Oton - New Game Console

[vcoleiro1]

Introducing the new Oton game console. Promises To ‘Self-Create’ Games


See details here:


http://otonx.com/


and


http://www.kotaku.co...f-create-games/


What does everyone think? (Be kind)

 

[Wrath Of Khan]

Bollocks!

 

[Wrath Of Khan]

Good god the narrator sounds like that voice you hear on 4am infomercials...

 

[vcoleiro1]

^ Did you expect him to offer a free Potato Peeler at the end?. I did

 

[Wrath Of Khan]

But seriously the video is not very convincing, and the game creation thing will be very simplistic or at the least most of the generated games will be the same.


Dunno too much hyperbole might scare off backers. The laser projection thing sounds ok but Id bet something like that could be planned for the p2.

^ Did you expect him to offer a free Potato Peeler at the end?. I did

Totally. Maybe they should try and sell it via late night infomercials. very tired people with access to credit cards would be the target market.

 

[Wrath Of Khan]

Excuse my language but what O TON Of shit! :lol: (couldnt resist the pun)

 

[erico]

They sure lack polish on their presentation, I guess this marketing should be really important, but who knows.


It is a good idea, somehow softwarewise, but hardware?


android+linux games+game maker with an interface.


Could appeal to kids, specially those that wanna achieve without efforts, the many ones.


I really can´t say much, sorry, could not watch it till the end.


At last, the more plats the better...

 

[diligentcircle]

The pressing question for me is: does the software that "self-creates" games respect your freedom? The video makes it sound like software as a service, which would mean "no".


The second pressing question is "why is the hardware so cheap?" EDIT: It seems to be a marketing gimmick, judging by the FAQ. Looks like the actual price is going to be $179 without the projection thing.


EDIT: At least they're upfront in their FAQ about the hardware not being "open", though they're a little vague on what they mean specifically:

The hardware is not open. It’s protected under the same requirements outlined by the OEM partners. The OEM parts such as the laser projection camera and motion camera are regulated by the manufacturer’s terms of use.

 

[WizardStan]

No doubt it can procedurally generate games based around certain templates, that's a trick that has been used extensively for decades. All they need to do is continue expanding the number of templates and the stuff that can be plugged into said templates and it will look for all purposes to be creating "new" games, just like how every instance of Nethack is an entirely new game. Whether it can expand the template enough to give each new game a distinct meaning remains to be seen. I'm fairly sure they'll be able to pull off something, but if you expect anything even close to the depth of a Halo or Elder Scrolls game you'll be disappointed. Maybe a traditional platformer, a la Mario or Metroid, or generic brawlers, racing, or puzzle games, but if they can figure out an algorithm for an engaging story then they will have won the everything.

 

[erico]

I thought stories could not be created in such fashion, but dwarf fortress proves me wrong, still, not all fully automatic. Does need a poetic interpretation, but provides a solid basis.There is something about art, and I dare include coding into art, that requires a single vision, style.A platformer could be used, but I doubt a game like spelunky, could be recreated in such fashion.edit: not saying it is impossible...but the show really lacks polish, heck, we have been seeying the same movies for ages ^_^

 

[Exophase]

The pressing question for me is: does the software that "self-creates" games respect your freedom? The video makes it sound like software as a service, which would mean "no".

Kind of says a lot that that's your question instead of "how can what they're claiming possibly be true."

 

[vcoleiro1]

I think they would have been better of selling it as a software app only . An app that guides you to create your own games and auto generates simple games might have some market. As a poorly speced HW package that isn't cheap , it's not very appealing.

 

[Exophase]

Since no one really wants to say it outright I'll go ahead - this has about a million red flags that make me very skeptical that it'll turn into a real product. Not necessarily a deliberate hoax but if not it's almost certainly a case of investors and "idea" people getting out of control backing something that has no real feasibility.


Just to list a few... they're making the console start at $179 but their crowdfunding offer is a measly $99 (or $100 off every other model). Never would you see such a massive price difference for a real product, but they probably want backers to think they're getting an incredible deal. The presentation shows nothing concrete whatsoever outside of a poorly done menu.. supposing some kind of generic game procedural generation technology really was far enough along to have even the slightest potential of becoming a product you should bid on they'd definitely have something to show for themselves. I mean, they estimate that they'll have a demo disk ready to ship in less than three weeks. One that'll let you make games.. and right now they have nothing?


The presentation is clearly done by people who have no technical background in games and are just saying the vaguest things they can conjure up. Not to mention how they can't seem to get straight what kind of content this is supposed to have - is it procedurally generated, user generated, or developer generated?


But to me the real kicker is how they're trying to pull a KS crowd funder on their own site. Since they'd surely be much more successful on a proven site they must know that they'd never be approved.


And uh, stuff like this: "Yes, we designed OTON to support Android games, Linux games and licensed games. We believe a game console should play anything, hence the name game console." (I'd love to know more about these Linux games they think they'll support)


And this: "In a way yes, but OTON X is independent device and complete new project. The original idea for EVO 2 was to be powered by Android and we made that announcement in January 2012. However, as we were half way done with development a similar console was announced and we felt that instead of doing the exact same system we had to do something 20 times better."


So basically that thing they announced in 2011 (not 2012) wasn't vaporware, it was deliberately scrapped so they could do something 20 times better! Great way to build a reputation, right?

 

[vcoleiro1]

^ Did you just mention the Elephant in the room :lol:


Don't worry, if you read the comments in the Kotaku article , everyone was ripping this thing a new A hole . Someone affiliated with the project then commented, and everyone turned on him including the author of the article. Some negative press indeed.


Scary that they take your cash upfront (as opposed to KS which doesn't until a product is funded). Also , it makes you wonder why they are not using a site like KS.


As far as spec go, the basic unit (and I imagine the others also) uses a 1.2 Ghz quad core arm chip, which I'm guessing is the lowest/cheapest end Tegra 3 SOC. For comparison the Ouya uses the top end 1.6ghz Tegra 3 SOC. Pretty poor HW specs indeed

 

[Exophase]

Huh, I didn't even catch that you needed to fund this with straight cash. Good find. That, along with any hopes of being approved, is probably why they're doing it this way.


Now I could not find anywhere on the site that claimed that they'd give you your money back if the goal isn't met. I think they're relying on people taking this for granted because it's so KS-like with the several tiers and even including the challenges section. I'm not sure what their legal obligations are at all. Surely if they only get $1000 they can't start making consoles with it. Nonetheless, it shouldn't be any different from any old preorder, since it is at least heavily implied that you'll get the thing you paid for unconditionally. All they say is it'll ship in 2013, so no matter what they do I'm sure the credit card companies will block them just like they did with Pandora.

 

[elwing]

@exophase yes they discount their console at 99$ instead of 179$ but do you have seen that the 179$ version does not have the front camera+micro, nor the laser projector? it looks like a basic quad core cortexA9 system with a gamepad... and even at 99$ the competition exist... that procedural gaming generation is probably some load of crap, through I'dd love to be proved wrong...

 

[EvilDragon]

Scary that they take your cash upfront (as opposed to KS which doesn't until a product is funded). Also , it makes you wonder why they are not using a site like KS.

Well, Kickstarter requires you to have a working prototype these days... that might be the reason.

 

[diligentcircle]

Kind of says a lot that that's your question instead of "how can what they're claiming possibly be true."

Well, it doesn't look any more unbelievable than the Ouya. It just looks exaggerated; the "game" generating software probably goes by a very loose definition of the word "game", kind of like those crappy handhelds that claim to have several hundred games built-in. Talking about having a "quadrillion" possibilities solidifies this perception.


Of course, though, whether or not it's possible doesn't matter if it doesn't respect users' freedom, because I have no interest in buying devices like that.

 

[bismuthdrummer]

I seriously thought this was a spoof of the OUYA for about the first minute and a half or so.


The game-making engine they described is definitely template-based, saying things like, "gamers can create an array of game combinations... During manual game creation, the Oton creation automation engine collects all the required assets selected by the user. Once Oton has gathered this information, the custom engine combines this data to create a full functional game... the system will have several different configurations to create new games." Pretty much blatantly stating that they're using game engine templates and user configuration of said templates. Probably plug-and-play graphics/music/fx, it's extremely unlikely they'll let you create new 3D models or sound FX schemes, for example.


They don't promise anything spectacular like a truly dynamic AI, story automation engine, art/sound fx/music auto-generation and development tools (maybe they're relying on Linux/Android? for the very latter)... and they're awfully quiet on what the combinations of choices will produce in terms of variety by example.


I am imagining the options to at best look kind of like: RTS/FPS/RPG > Fantasy/Sci-Fi/Modern-day/Post-Apocalypse > 2D/3D > [...] To be fair, maybe there will be some cool results if they will aggregate and share crowd-sourced assets, but it's pretty unlikely this whole "automatic games" pitch will produce anything noteworthy, as WizardStan illustrated. And, it's their primary pitch...


EnGeniux Oton X? EnGeniux team? EnGeniux module tools? Come now, don't be so modest, tell us what you really think of yourselves.

 

[Smasher]

Argh my eyes!! That horrible blue is dreadful!! I don't claim to be any kind of expert but even I can see how poorly made the site is...