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On July 12 2012 08:46 sinii wrote:
It still doesn't make any sense though, phone hacks will be out within a month of release to turn your phone into one of these 'consoles' for free.
So? It is an open platform, use your phone if you want. It will not be about the platform in particular it will be about the service it provides. If you want to access this service with your phone it wont matter to them, just like it does not matter to valve what type of pc you use to get on steam.
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Obviously posts with founded criticism are perfectly fine and encouraged, but you can read a lot of posters who believe this is just a console to play phone games on tv.... those are sad.
I really like the idea as a developer. I've no idea if this will took off or not, but the idea is really cool.
On July 12 2012 08:46 sinii wrote:
It still doesn't make any sense though, phone hacks will be out within a month of release to turn your phone into one of these 'consoles' for free.
They make sense. They clearly say in the video that they aim to have games that you can take advantage of having a controller, like a fighting game.
They aren't just going to port mobile games into the console, where the fuck did people take this idea from??
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On July 12 2012 09:03 fabiano wrote:
Obviously posts with founded criticism are perfectly fine and encouraged, but you can read a lot of posters who believe this is just a console to play phone games on tv.... those are sad.
It has phone hardware though. I could just as well hook my phone to a TV (many people have those) and use a Bluetooth controller.
I understand that some devs will be interested in making games that don't require a lot of hardware for this thing, but people work for money. Unless this happens to sell an incredible amount of devices, most devs will still look at the market and code for iOS and regular ole' Android. And perhaps they'll port to this thing.
To put it simply, I think we'll mostly get ports, because very few devs will try to make a living off a console that's only in a couple tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of households.
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$3.1 mil this morning, $3.5 mil right now, what the fuck. Is this the biggest kickstarter/community funded project of all time?
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On July 12 2012 09:03 fabiano wrote:Obviously posts with founded criticism are perfectly fine and encouraged, but you can read a lot of posters who believe this is just a console to play phone games on tv.... those are sad. I really like the idea as a developer. I've no idea if this will took off or not, but the idea is really cool. Show nested quote +On July 12 2012 08:46 sinii wrote:
It still doesn't make any sense though, phone hacks will be out within a month of release to turn your phone into one of these 'consoles' for free. They make sense. They clearly say in the video that they aim to have games that you can take advantage of having a controller, like a fighting game. They aren't just going to port mobile games into the console, where the fuck did people take this idea from??
I never said they were taking phone games... my point still stands, within a month of this console being released I will be able to play this 'console' via my phone with a ps3 controller connected via bluetooth.
It's a great idea however I have no idea why anyone would pay for one of these consoles if you already have a mid range android phone.
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People saying it will fail because it isn't able to compete with Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo - Indirect competitors, this is focused towards opening a market for indie developers. Those other guys aren't doing that. There are lots of people out there who would love to try making a game on a console but can't. And it isn't all for huge profits, people do things because sometimes they just enjoy doing them.
People saying it will fail because the hardware isn't good enough - Great hardware specifications nor graphics make great games. Look at minecraft, braid, amnesia, etc. Hardly pushing graphic limitations. Now think of all the massive releases that were hugely polished graphically or required good hardware specs yet still sucked. MW3 compared to TF2, would rather play TF2 at least it isn't pretending to be serious.
Don't get why people think it will fail on cost / will use their phone or whatever instead. 100Usd is nothing, I spent more on the S3.
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I'm not too familiar with Android; how open is it?
This looks fantastic, but is the software as open as the hardware?
The amount of support for this is absolutely fantastic for the free software movement.
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What blows my mind is that five people saw this on the internet and decided to drop $10,000 dollars on it O.o
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5930 Posts
The real question is how they're even going to prevent piracy on this thing. I mean look at this answer to a question asking about piracy safeguards:
Well, ideally you would make better software than decades old ROMS. Because the indie community would know and support you. Because you love games and no other venue allows you to develop for a living room and a controller like this does. Even if it's prototype. Even if it's flawed.
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Great for game developers, meh for gamers.
A pc will be better and should be able to emulate anything it can do anyway (from what I've heard)
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On July 11 2012 00:21 iPAndi wrote:
Seems interesting. I hope this can bring a revolution to console development. Though android development sucks imo
Android Development is actually my favorite platform to develop for, if you use Unity, it is actually quite easy. I'm hoping we get some high end games from the indie scene out for this console, but I feel that the console's going to fail, but we'll see.
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Only 8 GB of internal flash is very underwhelming. 1 GB RAM is also underwhelming. RAM is incredibly cheap these days, as are hard drives. Unless the "internal flash" means solid state I am very unimpressed with the specifications on this console. Games don't need to have awesome graphics or take up a lot of room to be good, but the difference in price between 1 GB and say 4 GB of ram is very insignificant, and only 8 GB of storage (unless the USB is for externals, which is still weird considering a console should largely want to be standalone) means that the amount of games may be very limited.
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With no games announced, no real word on functionality, and only the promise of a low price point, this thing is already at 3.6 million dollars pledged? Competition is great and all, but there's nothing on their page that indicates that it will be competing with anything.
If this is all about indie titles, a bottom of the barrel cheap laptop covers that and provides extra utility and functionality. If it's all about porting mobile games, is anybody who wants to play Angry Birds going to plop down $100 to play it in their living room? Also, that person would also have to not already own a smart phone. That's a really specific demographic of people who A) Don't already own a smart phone, but B) Want to play mobile games badly enough to pay $100 + the price of the games. Is it trying to compete against PCs and the current gen consoles in the triple A space? I can see consumers loving a supremely cheap alternative, but will developers really want to spend money porting and developing for an unproven system, especially given some of the scary aspects that come with it being such an apparently open platform? The specs look pretty adequate in that regard, but that's with only a cursory glance.
I'm just not seeing the appeal, and I'll remain skeptical of this until something emerges that demonstrates why this needs to exist, and what purpose it will serve. Right now I just find myself wishing that the funds its getting could go to something with more substance or defined purpose - an actual game with a clear goal maybe.
Edit: I'm also wondering how they intend to manufacture and distribute these machines in mass market fashion with only a few million dollars, and that's assuming all the R&D is already taken care of. It makes sense this kickstarter isn't their only source of money, but it's yet another aspect of this that I am concerned about.
Edit 2: Come to think of it, it reminds me of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_Entertainment#The_Phantom_console
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I fail to see why, as a developer you wouldn't either:
A) create a game targeted at mobile users because EVERYONE has the platform for your game already or
B) develop for PC and release on steam (or on your own if you go viral.)
The fact is that good indie games on PC can and will get noticed. Mobile apps are easy to make and lucrative because of their reach.
I fail to see any attraction for this "indie console" for devs or for gamers. Developing specifically for it will be a waste of time.
I hate Kickstarter so much.
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There's a stigma attached to pc gaming that keeps it from becoming what everyone wants. A new console is usually much more appealing to gamers. This will also be a platform meant for games. New developers putting their ideas on a console for low development costs could easily spawn plenty of great gameplay ideas you wouldn't normally see on mainstream consoles. Basically, supporting this consoles would help games to develop and welcome innovation, and successful developers could go on to make games for the bigger consoles. All in all, if you like and support gaming, supporting this could contribute heavily to gaming itself.
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On July 12 2012 12:37 Snorkle wrote:
I fail to see why, as a developer you wouldn't either:
A) create a game targeted at mobile users because EVERYONE has the platform for your game already or
B) develop for PC and release on steam (or on your own if you go viral.)
The fact is that good indie games on PC can and will get noticed. Mobile apps are easy to make and lucrative because of their reach.
I fail to see any attraction for this "indie console" for devs or for gamers. Developing specifically for it will be a waste of time.
I hate Kickstarter so much.
The same arguments you make could be said for any "AAA" console developer. EA makes a lot of mobile phone games, but they are generally bad ports of their existing titles on PS3/XBOX or PC. I can see EA releasing games on this thing because it's an extra market.
The fact is there's a lot of people who don't play games their phones. On your phone, you will only play games that you can pick up and play for <10 minutes whilst being satisfied. It's literally a <1 hour process to port your game onto this thing (unless your controls are whack). There will be large incentives for developers to develop for this console specifically because:
- If they release a game at launch, and it's the best game at the time, people will play it.
- They may then use those funds to make more games (or retire early).
- It opens up more GAME GENRES.
ATM every fucking android game is either a farmville clone, some kind of puzzle, badly controlled FPS/racing simulators, "paper toss" variants or games with DPAD overlays, which are all horrible. The ones that do try and branch out to make something different, generally fail on delivery because nobody wants to stare at their phone trying to play their favorite console remake. They would rather play it on a console.
People in this thread honestly believe that everyone has the knowledge and patience to root android devices and shove .apk files on them of popular games, and then update them manually every month or so for updates. People are also saying that you can just make a small PC with bluetooth and some wireless controllers to emulate everything you like. Well sure you can, but I know for a fact that emulators like Dolphin (wii emulator) does not run well at all on budget PCs. Also, try building a PC for under $150 that can run well.
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On July 12 2012 11:41 weishime wrote:
People saying it will fail because the hardware isn't good enough - Great hardware specifications nor graphics make great games. Look at minecraft, braid, amnesia, etc. Hardly pushing graphic limitations. Now think of all the massive releases that were hugely polished graphically or required good hardware specs yet still sucked. MW3 compared to TF2, would rather play TF2 at least it isn't pretending to be serious.
I look at Minecraft, Braid & Amnesia. And at games like Super Meat Boy, Limbo. Bastion etc etc.
And what do I see for most of them? Platforms: Windows, Xbox
So if you want to play these games on a console since for whatever reason you dont want to play them on your PC, you can play them on a Xbox already. All good indie games are ported to multiple platforms. Same will happen for Ouya games.
So from a consumer standpoint - why should I need this console? Just because it's cheaper? Is the price difference between Ouya and the next Xbox gen enough to lose all the features / options the next Xbox is going to offer?
The twitch.tv thing seems nice for people who want an easy option to stream to your TV as well. But for tech savvy people it's already possible - I personally have my PC stream to my PS3 connected to my TV. Sure it was not "easy" - but isnt the techsavvy guy the target audience for ouya? So why would HE need this feature?
From a developer's point of view of course it's good. You wont have to deal with microsoft or other publishers. So you can release your mediocre game which no one wants on their platform and hope it still is a hit and the bigger publishers notice you and port it (encourage you to port it) to their platform.
Open hardware also sounds fun for people who want to do play around.
So will it fail? No. Will it be the next big thing for the majority? No. It will be a nice thing for developers and die hard indie fans - but for most consumers it's probably not worth it and a lot of people seem to have too high expectations for it.
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This project is incredibly flawed and the millions being dropped on it frightens me. Meh. Good luck!
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EPT
