Here is our guest contributor of the day Eric P., a honest to goodness dev with some interesting thoughts. Enjoy…
A New Challenger Has Emerged
Cowardice begets nothing.
Ouya is coming out and if you don’t know about it, it’s pretty sweet sounding. So far it has just shy of 2 million donated towards its creation, and I am sure by time you read this it’ll have more. In fact every time I click refresh they have more money…amazing.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-video-game-console?ref=live
Now, small timid minds who don’t drink or smoke, wear seat belts, and eat their vegetables say stuff like this:
If we learned anything from Trip Hawkins we can surmise that a good idea and deep pockets won’t be enough. However, this does not mean you should shelve your plans for a new console. Nintendo is looking like they are choosing suicide by putting out yet another under powered box, and even Katsuhiro Harada (Producer of the next Tekken) spilled the beans about the WiiU having trouble matching PS3 and Xbox 360’s current capabilities.
The stage is set. PS3 is buying Gaikai, and Microsoft is keeping things behind the curtain, but expect no small feat from them either…someone is going to lose. It sucks, and I am sad, but some of the stuff we learn in the gaming world translates into- making dumb choices will get your ass killed.
So, with Nintendo launching what more than likely will be another dud. There is room for a cheaply priced “Mr. Irrelevant”. Ouya is set to be 100 bucks…hell yeah! For the price of a collector’s edition, run of the mill shooter with DLC you can get a console. With the rise and popularity of indie and mobile gaming, as well as cheap and free to play games, Ouya might have something here.
You Must Cast Out Fear
Ouya is diving right into this, and based on their kickstarter page it’s looking like people want this thing. That douche from Kotaku doesnt really seem to grasp this. Launching a console is no small potatoes- no -but if the Indie market has taught us anything it’s that not everyone in the world needs to buy your game in order for you to carve out some success. I have no idea how many units will be part of the first line, but even if there are only 10,000 it doesn’t really matter. They already have over 20,000 backers and not all will be getting a unit. If I have to put myself on a list to get one no problem…who here did that for a Wii- raise your miserable hand. Good thing you can’t see me raising mine. Point is, it happens even in mega corporations.
The Only Enemy Is Yourself
It looks like they’re gonna get a good chunk of money, but in business you can never really have ‘enough’ especially where R&D is concerned. But hey if they punched the numbers and a million is what they need then they should be pretty well prepared for surprises, and there will be some. So long as this project is well managed they should at least make launch. Whatever happens after that is fate, but Ouya can only defeat itself right now. XBL and PSN mess around in Indie gaming- they’re not too-too serious about it, at least not yet. Hundreds of thousands and millions in Indie profits is piss-water to juggernauts like them, and they simply don’t want to be bothered by it. How about you? Would you manage a business worth/taking in that much?
Fun Is a Hell of a Decider
Ultimately, what will make or break the Ouya is whether it will be fun or not. I for one find 90% of the AAA titles clones of each other, or copying other media, and as such-utterly boring. Ouya will depend solely on Indie gaming (at least at first) and that is kinda scary. But then again I never dreamed video games would be a billion dollar industry with most games being what I mentioned above. So whatever, I salute you Ouya and as a developer I am pissing myself like an excited dog for that Dev kit that comes standard.
- Written by Eric P.
check out his blog at http://lazyepsquared.blogspot.com/
