Ouya - Android based open gaming console

[craigix]

It isn't $99, it's about $90 because of the KS fees.


The Pi is not sold for any profit and is a far weaker system with no on board storage, no power supply, no box, no cables, no fancy controller & touch pad.


They are going to have to hit 25,000+ units to try to bring this in at anything like their price. Maybe that is their plan. Maybe their plan is to hit 100,000 units. But even then I'm not sure it can be done.


But let's say they do, where is their revenue stream? They sell 100,000 units and make maybe a few $ on each unit. That will be eaten up by on going costs.


This is just crazy.

 

[Link]

I wonder how Brian Fargo's KickBack money works into this since he seems to be backing this project through the Wasteland 2 money. That's just my assumption since he's in the video.

They are limiting themselves at about 7000 units according to the rewards listed.

 

[craigix]

Yeah that's why the more I look at this the more it just seems to be dreamland.


Maybe someone will step in and back them with millions. Maybe that is what they are hoping will happen.


Was that room of people all their employees? Wow. That will be some wage bill too.

 

[Galaxis]

According to the campaign FAQ they want 30% on any game sold. Guess the model is going to be based on fees for services that want to get presented on the platform.


It's probably possible to at least break even on $99 for the system (minus controller), seeing as an ARM system like the CuBox (that certainly is produced in smaller quantities) is available for $140.

 

[Exophase]

Unless they're getting special support from nVidia they're going to need millions of dollars before they can even place an order with them.. Even if their manufacturing costs were realistic (I agree that they are not) their goal is too low.


I was surprised to find that KS lists the following are required for technology projects:


"Kickstarter requires additional information from Design and Technology projects so backers can make informed decisions about the projects they support. These requirements include detailed information about the creator’s background and experience, a manufacturing plan (for hardware projects), and a functional prototype."


I don't know if it does, but the manufacturing plan should include a BOM backed by real price quotes, that strongly supports their projected price goals. I wonder what these people actually submitted as a prototype - a tablet in a box perhaps?

 

[craigix]

For once Exo, we're in agreement.


I'd sure like to know what they submitted to KS and to see their BoM.


A journalist with some balls needs to come out and question this KS project in public.

 

[RodrigoCard]

Just for comparison: how much would cost a "bare-bones" pandora, the same specs, but just a box with the essential, usb, blluetooth and tv-out???


(no battery, no controller, no screen, etc)

 

[craigix]

Well the Ouya does have a controller and presumably a battery in it (it has a touch pad too).


But just a bare Pandora PCB alone would be well over $150.


We may as well say the Pandora PCB and the iCP controller.


Both would be slightly over $200.


Maybe if you made them at a slave labour camp in china, used generic/clone/fake parts you could come in at ~$140.


But that's without shipping, cables, packaging, tooling, engineering, test runs, websites, staff etc.

 

[Exophase]

This would work as something somewhat better than Pandora level and useable as a console: http://liliputing.com/2012/05/74-pc-on-a-stick-features-allwinner-a10-cpu-android-4-0.html


It's just not up to OUYA's claimed specs. Much better SoC (that I doubt nVidia is selling for peanuts, I expect it to be at least $25 a pop), twice as much RAM, twice as much NAND, better wifi chip, etc. And it surely features a lot more NRE - a more expensive industrial design, software development funding, KS fees, funding what appears to be more than the bare bones staff of a Chinese firm.. And that controller would go for at least $40 in stores.


I could sort of see the console by itself for $99 but not with the controller.

 

[Wrath Of Khan]

Its not something that interests me even if its possible.sounds awfully cheap though.I mean the gcw zero is expected to retail for about 100 dollars and thats a handheld device!

 

[Garrett]

http://www.kickstart...eo-game-console


I expect one of you speedy buggers has beaten me to the punch but this looks interesting...

Yeah, I posted some info on this about a week ago.. great to see more details though, It's already reached critical mass on Kickstarter on the 2nd day..!

 

[craigix]

I wonder if we will see any further information from them in the coming days about how they plan to produce this?


And maybe some actual real hardware?

 

[ShleeDragon]

They're going for the amazon model of losing money on the rod and making money from the fish.


Read the blurb.

Julie Uhrman has been in games for a long time, at Vivendi Universal, IGN, GameFly, and other places. Yves Behar is the award-winning designer of Jambox, One Laptop per Child, and many others. There are plenty of other people involved, but some of them would get fired if we tell you who they are.

They've obviously got money behind them.. and the One laptop per child contacts would grease lots of wheels.


edit: http://www.fuseproject.com/ these guys have phat cash.

 

[erico]

We understand that we can use kickstarter as a marketing machine and a pre-sale money-raising kind of stuff for a limited number of users in case we already have the money and condition to pull out a project without the actual need of funding it right? That means you get extra money on your pocket to deal with it and don´t have to immediately send the product or even have it in existence.


It won´t be the first time people used kickstarter this way.

 

[ShleeDragon]

It's about time for a huge kickstarter product to fail... the owners of the product jumping on a plane to tijuana

 

[WizardStan]

the owners of the product jumping on a plane to tijuana

That's not likely to happen, no more than I thought it likely OPT was likely to skip off with our pre-order money which is to say not at all. Even if they hit $1'000'000 it'll be one of the smallest big scams in history with a paper trail a thousand miles long: they would be incredibly stupid to even try.


More than likely they've simply underestimated the project: if it fails, it'll fail on its own merits and hopefully people will learn a valuable lesson, not because it turns out to be a complete and total scam (which would teach an entirely different lesson).

 

[Mr_Loon]

To me, it looks like the success or failure of the Ouya will depend on how they are financed, if it is purely through Kickstarter then they are pretty much doomed to failure. However if they've got a decent cash reserve they could certainly look at making a success from the long game.


Reading between the lines of the FAQ the business model is very much based around the 'App store' side of things, they're obviously going to need to shift a lot of units to get that plan to make sense.


My guess is that they will have to retail these at a much more sensible cost and look at the money lost for the kickstarter units as marketing spend.


I hope they succeed but there's no way I'd be backing this unless I knew a lot more about the business plan. However I'd happily pay $200 for something like this if it became a success


For a bit of fun, how much do you think this kickstarter will raise? My guess : $3 Million


Edit, bugger me wish I'd guessed a bit higher than that, they've just raised $100K in the time it took me to write the post. :blink:

 

[Link]

http://www.neoseeker.com/news/19814-kickstarter-project-ouya-the-android-powered-console-is-striking-gold/

 

[Exophase]

If they're really expecting to generate all their revenue from software sales, especially if hardware is sold at a loss, then things are looking pretty bleak for them..


This quote is particularly enlightening:

Unlike mobile phones and tablet platforms, she said, publishers will be able to sell downloadable titles on Ouya for $60, and “it’ll be accepted by gamers, because it’s a television-based game that’s leveraging a real controller and everything that comes along with it.”

This couldn't be further from the truth; as anyone who buys XBLA, PSN, and WiiWare titles know these don't cost $60. They can go for a little more than iOS or Android titles but the limit is around $20 - and you generally expect much higher quality for this price. Gamers aren't willing to fork out lots of money for something just because they can play it on their couch with a controller. They'll generally want something with high-end graphics and real production values, and the platform itself is going to seriously limit you here.. the question then becomes, if your game has any current market appeal at $60 why would you be enticed by this low-end indie platform in the first place? You'll have spent way more making the game than it costs to be approved for development, so that couldn't be your barrier.


In reality, since this hardware both uses Android and uses mid-range tablet level hardware (that'll quickly become obsolete, and they're saying they'll stand behind a common chipset which implies they don't plan on constantly cycling this out.. not that end users really want to upgrade..) they're going to get a lot of Android ports. I mean, you'd be foolish to release something only for this when it can be trivially released on the general Android marketplace as well, where it'll have a much bigger audience. But will have to sell at the usual prices. Sure, you can design for the real controls, but even if you have to make everyone else deal with a shoddy on-screen equivalent or external controller you'll still want to market the game to all the other Android devices.

 

[milkshake]

they already reached their target and more so no doubt by the end of the kickstarter campaign they will have much more so maybe it is a reality after all?