Ouya - Android based open gaming console

[Stephane Hockenhull]

As usual devs will get units for free, or for a substantially discounted rate.

really? as usual?


does this "as usual" includes those devs who paid in full and 3 years later are still left waiting for their pandora ?

None that we know of have contacted us in a polite way. Like a discreet PM.

I have, on many occasions.


the first was by email on 2009/6/21, right after I ordered and paid.


even got a reply from Jacquelyn on this email confirming reception:

Spoiler

Sender: gp2xmobile@googlemail.com


Received: by 10.204.116.69 with SMTP id l5mr6411721bkq.52.1245688332077; Mon,


22 Jun 2009 09:32:12 -0700 (PDT)


In-Reply-To: <20090621121544.2e957388c0396efedead91bd525ab6a6.f2a205f7e6.wbe@email03.secureserver.net>


References: <20090621121544.2e957388c0396efedead91bd525ab6a6.f2a205f7e6.wbe@email03.secureserver.net>


Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2009 17:32:12 +0100


X-Google-Sender-Auth: 4216b1225cd79c68


Message-ID: <b74d1f920906220932m53cbc296p6aa226407e4a7f7@mail.gmail.com>


Subject: Re: business opportunity and UPS


From: openpandorasales <openpandorasales@gmail.com>


To: shockenhull@pivotalblur.com

Hi Stephane,


Thanks for your email, which I have forwarded.


Kind regards


Jacquelyn


2009/6/21 <shockenhull@pivotalblur.com>

> Hi again,


> I'm emailing you about business and UPS.


>


> I'd like to introduce my company Pivotal Blur Entertainment Inc.


>


> (We're 3 guys right now, its not a big company, just a small startup)


> I have over 10 years experience in the game industry, one of my first


> releases was Project S-11 (http://en.wikipedia....ki/Project_S-11)


>


> We currently make iPhone / iPod touch games but our system also runs on


> Linux, Windows, Mac OSX, DS, Wii/Gamecube, and even OS-less PCs (using my


> own OS kernel) and is highly portable by design.


>


> We primiarily develop/test our games under Linux and export them to iPhone


> and other platforms, all compilations (except for OSX and iPhone) are even


> done under Linux.


>


> We are working on expanding our market to other platforms as our system


> allows us to easily port games with minimal effort.


>


> It would be easy for us to provide the Pandora with game software, some


> free, some sold maybe (we do have to pay our bills, maybe we'd setup a


> paypal account for donation-ware to help support odd platforms) and I would


> be glad to help out with testing and debugging as my engine and


> QA/performance tests tend to stress out the drivers and hardware/driver bugs


> shows up quite quickly (took me less than 1 day to accidentally hard crash


> an iPhone with userspace code trying to benchmark the memory system's


> performance).


>


> The games would stay closed source ( its my livelihood ), but of course my


> help with developping/debugging the Pandora/Linux drivers would be open


> source.


>


> in short,


> you'd get free games to put on Pandora and we get some publicity.


> I'd help out somewhat with drivers (OS coding is a hobby of mine), learn,


> and benefit from a stable machine.


>


> btw, I also wrote a mini-wrapper in our system to run workstation OpenGL


> code on OpenGL ES and vice-versa, altho it is a bit of a hack, I could look


> into making a clean version, I'm just not an expert on Linux's dynamic


> linker ld and how to locally/cleanly override the system's OpenGL headers.

all of which I never got any follow up.

 

[craigix]

Jacquelyn would have no idea who you are, we get emails along those lines looking for free units on a regular basis.


You didn't PM me or Ed once, I've even searched my inbox.


You can't expect us just to know who you are as if by magic.

 

[Wrath Of Khan]

^^^^^^^They may have just lost track of the email.Im sure if your willing to develope for the p2 then craig would maybe give you a p2.I heard that alot of p1's got wasted on devs who never developed anything and that one guy took a lot of the dev fund and never produced anything.They will probably be a bit more judicious with whom they give p2's to next time.

 

[Wrath Of Khan]

Does anyone notice the ooh yeah vibe that their going for here!What if it's an ouyNO! Scenario.

 

[ShleeDragon]

Please don't expect a free pandora.

 

[Binky]

The current Arduino model sounds like Oooh, No! - and it doesn't make it seem like a bad product...

 

[Wrath Of Khan]

^^^^^All pandoras are free!From birth they are open source and unshackled from the bonds of commercial bedevillment!!!

The current Arduino model sounds like Oooh, No! - and it doesn't make it seem like a bad product...

Wii U Ooh yeah OOOh NO!

 

[erico]

hehe, OUYA sounds like "LOOK!" in brazilian portuguese spoken by country people.


Usually used to mean ´be carful!´ or ´surprise!´.

 

[WizardStan]

I heard the name and thought of this

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/embed/2iE4uEsaBF0?feature=oembed

 

[vcoleiro1]

Time will tell guys if it succeeds or not as they say.


I really don't think $99 is cheap though , as mentioned previously with people buying an extra controller and going for the higher pledge levels. the average per console sold is ~ $140 - as I calculate based on pledgers and money raised. There are so many chinese manufacturers making these Android board / systems that they should be able to make one quite cheaply indeed. As for the controller, despite the whooha in there video of this newly designed controller, basically it looks just like a PS3 or a Xbox 360 controller with a touch pad where the select start buttons are. If i'm not mistaken Ive seen that same design in another controller, just can't put a finger on it.


At any other price point, say $200, it probably would fail, as it would directly put it in the line of fire of tablets with similiar specs. So I don't think they have any choice but to price it as they have, and I still think they have a great chance it will do ok profit wise.


They do claim to have a working prototype, but a demo would definately be good.

 

[Wrath Of Khan]

yeah they really should show that prototype running.Its odd they have not yet.Perhaps its very crude prototype

 

[Prometheus]

Perhaps its very crude prototype

Not crude enough to stop them from accepting millions of dollars in pledges, though.

 

[Wrath Of Khan]

^^^^^nope it seems not.It will be an entertaining fiasco if it all goes south.At best it may be a minor footnote in gaming history.No admission to valhalla for the ouya.

 

[vcoleiro1]

I'd be less worried about the HW and cost than I would whether they get enough developers.


At the end of the day this is a vanilla Android based system they can get from any of the many chinese manufacturers (who are churning these things out in the bucket loads these days) for cheap as chips.


Worst case scenario is they end up giving you a cheap 360 clone type controller.


On the other hand, this needs the developers to get on board. for it to work. If the developers fail to get onboard you will have a nice cheap HTPC

 

[DisgruntleElf]

I wonder, if project as heavily funded as this one failed would anyone trust KS again or would some government slap some regulations on these funding sites?

 

[erico]

Government won´t much interfere I guess, It is not all crowd source funding that is going the ´cheap´ way with the main stream.


It would at least be unfair to the others who take care on who comes in.


Or is it a ´I complain because I´m not in ´ situation most of the human been seems to complain these days?


as Vcoleiro stated, the most important thing in any platform is not itself, but the developers.


Cashing in on the android store is not enough.


People buy nintendo mostly for their closed developers and their IP, It has been a long road so that other hardware manufacturers understand it.


I see no need to buy an OUYAHSGAHST (can consonants be used last?) to get what the great Chinese and Korean has already to offer me.


Least I can buy the control of my choice.


I give crap to the controls they may offer, If nintendo is not bound to come up with a control to suit us all, them they will?


This is the control that will suite me:


http://www.xgaming.com/


I doubt anyone else agree, everyone has its own control needs I guess, so the "we spend time on the control" bullsh*t is ridiculous, like microsoft. nintendo, sony has never worked on it...


This just proves(me) there is a lot of people with money and no knowledge, and no will to research, easy fish for good propaganda.(is this new?)


KS does not allow a lot of devs from many many countries to have a project at all, but they seem to accept money from world wide ´donators´ as easy.

 

[Galaxis]

Two more news items:


Penny Arcade, not terribly impressed: http://penny-arcade....u-should-be-ske


Wired, with a few quotes from the Ouya CEO: http://www.wired.com...07/ouya-ceo-qa/

 

[WizardStan]

Do you realize what you've done? You proved consoles aren't dead

Wat?


What kind of idiot made the suggestion that consoles were dead?

 

[elwing]

What kind of idiot made the suggestion that consoles were dead?

Apple maybe?

 

[DisgruntleElf]

Government won´t much interfere I guess, It is not all crowd source funding that is going the ´cheap´ way with the main stream.


It would at least be unfair to the others who take care on who comes in.

I can't see the government not looking at taxing over 3 million dollars. If it's not an investment then what is it? A donation? A gift? Are they legally entitled to declare it? If the banks feel that there is money to be made with these funding sites then they will lobby the government for regulations.