Yves Behar's "Ouya" Will Cost $99 and is Designed to be Hackable

This new console rumour is sounding better by the day...

We don't often report on startups without a physical product to their name, but when you've got sponsors like Ouya does, it's hard not to pay attention. According to a posting on AngelList, Ouya has recruited the talents of Yves Behar to build a $99 Android game console that you can connect to a TV, with a high-concept developer ecosystem that's as free as can be. Any developer will be able to publish games, claims the listing, and all games will be free to play. Even the underlying hardware is "built to be hacked" — every customer who buys a retail box will get a dev kit in the bargain, the site claims.

As we alluded to earlier, though, it's not just Jawbone Jambox and One Laptop Per Child designer Yves Behar who's on board. The project's advisors also include Ed Fries of Xbox fame, Amol Sarva of Peek, Peter Pham of Color, and counts Julie Uhrman of IGN as its founder and CEO. There's also a gentleman named Muffi Ghadiali, who appears to be leaving Amazon's Lab126 where he helped ship Kindle. At $99, the Ouya would be playing in the same space as Google TV boxes like Vizio's Co-Star, but we're eager to see what games Ouya might attract. We're on the lookout for more details and hope to have them for you soon.

http://www.theverge.com/2012/7/2/3134004/ouya-a-99-hackable-android-game-console-designed-by-yves-behar


( Edited 23.05.2013 17:50 by Guest )

All games are free? Is that mandatory? Even if the product comes into fruition, I can't see it producing many high quality games. Maybe a few exceptions.

Honest questions: What would be the difference between making a free game on Ouya and making a game for an Android device? I would think it would be similar to port from to another. If there's little or no difference, why wouldn't someone just buy a Google TV Box? The Google TV box would probably have most of the games the Ouya does plus other games you can pay for, plus all of the other things a Google TV box would do.

( Edited 06.04.2013 17:32 by Guest )

TAG said:
All games are free? Is that mandatory? Even if the product comes into fruition, I can't see it producing many high quality games. Maybe a few exceptions.

Honest questions: What would be the difference between making a free game on Ouya and making a game for an Android device? I would think it would be similar to port from to another. If there's little or no difference, why wouldn't someone just buy a Google TV Box? The Google TV box would probably have most of the games the Ouya does plus other games you can pay for, plus all of the other things a Google TV box would do.

No, I doubt it, I think many will be though. We have to wait till more information comes out. I'm guessing it will be very user friendly, attempting to create a flourishing development community. I also think everything within this device will be geared for gaming and software creation, with no frills and no fancy controllers, just a simple HDMI and USB port.

If it's quad core Tegra3, I think they have a winner on their hands. There are some pics of the Ui here:

http://therootofallevo.com/2012/07/99-android-video-game-console-wait-what/

This is the quality of games Tegra3 can produce now in it's infancy, on a machine geared entirely for gaming, it could do better:

Very interesting, indeed! It seems this company thinks it has spied a gap in the market. Good on them, I say. I hope it turns out to be a success for them. Giving developers that kind of freedom is also very gallant of them. Ultimately it can only help the device (although maybe some shovelware will get through due to no quality control).

That Tegra 3 looks very nice, by the way.

( Edited 06.04.2013 17:32 by Guest )

It's a Kickstarter project:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-video-game-console

( Edited 24.12.2012 22:32 by Guest )

They made over $1m in less than 24hrs - I guess this shit is on.

The Android-powered, crowdfunded $99 game console, Ouya, just passed its $950K Kickstarter project goal. Considering the project page went live this morning, the Ouya reached its goal in well under its first 24 hours.

The Kickstarter remains active for another 29 days, and Ouya hopes to have the console in supporters' hands by "Q1 2013." Founder and CEO Julie Uhrman told Joystiq, "The support has been unbelievable. And that's exactly why we took it to Kickstarter ... Kickstarter has just been the most phenomenal platform ? for specifically, hardware and video game companies ? to bring their ideas to consumers. And if it resonates, you really get this swell of momentum and traction, and that's what we were hoping for. And it's just unbelievable, the level of support."

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-video-game-console/

( Edited 11.07.2012 09:53 by Linkyshinks )

They are now over $3,000,000. This will end up the biggest Kickstarter project ever (so far).

I was thinking of making a thread about whether consoles should open up, but this will be the perfect experiment to see how far a truly open console could go. It's silly to think we're still living with a model that charges developers for the privilege of making the hardware actually useful and worth buying, whilst maintaining high barriers for those outside of the established publishers and devevelopers.

Modplan Man said:
I was thinking of making a thread about whether consoles should open up, but this will be the perfect experiment to see how far a truly open console could go. It's silly to think we're still living with a model that charges developers for the privilege of making the hardware actually useful and worth buying, whilst maintaining high barriers for those outside of the established publishers and devevelopers.

I'm still skeptical of the success of the Ouya. As far as openness goes, what makes this different than the PC games market? Since the Ouya is hackable, the hardware will be fragmented, like computers. I'm all for openess, but one of the bonuses of consoles is that everyone is using almost the exact same hardware. The Ouya doesn't seem like it'll have that.

Just to be clear, I'm not rooting against the Ouya or anything. If major games come out for it after it's released, I'll probably be buying one (and that price is awesome). I'm just trying to figure out what it's niche is.

I imagine that most customers won't be modding their systems.

TAG said:

I'm still skeptical of the success of the Ouya. As far as openness goes, what makes this different than the PC games market? Since the Ouya is hackable, the hardware will be fragmented, like computers. I'm all for openess, but one of the bonuses of consoles is that everyone is using almost the exact same hardware. The Ouya doesn't seem like it'll have that.

Just to be clear, I'm not rooting against the Ouya or anything. If major games come out for it after it's released, I'll probably be buying one (and that price is awesome). I'm just trying to figure out what it's niche is.

To be honest, I've never seen particularly significant problems from "fragmentation" in hardware or software. No doubt it's a problem that needs to be dealt with, but it's a perfectly normal consequence of allowing people to do what they want with their own hardware and healthy competition. Monopolies and duopolies should not be the norm.

It's obviously easier on the developer side if everything followed the Apple model of yearly or bi-annual upgrades with only 1 or 2 hardware vendors, but that's detrimental to everyone else. Although it seems Ouya will probably take a similar approach to "normal" consoles anyway, they just don't seem to want to tell you that their way is the only way you should use the console.

The bigger issue I see is their pricing - Microsoft have been going after Android with patent lawsuits against manufacturers, to the point where they may be making more money from Android than Windows phones (Source 1, Source 2). These guys seem like a target, particularly if MS decides they want to place a barrier to a potential competitor.

( Edited 15.07.2012 00:54 by Modplan Man )

Vote for the games you want on Ouya.

Yeah, you know TimeSplitters is leading the way!

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ouyatop20

The proper way to complete the survey.

Too right. Shenmue was my number one on the extras list.

Martin_ said:
The proper way to complete the survey.

Done.

Skeptical as I am of the Ouya, I see no harm in taking this opportunity to try to get Shenmue some recognition

Ok, I've been out of the video game news loop for like 2 weeks and I'm catching up. I read a little on this, but can someone please explain to me what the difference between this and a personal computer is? It really seems like it's the same thing (minus all the other non-gaming stuff a pc does).

A full picture of the Ouya prototype controller has been shown:

It looks like it is the same controller shown on their Kickstarter page. They say that the face buttons will change in order to accommodate color-blind gamers. Still, that controller doesn't look nice, in my opinion. The d-pad looks like it'll function poorly (like the Xbox's d-pad) and that red button is on a slant (which you can see more clearly on the Kickstarter). It doesn't look comfortable, but looks can be deceiving.

Also, it was announced that it will have OnLive support on day one. That's cool. I still prefer physical copies of my games, but cloud gaming is a very interesting alternative. The internet infrastructure just needs to get better.

Source:
wired.com

( Edited 27.07.2012 21:06 by TAG )

Remember that survey for games you want on Ouya? TimeSplitters came out on top. Sort it out, Crytek. People want this game. No mention of the suggestions people could type. Want to know how many votes Shenmue got...

Good article here, it's kinda funny they don't mention Wii U though...

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-03-28-ouya-sees-room-in-the-market-to-sell-alongside-ps4-next-xbox