Ouya? Oh, nah.

[glazball]

  Anyone else planning to boycott the Ouya that should be out next March?  I find it exciting that they were able to get the funds and talent together to put together a video game console, and I rather support a startup rather than MS with their mountains of money...  but as an old schooler, I really don't like digital distribution.  Obviously a lot of people do though.  I'm still waiting for cartridges to make a comeback.
  I know there are a lot of great games that are only available digitally, but I have a real problem with that.  In fact, I try to buy DLC games at retail when they get a physical release (Bit Trip Complete, Bejeweled 3, etc) just so the marketing bastards who looks at sales see there is still a desire for a physical copy of a game.  I don't buy WiiWare, PSN games, hell I still don't own a cell phone.

  Hopefully I'm among a few friends and collectors that see the move to digital as a bad thing.  What do you guys think?  At $100 and the size of a Rubik's Cube, the Ouya sounds neat but to support it can only accelerate the death of physical media.

[KingDrool]

What was that commercial for a few years back, I forget, but one of the lines said, "I fear change. I'm keeping my bush."

First thing I thought of when I read this post.

You can dig your heals in, sir, but the drums of progress keep beating.

[BlueBMW]

Hopefully we will see more digital download providers do it like gog.com does.  Drm free, download once and its yours forever.  No phoning home etc.

[glazball]

  Trust me, my heels are dug in and in the future, if digital becomes the only way to buy new games then I'll buckle and do so.  I don't so much fear change (to digital) as much as dislike it.  I know how I feel though, I'm really curious of your opinions...

[Necromancer]

Most new games don't interest me anyway, but I doubt I'll be dumping money on download only stuff any time soon.  I like keeping my stuff around for a while and playing it long after it's off the market, so I don't wanna be SOL if my hardware dies or when the DRM servers are gone.

[HercTNT]

Hopefully we will see more digital download providers do it like gog.com does.  Drm free, download once and its yours forever.  No phoning home etc.

Exactly. I'm not a huge fan of digital, but it is the way of the future. If they have to have it, the way GOG does it is the way to go. I have a really hard time believing that once i buy a game, i don't own it, and thats how most other sites work.

[thesteve]

Hopefully we will see more digital download providers do it like gog.com does.  Drm free, download once and its yours forever.  No phoning home etc.

Exactly. I'm not a huge fan of digital, but it is the way of the future. If they have to have it, the way GOG does it is the way to go. I have a really hard time believing that once i buy a game, i don't own it, and thats how most other sites work.

double ditto.
thats why i wont buy any newer windows software.
if it calls home for permission, than its not mine so i better not have paid for it.

[Arkhan]

I'm not down with it.  It's more jazzed up nonsense.

[Keranu]

I like the Ouya concept, I might buy one if there are enough console quality Android titles worth playing on it (not very optimistic about that, lol). I don't think it will take off, but it definitely sends a strong message to the game industry about consumer rights and indie development that I can stand behind.

[SignOfZeta]

It's not a boycott if I have zero interest in it. I've heard about it, sort of know what it is, but have never seen a picture of it.

One thing I will say to it's credit is that it's off to a much more organic start than a lot of consoles. If they have that much funding already then that means at least someone wants it. This is the opposite of something like the Vita which is just "the next thing from Sony" with zero reason to exist and shockingly similar to its 8 year old predecessor, almost indistinguishable from the PSP to a novice, really. Or the original Xbox, nobody asked for that f*cking thing. MS had a shitload of money so they built a machine and bought a bunch of developers. The opposite of, say, 1980s Hudson and 80s/90s Sega who built the hardware for the purpose of running the games they themselves wanted to make.

[glazball]

Or the original Xbox, nobody asked for that f*cking thing.

  Hah thank you Zeta!  Holy shit, that made me laugh out loud.  I won't even abbreviate my laughter because it was so funny.  I just couldn't agree more.  I actually preordered the original Xbox in February 2001 (way early).  As a video game fan like we all are, I thought I wanted one.  As it got closer to launch many months later, I realized they just had a piece of shit.  I sold my preorder to a friend and have never had an Xbox since.  Microsoft spent $500 million - half a f*cking billion dollars - in marketing, just to plant their piece of shit in middle of the video game world which didn't want it.  They picked a color that hadn't been taken (green), bought Bungie who was making Halo at the time, and that was their exclusive for their useless, oversized piece of shit.

  I could bitch about MS all day.  About Ouya, I was looking at their site tonight and they have nothing specific about the system itself really.  I think it's rather misleading how the front page of their site says the games are "free to play."  Free to play!  We're Ouya, we don't even want your money.  Free!!  Sure, the demos and lite versions are free to play.
  If Ouya plans to be similar to gog.com, I think that's the only way I could support downloaded games.  Part of me almost wants to buy an Ouya - it'll be $100, that's hardly asking anything - so that I can play all the good DLC games that I know are out there.  That may be a good means to do so, but the other, bigger part of me recoils at the thought of a game system with no physical media.  I don't ever want to completely rely on a network or cloud or iStore.

  Will it be just a sidenote in vg history later (like the big idea that was the 3DO) when people find out it's just a cell phone with an HDMI-out or is this really the beginning of the end of physical media when the Ouya takes over the world?

[esteban]

In a previous thread, I mentioned that OOOYAHHH's biggest hurdle is not the hardware. Sure, designing/engineering the hardware/controller is a monumental task...

...BUT THEY NEED A RELIABLE DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION ECOSYSTEM. Creating and maintaining a vibrant ecosystem (where developers actually get paid and thus have an incentive to create deep/sophisticated games, in spite of piracy) is the most difficult task I can think of.

I hope developers create "console-equivalent" games...but my fear is that most developers will avoid risky games (READ: games with depth, games that appeal to niche audiences, games requiring significant initial development)  and  opt for safer, "we'll get a return on our investment" titles.

I hope I am wrong, but it so difficult to create a platform/ecosystem that will have traction and long-term commitment with developers. Sometimes it is truly a matter of luck (success will not be determined solely by sound engineering, wise management, or initial popularity of Kickstarter lead-up).

BOTTOM LINE: Ultimately, I hope OOOYAHHH gets some traction, because I want developers to recognize the market for HARDWARE CONTROLS. Some games/genres are fantastic with touch controls. But traditional games and their contemporary equivalents are best when designed with real direction pads, buttons and TurboSwitches in mind.

GAMELOFT, for example, is flirting with this (yay!). I hope it works for them. They are releasing a bluetooth controller and future games will (ostensibly) be designed with this controller in mind. Other developers will be looking to see if there is enough consumer support for traditional games with traditional controllers.

Worst case scenario--I'll buy a discounted OOOYAHHH (when it fails in the marketplace) and use it for emulation on my modern televisions. If there is one audience that will get some use out of the OOOYAHHH, it will be the folks with emulatorz and romz.

[SignOfZeta]

Heh, Gameloft.

[nodtveidt]

Will it come with free Slimjims?

[esteban]

Heh, Gameloft.

I had fun playing Might & Magic (2004, isometric) on my old Motorola flip phone. The phone's buttons were far from ideal...but I suffered through it because the game was totally fun. Gameloft earned that $$$, as far as I was concerned.

Will it come with free Slimjims?

No. Fruit Roll-ups.