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Last week, the Ouya console made a huge splash in the gaming world. The company behind Ouya has raised more than $5,000,000 on Kickstarter in nine days. That’s simply remarkable. The initial reactions were overly positive. I’ve read so many articles on how this machine is going to “save” console gaming, free creative developers from the shackles of money-grubbing publishers, patch the ozone layer, and provide San Francisco residents with strong AT&T mobile signal.
Those exuberant articles were followed up by overly negative opinions. I’ve read so many articles on how Ouya will be an utter failure, fragment Android to the point of irrelevance, do absolutely nothing for game developers and publishers, kick America’s unemployment rate back up to double digits, and further damage Mariano Rivera’s knee. Several people have cancelled their Kickstarter pledges, possibly due to the influence of these negative articles.
The 180 on Ouya reflects the binary thinking of many Internet writers: something is awesome or it sucks. Reality is seldom that black and white though; it’s almost always somewhere in between. Does Ouya have a chance to change console gaming and give developers more creative freedom? Sure it does. However, it also has a chance to be the latest in a long line of console pretenders that failed to do much of anything (N-Gage, Phantom, Indrema, etc.). There are so many variables and changes that have yet to happen. It’s too soon to judge Ouya, but many people have already made up their minds…which isn’t that much of a problem because they’ll flip-flop a few times before the console is released anyway. Oh the Internetz.
Anyway, I wanted to see where you stand with Ouya today. What do you think of the backlash and the 180s? Has your opinion of the Ouya console changed after nine days?
No. I'll still want to see some games. Until then, It's just a nice idea and little more.
No my opinion hasn't changed. I think the idea of Ouya will be more significant than the device itself.
They've only got 37k guaranteed sales so they aren't a force necessarily. I still think a large majority of the target market at least for early adoption can't see an advantage over the modern PC. Since I'm a huge PC gamer I probably wouldn't buy Ouya.
Ray, did you read the blue post by Morhaime by chance? That guy is full of shit. He either has no clue what the dev team says or thinks people are stupid and will ignore the contradictions. Thoughts?
I haven't read it yet. I'll check it out tonight.
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