You might think thats a weird title, but I've observed it to be true. An article was posted recently listing 500 or so games that are in development for the OUYA. I of course went to the comment section to see what people thought. Well the consensus was in and it was Casual. A Casual console with Casual games for Casual consumers. Nothing but ports of phone games and shovelware garbage.
I figured well yeah that very well could be its essentially a phone or tablet inside. It's probably got some fairly basic games being made for it. But as I read more the hate was just overwhelming and increasingly it came out. Many of the people commenting hadn't even bothered to glance at the massive list of games. Yet there they were talking about the Casual scum. So I decided to do a bit of investigating, I figured I would check out the first ten games on the list. You know see what it held, I weeded out the the phone ports or games I thought were boring.
http://ouyaforum.com/showth...
100 Rogues - Roguelike
http://www.youtube.com/watc...
1900 - third person action adventure
http://www.goodhustle.com/g...
2 hand commando - local mp twin stick shooter
http://nonadecimal.com/site...
afterdeath - 2d platformer
http://gamefans.com/2013/01...
Aggro tactics - tactical mmo rpg
There five games from a sample of ten, and just going by the genres anything but Casual. Now granted these all have pretty rough graphics. These are however generally very early builds, but with the gameplay in place its only an art change away from looking pretty good.
Obviously the OUYA isn't going to have the graphical prowess of an xbox or ps3. From looking further down the list at various games it will do maybe a bit above the ps2s range of graphics. So like a low end pc lets say. Some people might think thats not enough power for modern AAA gaming. Well its not.
The OUYA will cater mostly to various sized teams of indie developers. Who see it as an easy way to make the console games they've always wanted. With out the hefty multi thousand dollar costs and or restrictions that come with having your game on xbox or ps3.
So we'll get 2d and 3d platformer games like donkey kong and mario, we'll get oldschool rpg's like legend of grimrock and diablo, and we'll get kart racing games, strategy games, and classic action games.
The development costs for these games will be so much cheaper than even a downloadable console game. So things that aren't feasible for AAA games to do will be on the table again.
Before I looked into this I was pretty ambivalent about the OUYA. I figured yeah probably just phone games and stuff. But after looking at a small sample of games coming to the system I have now become "hyped" for this machine. I didn't think the variety of games would be great but I am astounded by what I'm seeing. This thing will probably be a big deal when all is said and done.
If you got this far thanks for reading, leave some comments below so people can chat ;)
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N4G hates everything. It's the internet and gamers are a cynical bunch
I don't hate it. I think it's a good idea, but I also think they missed their opportunity to capitalize on it's success.
I love the idea of a cheap, developer friendly platform, for indie developers, with an OS that lots of developers are already familiar with.
But the nature of Android is that it can be, is, and will be on loads of devices. OUYA copycats are already coming in full force. It's already not very unique. It's weak (remember, processing is more than just graphics and very basic hardware won't even play all modern 2d games). The manufacturing power just isn't behind it to mass produce it to a large, worthy audience.
They NEED to start scoring contracts to get it built into TVs. THAT is what will make it unique and give it the strength it needs.
It's a waste since studios could develop the games for PC/consoles/phones/tablets
I didn't mind it until they said they're making a new one every year.
Then all of sudden it costs as much as next-gen console over the lifespan (5, 6 or 7 years x $99) and it will be hard for game makers to both make games that take advantage of the latest models and work on the older models at the same time.
Now it reminds me of cheap shoes, they need replacing all the time and were never as nice as one good pair.