Ouya falls flat, so where next for alt consoles? Valve could have the answer

December 24th, 2013, 22:49 Posted By: wraggster

The Ouya sold well on a promise, smashing its Kickstarter goal by more than $7 million. But its reception by backers, early adopters and press has been mixed.

Only a cynic could look at something like Ouya and not be impressed by its pluck. There it was, lacing up its tiny gloves and boots and throwing itself into the ring just as Sony and Microsoft’s heavyweight prizefighters were about to start knocking bells out of each other. The Ouya was the little console that could; Kickstarter’s 8.6 million dollar gaming baby.At least, that was the Ouya’s promise. The reality of 2013′s first ‘alternative’ console was confused. The Ouya sold well as a concept, bringing new and existing indie titles to the living room with a try-before-you-buy system that sounded like a boon for consumers. No handing over cash to an unscrupulous publisher only to find you’ve bought a half-broken howler of a game; the Ouya was cheap, cheerful and on the side of the consumer rather than big business – a console for the masses. Unfortunately, the masses just didn’t seem that impressed with the Ouya or its developer’s promise of a budget game “revolution”.With such a small install base, games on the Ouya sold poorly. Small studios with Android games ready to launch or already available on mobiles and tablets could port a version over very easily and perhaps net a tidy four-figure bonus for themselves, but developing exclusively for the Ouya (which is what the company wanted with its Free The Games programme, wherein it would match any Kickstarter donations for a game above $50,000 in return for a whopping six months of exclusivity) just didn’t make sense.Nor did it get better from a consumer perspective. No matter how good the marketing bumf around the Ouya, what you were buying was an underpowered console running games on an outdated Tegra 3 chip. Early reviews reported sluggishness just in navigating its menu screens and lack of responsiveness in some games that made them frustrating to control. Had the Ouya launched two or three years ago that would have mattered less, but it launched in a year dominated by the impending arrival of PS4 and Xbox One. With both of those consoles plastered over every flat surface reachable with a step ladder, and Sony and Microsoft compensating for a lack of killer launch titles by talking up their power and graphics, Ouya looked more and more like a toy. How were people supposed to get excited about playing a port of Sonic The Hedgehog when Microsoft and Sony were showing endless loops of near-photorealistic sports cars sliding around tracks in Forza and Driveclub?

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