't have that characteristic. It changes things a lot.

I and others have already ordered this that have no intention of ever using it for gaming. But then again, there's also the raspberry PI, Cubox, ODROID-X. This is easily the most consumer friendly so far.

You would still need to adapt the game for the Ouya's controller which is not that simple. BTW there are some devs still making games for "dead" consoles since the manufacturer no longer cares and they wont get sued for not having a license.

>I and others have already ordered this that have no intention of ever using it for gaming

So you are pretty much betting on it to fail? because at that price they probably depend solely on game sales for revenue, perhaps even to pay for some manufacturing costs. If you root it and use it for XBMC (to name one) Ouya wont see a penny from it, and if too many people do the same like you are implying then they'll go bankrupt.

And for the people behind the Ouya I bet going bankrupt, losing their jobs and equity is an unmitigated failure.

>I and others have already ordered this that have no intention of ever using it for gaming

So you are pretty much betting on it to fail?

How is that at all what I said? I own an Xbox and use it for Netflix (ok, and Halo). I own a Raspberry Pi and use it for DLNA, not for education purposes. I own a Macbook Pro and run Ubuntu on it.

You do realize that you're in the minority, right? Not too many people would buy an Xbox and use it for Netflix and though Microsoft is happy to have your money, they probably were not betting the farm that many consumers would have your spending profile.

>Not too many people would buy an Xbox and use it for Netflix

I can very much tell you that's not the case.

And seriously, is everyone missing the point? This is a packaged, streaming video capable player. It will be running Android. It already has more capability than the Nexus Q and is a third of the price.

The point is that this competes with existing game consoles in more ways than just gaming. It doesn't preclude it being a success from gaming, but it means that it has a wealth of other uses.

I can't count the number of technologies that have been priced correctly to sell decently for reasons beyond their primary use. And if you think people don't buy Xboxes to play Netflix, well, I can categorically tell you that you're wrong.

Ouya reminds me of that open-source smartphone project everyone got excited about a few years ago, Openmoko, before everyone also realized that it's extremely expensive and difficult to put together a modern smartphone, and that openness isn't compelling enough to make people tough it out with a half-baked device.

I think creating and selling a smart phone is much harder than making an open game console with cheap hardware and a working OS / platform. Ouya doesn't have to deal with carriers.

People only want to carry one phone, but dropping $99 on an Ouya isn't going to prevent me from also being able to buy other consoles or PC gaming hardware.

I'm thinking of buying one for the emulation alone.

"I'm thinking of buying one for the emulation alone."

Holy hell, I didn't even think of this. Android already has a bunch of emus. Exciting!

This article is written on the assumption that if someone can get it free, they won't pay. I find that truly hard to believe. The piracy demographic is usually limited to two groups- people who believe they are beating the system, and people who don't know they're hurting the system.

I think the attitude of the company plays a big role. For instance, music companies won't fund music unless it is guaranteed to produce insane profits. If people know that the company is offering good services at intentionally fair prices, they will be more willing to not cheat the system.

Look at Louis C.K.: I'm a huge fan of him so I would have bought anyway, but since he cut the cost down to $5, I think many people bought simply because they believed the price was worth the content.

I think piracy is a result of a disconnect between users and creators. The more middle men there are, the less people will care about the people involved. When the writer is appealing to you that hey, please don't steal from me, more people will have a heart about it.

There is also third group: people who don't have the money (think students). But as I said they would not kickstart 100$ and therefore will not enter the community in numbers until later in cycle.

Actually there are a large number of groups within the piracy label. That's part of the problem because too many want to ignore that fact and pigeonhole all those groups into the same "lost sales" bucket. That's why such people usually have problems with addressing piracy and how to properly prevent it, or at least soften its impact.

No, it's written on the assumption that content-creators will assume that if someone can get it free, they won't pay.

I surely hope that the Ouya will be a success, but I am far less sure that it will be a success. On one hand, making a game for a regular Android device with a touchscreen is a lot different from making a game for a gamepad. ( For example drawing games simply do not work with a gamepad, while football games do not work with a touchscreen/acceleration sensor). Atop of this the hardware seems to be rather low spec, especially the lack of a real GPU seems to be a problem.

On the other hand, with the feature list of the Tegra 3 and a bluetooth keyboard, it would make a really nice streaming client/HTPC. And it is fairly open, which should ensure hackability for stuff like a nice TV interface for HN, home file server and probably even gaming ;)

In conclusion, I have the somehow wired feeling that it could be a rather huge success but not as a gaming device but as the break through for "smart TV." And it is somewhat raising hopes, that the developer specials (at $699 and $leet) are sold out.

[edit] I forgot to add: The $99 price point is very nice, since this is about the highest amount many people are willing to spend without a good reason. So many casual gamers will probably buy one and figure other uses out later.

Sad thing is that whilst alot of people would love for something like this to be available and have the games available to for it to do well. Well its too easy to point out the mistakes or the worst case situations and play of on those gaming more hits and adverts on a article and that maybe why the title of the article is all doom and the content a little more pragmatic and mindful.

If the article had the title "The $99 Ouya game console: Exciting, innovative - a new hope" then people would read it in a different vain. Sadly that is not the case.

Sure it's in all effect the same specs as the nexus tablet witht he added bluetooth controller and no dsplay in many respects but thats not all what its about.

Even if it fails, it has the potentual to create a niche android gaming market/portal.

Good luck to them

I really don't want to see the Ouya fail, but then again I didn't want the Dreamcast to fail either, and it did. SEGA was sort on cash back then, and because some hackers found a way to play pirated games without a hardware mod (the PSX needed a modchip soldered in the mainboard) it was the last straw for that company, and when developers started to flee and hyped games like HalfLife:Blue Shift were cancelled the dream was over.

I know some indies say piracy is not a bid deal for them, but it might be for the Ouya: at $99 the company is either breaking even or losing money on every unit, and the only way to get that money back is through games and microtransactions, but if piracy is dead-easy then they may never recoup the money, and like it happened to SEGA they will eventually run out of funds.

First owners of Ouya will be the people who paid 100$ for it, on kickstarter, up front.

Those people will have near-zero interest in pirating games for the sake of not paying. And that's who the first generation of Ouya users will be made of.

Really? just 25-40k users for an entire console generation?

From the looks of it, it will probably be closer to 100k, which still isn't much. But I would imagine that there are a number of developers in that group, which means by the time it is open to the general public, at least there will be some games ready.

At 100k no one will bother to make a game just for the Ouya, probably not even support the platform which means adding controller support to an existing game. Keep in mind some games sold 100k units and were deemed a failure, even good games.

This is a console.

> At 100k no one will bother to make a game just for the Ouya

Ouya is yet another Android variant. The amount of work porting isn't like porting from 2 completely different platforms like 360 to PS3 or iOS to Android. This is just from one Android device to another. Plus it's not like Android devs don't already have experience with dealing with Android fragmentation. There are also plenty of Android devs who don't get enough attention on the major app stores. For just a little more work in porting from one Android variant to another they can have a whole new venue.

I said a game just for the Ouya, you know an exclusive like say Uncharted for the PS3, not necessarily a big AAA game, but a game that's only available on the Ouya.

If there really is a smaller barrier to developing for Ouya than other consoles, there will be Ouya exclusives.

It doesn't need that.

> the PSX needed a modchip soldered in the mainboard

Nope, the way people played copies on the first PS1 (before the modchips arrived) was to use a spring loaded weight ($5) on the door sensor, boot a legit disc and then swap to the copy after the boot sound. No modchip required. The Sega Saturn required a mod, but it required no chip, just a few wires and a switch.

If you didn't want to "spring for the spring", so to speak, you could do it manually with a little more difficulty.

On the Dreamcast it was all software, not even a jailbreak, just some code on the pirated game. It left no traces, you could boot a legit disc and connect to SegaNet, try doing that with LIVE and not get banned.

Right now pirating on a X360, either with LT, RGH or JTAG takes so much work the vast majority of users don't bother to even try, but if it was like the Dreamcast you would have a totally different situation.

IIRC, I had my import DC chipped, but shortly after, the Utopia disc came out but by that time, I had lost interest in gaming for several years.

I don't think piracy will be a problem at all. Price points are going to be more like iOS ($1-10) than console ($40+). Comparisons to Dreamcast, et al are irrelevant.

All these Ouya doomsday articles are frustrating. The team behing Ouya is legit. The idea is reasonable. The iOS/Android-style development community is completely different from console. Wii showed that a brand new console can take off in a huge way with little marketing spend.

Are you serious? You don't think "Nintendo" in the name wasn't at all beneficial? Or the library of first party exclusive games?

Yes. Yes. No. And my comment was about "marketing spend".

I wonder if everyone realizes that the money OUYA has "Committed" isnt really committed yet, you can go into your kickstarter account and remove your pledge any time before the time is up. It's a bet and a risky one at that, dependent on the betting confidence of thousands of other people.

I highly doubt that people are going to de-fund the OUYA project in large numbers. And what is the point of actively encouraging people to remove their pledge anyway? By now, I would assume just about everyone on kickstarter understands that there is a good deal of risk involved. Even if this project never makes it off the ground, people are giving OUYA money not necessarily for a console, but for the dream and hope of the disruption that the project will bring to the market.

I talked with a guy who raised $220k. He saw about 8% of that "disappear" in failed charges (things like the card had expired). Of course, anybody can unpledge, but those numbers are reflected in the current total.

So if a friend of mine had a Kickstarter project and I wanted to get it some attention, I could use a credit card, donate $10k, and then cancel my credit card straight after? Kickstarter would show it as a pledge but will never get the actual money. It seems like very dangerous idea of course =)

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