A new gaming console "The Ouya" announced

[UnrealGaming]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7uWL...&feature=g-u-u

The Ouya is a $99, open, totally hackable Android-based console with a touchscreen controller, and free to play games.

Well, I think the PC is already a perfect platform for free to play. But I guess the 99$ price point could make this console interesting, for some.

[Mufflore]

lol, great name.
"Ouch" would have been neat too.

Love the totally hackable aspect.

[JeyNyce]

This console/ PC hybrid is what I was talking about in one of the other topics. I hope they do well and shake up MS & Sony.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...o-game-console

[scoutingwraith]

So what is the point of the console being hackable when a PC is completely open?

[Mufflore]

Because one has nothing to do with the other?

[k1net1cs]

Originally Posted by JeyNyce

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...o-game-console

Holy Mother of God, 2 million in a day?!

[DF-1]

Meh. wouldn't be interested in something like this. I can just as easily MHL my phone to a tv and use a controller, which has similar specs

[SerotoNiN]

This has epic fail written all over it. Place this with idea's like webtv.

[WhiteLightning]

almost 3 million already! crazy stuff!

i wonder what kind of games they are gonna bring though. android games are boring compaired to games on other consoles or pc. the games shown in the video did not convince me to buy it

[scatman839]

Well, the company isn't a games company, they're just the hardware side.

But this might start a push towards more android games that aren't just f2p cash grab models or cheap knock offs of other games.

[JeyNyce]

Originally Posted by scatman839

Well, the company isn't a games company, they're just the hardware side.

But this might start a push towards more android games that aren't just f2p cash grab models or cheap knock offs of other games.

I think this is why they are letting people hack their system. I don't expect them to make games for it. They expect us to make the games for the system. Which is kind of cool. You can create a game on your PC and then "port" it over to the console.

[nhlkoho]

Too bad Randy Savage died. He would have been a great spokesman for this.

[Noisiv]

(1.) At the point of making a console based on Tegra 3, you might as well do it right and use Linux instead of Android. You can grab Linux for Tegra 3 from the following NVIDIA page: http://developer.nvidia.com/linux-tegra. The list of why Linux is a better choice over Android would be too long to list here, but lets start with four,

(1.a.) Note that link provides early access to a system built using the hardware floating point calling convention instead of the software floating point calling convention used by Android.

(1.b.) All native code in Android is required to come from a shared library which forces position independent code and data which comes at a performance cost compared to regular native code for the game binary.

(1.c.) Linux officially supports the APIs games need for high quality low latency interactive experience. For example grab raw input from /dev/input/event* or use sched_setaffinity() to set pinned threads or compare audio latency between Android and Linux. While some features might also work in Android if you get the permissions and write your own system calls in inline assembly, Android's support of such features can be summed up as "Please stop asking this question.".

(1.d.) With Linux on the device, one can simply develop on the device, no more of the crazy slow development via Android on a remote slave platform, everything just works natively in Linux. As a developer the most important factor of iteration time decreases massively. A Tegra 3 running Linux is like a early 2000's Power Book G4 or Power Mac G4, except faster.


(2.) Regardless of platform, build an optimized tool chain for the device, and setup your system build scripts to use the optimized settings. Linaro is a good place to start. Linaro group was seeing a doubling of performance on some benchmarks using their tool chain compared to the one in Android.


(3.) Regardless of platform, insure that the GL ES surface is getting scanned out instead of composited by some silly system compositor when running a full screen game. That extra unnecessary copy makes a huge difference on these mobile devices (a 1080p copy at 32 bits/pixel at 30 Hz is almost 0.5 GB/s, on a device which might only have less than 3.0 GB/s possible with average quality DRAM). For the same reason, if the mobile GPU supports scaling on scan out, use the hardware, instead of doing an extra pass to scale in a pixel shader on the GPU. Providing optimal scaling is going to be important on this mobile console attached to a HDTV. Some HDTV's add an extra frame of latency when they need to convert 720p to 1080p so their is real advantages in using hardware support to scale on scan-out (which would be free in terms of bandwidth).


(4.) Don't triple buffer on the device! If the platform needs triple buffering in order to have a smooth UI experience on a non-tiling GPU like Tegra, then it is attempting to place an unnecessary increase in latency and memory consumption band-aid instead of actually fixing the real problem which is in software. Fix the root problem instead.


(5.) If possible use the T33 version of Tegra 3 and pair with good memory. Some benchmarks.


(6.) Assuming Linux support on the console, support user-opt-in for background driver updates, with ability to pause download, and swap driver in background instantly from the console launcher GUI with less than a second interruption in video output. Driver swap is likely as simple as two symlink changes if done right and an isnmod command to update the kernel module. This enables the console to stay up to date with all the performance updates in the driver. Don't make the PS3 mistake and have horrible OTAs which require taking the machine into a lengthy reboot cycle.


(7.) Offer a cheaper version for those who want the cube without the controller. Anyone who has home console likely already has controllers from other devices which work great in Linux already.
POSTED BY TIMOTHY LOTTES AT 11:17 1 COMMENT: LINKS TO THIS POST

http://alturl.com/m8pjm

[Major Melchett]

Just find this a bit funny.

Founder and CEO Julie Uhrman.

"Do you realize what you've done? You proved consoles aren't dead. You shocked the world. And us,"

It's shocking that consoles aren't dead?, that's not shocking at all seeing as they are really popular.

[F1refly]

might as well been made by Atari, cause its a box of fail.

[JeyNyce]

Originally Posted by F1refly

might as well been made by Atari, cause its a box of fail.

I don't think it will fail. It won't be as big as the big 3, but it can be use to help/ teach people how to make games.

[The Laughing Ma]

I posted about this at a another forum where the general support for the 'console' can only be described as stupidly over the top.

What we are looking at here folk is potentially one of the biggest failures of this whole kickstarter nonsense, at least in monetary terms.

The theory sounded mad when it was being put forward by someone such as Valve, an open source console that anyone could develop for, supported by a company how had the cash, knowhow and infrastructure in place to support such an effort. The same proposal being made by a company that requires kickstarter to get it going, well it has massive failure written all over it.

1). Android and android games as the primary source. Yes some of the games are hugely successful but in general terms Android games are designed as ten minute distractions to keep you going on your bus journey to work. They are not the stuff that hooking a console up to an HD TV at home is made of.

2). The console itself will never succeed as a one hit wonder. Think about it PC, 360, PS3 all have additional features beyond being just gaming consoles. If this is truly just a system to play Android games on then who in their right mind will pay £100 for it?

3). Open source is fine and dandy but hackable hardware / software. No the Android market is already a massive cluster f*ck with the range of supported hardware and range of avalaible version of Android, your typical console gamer is not going to want to deal with the hassle of having to ensure their console meets the specification both in terms of Android version and Hardware specs just to play a free or cheap arse game that will last them ten minutes at a time!

4). The market itself, just how manay devices exist already that can play Android games, just how many do people already own and just how many can do more than just play Android games. The existing hardware competition in the market already will stomp all over this thing.

5). This is a combined set of issues, the developers of the console say that anyone making games for it have to provide free to play versions or content of whatever they are developing. Now the problem with this is to make a game for a console requires cash, to make a game that is going to be more engaging than the average 10 minutes at a time fair that usually appears on the Android market is going to take even more cash. Now you have the option of developing your game for the Android console and being 'forced' to provide a free portion or content of your game or just releasing to any of the millions of other Android devices and being able to charge whatever you want and provide no free content at all.

6). Who's gonna over see the infrastructure? Yeah it is open source but someone somewhere is going to have to over see, the compatibility of the games, do they meet the required spec for the console, updates, warranties, server provision for content and hundred other infrasturcture related things I can't even think of. It was mad when it was being batted about that Valve may do something like this but AT LEAST they have the cash and infrastructure in place.

7). What happens if Sony or MS decide that they want to include Android emulation in their next console. (Someone clarify for me as I am not sure of the legal position Sony and MS have, Android is Open Source so surely if they wanted to they could include Android emulation in their consoles if they wanted too?) In fact if their was even a hint that this console could succeed just watch how quickly Sony and MS would jump to the deal table to allow it to happen and then what?

[lucidus]

Originally Posted by nhlkoho

Too bad Randy Savage died. He would have been a great spokesman for this.

Ooooh yeahhh!

[Redemption80]

Considering they had a 30 day goal of reaching $950,000 but in 2 days hits $3.5million, it appears many people do think this is a good idea.

Not my sort of thing, but its a good idea.

Edit: Thought it would slow down, but it appears to be climbing at a rate of about $10-20 per second, crazy stuff.

[killer_939]

If, like them, i got over 2 million $$ a day i could do much better things then make a game console out of phone/tablet hardware. I do hope it works out well tho, since its hackable you could just throw another linux distro on it and plug in a mouse n keyboard for a cheap PC.

[Mufflore]

Originally Posted by killer_939

since its hackable you could just throw another linux distro on it and plug in a mouse n keyboard for a cheap PC.

This.
And its especially a great idea for Indie developers, this will start a new generation of games and utility programmers.

I hope they put more than 1GB of ram in it though.
For gaming, low GPU power can be compensated for by video sequences and different size textures.
To use these well can require a lot more memory, especially when running 1080p.

I hope they can use methods of purchasing that dont store/process any private user details on the machine.
ie maybe make purchases using another internet device, by phone ...

[])rStrangelove]

It all depends on the games. Not gonna pay for 10 min distractions like AngryBirds.

[chris2k]

Well still if you dont want it for gaming it would make for a nice speced media player/web surfer

[lucidus]

Originally Posted by chris2k

Well still if you dont want it for gaming it would make for a nice speced media player/web surfer

Meh, we can always recycle one of our older PCs for that purpose.

[WhiteLightning]

$5,038,081




http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...o-game-console