Suck My Trend - The Ouya Console is a great development, and we have followed their Kickstarter Campaign closely. They reached over $8 million in pledges from public backers, and the console is set to be a success, but due to it running on Open Source software that is Android, does this open the doors for Piracy and Illegal Downloads within the console when blocks are in place on competition such as the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3?
From systems that could keep your beer cool, to oddities trying to get in on the popularity of VHS and laserdisc, you’ve got some very, very weird video game consoles out there.
I had the LaserActive... it was a nice collectors piece but not very practical. Especially when it came to needing recapping. I think i paid all of about $50 for the floor model from an incredible Universe back in the day. I ended up selling it many years later for $300 at the time due to it needing a new laser and the aforementioned recapping.
An honorable mention not on the list would be the VM Labs Nuon. It basically looked like any regular DVD player but it had ports on it for controllers to play specific games. one of which is still exclusive to it with Tempest 3000. It also offered nuon enhanced DVD movies with extra content not accessible by regular players.
Virtual Boy, Sega Nomad, Ouya and the other troubled game systems that nobody bought.
How has this article missed out Sega's Dreamcast and Nintendo's Wii U, two consoles that were actually superb devices in their own right, but were seen as failed due to lacklustre sales at the time of release?
Wonder how long before Stadia appears on the list surprised the Ngage is not on that list
Talk about a blast to the past.......I remember trying the virtual boy at Toy R Us and it was cool but I did feel slightly disoriented afterwards......good article.
The Ouya, a failed Android gaming console from early in this generation, is getting a second lease on life thanks to Internet archivists and some new software.
That's pretty cool they were able to bring it back. It sucks when something online only gets killed.
I got mine when it first launched, however it wasn't good for anything other than retro emulation. I couldn't sell the thing fast enough. Managed to get almost all my money back selling it on eBay.
I guess the Stadia launch is bringing back memories of other failed consoles/services.
Very true.
Piracy will never go away, personally I don't pirate games only TV shows which aren't available in the UK yet.
Digital media will never be fully protected, and the game and film industry needs to understand this. I understand and agree that piracy ends up losing them money, but if you look at the pattern of how they are trying to combat it, it is only going to kill them in the end. they get pirated and find out how, so they spend huge amounts of money making it so it can't be hacked that way only to get hacked a different way. so they put huge amounts of money into fixing that and the hackers find yet another way. And who gets the bill for all of this? The ones that aren't hacking anything and are purchasing the product. We pay for piracy. And eventually the price of trying to stop the hackers is going to be more than what the public is willing to reimburse. Sometimes it is better to just accept the evils of the world and let them be. It's better than killing yourself to try and find a cure.
I feel like the general population is honest, and would pay for their games, if there are games that are worth paying for.
Most users aren't "hackers" and won't put forth any real effort into stealing games. That's just my experience personally.
I realize that the Ouya is open source, and it's designed to be "hackable", so developers should surely keep this in mind when developing. Free to play games are probably the future for this console, but I can see paid games working as well.
There is no cure for piracy, so piracy shouldn't be a concern. If you're worried about piracy, don't be a programmer.
To summarize this article for others: Android can be rooted. Users will likely root the Ouya. Game Developers beware.
"The Ouya console developers need to be aware of this"...considering $8+ million was pledged, and the names behind this, I'm pretty sure the developers know what they are getting into without the need for a sad attempt at an opinion piece by this site. Seriously people, at least put "some" effort into your articles and bring in some numbers and quotes.