I love the idea and I have talked about the possibility of an ARM-based console for the past 2 years, but the Ouya is one of those cases where the execution doesn't seems right.
There's a lack of differentiation, it has no exclusives like big consoles have which can be critical to move units. The GTA series alone moved more PS2s than any other games in that console, and it had tons of great titles. By the time GTA3 made it to the Xbox the PS2 was getting the blockbuster San Andreas 8 months before any other platform did. In comparison most of the games on display for the Ouya are phone/tablet games. The anti-console crowd argues that people wont buy consoles anymore despite the fact that big consoles like the X360 have exclusive games not even available on PC. Simply put, why should I buy a Ouya if I can get the exact same games on my phone or tablet?
I don't really understand the whole "hackers can modify the hardware"-part, wasn't the fragmentation of the Android ecosystem due to multiple hardware variations the reason why many developers stick to iOS? Wouldn't homogeneous hardware like that of the Kindle Fire make more sense in this situation?
Since it's a console and not a handheld portable device I don't see why it couldn't have a HDD for storage instead of the paltry 8GB it has. It could easily pack 500GB in a 2.5 drive, leaving tons of space to store games, but with just 8GB less than 10 1GB games will use up all of the storage space, so users will have to delete those games and then redownload them every time they want to play, and waiting for a 1GB download is way slower than DVD loading times on consoles, let alone HDD times.
I get the impression that the Ouya's bread and butter will be coming from casual gaming. Hardcore gamers will always want to stick to a beefier console anyways.
Someone wanting to play Tetris, Canabalt or other low-time-investment game is probably plenty satisfied with something like the Ouya.
There's a lack of differentiation, it has no exclusives like big consoles have which can be critical to move units. The GTA series alone moved more PS2s than any other games in that console, and it had tons of great titles. By the time GTA3 made it to the Xbox the PS2 was getting the blockbuster San Andreas 8 months before any other platform did. In comparison most of the games on display for the Ouya are phone/tablet games. The anti-console crowd argues that people wont buy consoles anymore despite the fact that big consoles like the X360 have exclusive games not even available on PC. Simply put, why should I buy a Ouya if I can get the exact same games on my phone or tablet?
I don't really understand the whole "hackers can modify the hardware"-part, wasn't the fragmentation of the Android ecosystem due to multiple hardware variations the reason why many developers stick to iOS? Wouldn't homogeneous hardware like that of the Kindle Fire make more sense in this situation?
Since it's a console and not a handheld portable device I don't see why it couldn't have a HDD for storage instead of the paltry 8GB it has. It could easily pack 500GB in a 2.5 drive, leaving tons of space to store games, but with just 8GB less than 10 1GB games will use up all of the storage space, so users will have to delete those games and then redownload them every time they want to play, and waiting for a 1GB download is way slower than DVD loading times on consoles, let alone HDD times.