The shock of playing the Ouya, one year later
wololo.netThe problem with calling it the perfect "party gaming" console is that it completely doesn't work for that when "it took me almost an hour to update the firmware and configure the 4 controllers."
I'm not saying that to hurt OUYA, I'm just saying that if they want to find this niche they should focus some effort on fixing that.
Edit: I'm not implying that other consoles are better fitted to this. I'm implying that engineering a console so that setup time is always fast even when you've not touched it for weeks could be a valuable feature in the "party gaming" market.
This is a huge problem with new consoles I find. I don't remember having to update my N64 every time I wanted to play it. But my PS3? Every time I want to play I have to spend like 30 minutes in downloading and installing an update. Every single time. I don't play that often but still do play from times to times and I haven't had a clean launch for years.
Agreed completely. I joked that the U in "Wii U" stood for "update" because the amount of forced modal updates required to every part of the system was almost comical when the system was new.
I've also got the Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS3 and PS4 and all are basically the same... if I haven't turned it on in a couple weeks it is nearly guaranteed I'll have to sit through a couple-hundred megabyte update or two (for the OS/firmware and probably whatever game I am playing too) and fritter away 10-15 minutes before I can do what I wanted to do in the first place.
Even the systems that try to make this less bad by downloading updates in the background while in low-power mode tend to be pretty clumsy about the whole thing, so even though the download part is already done for me I still probably have to sit through a 5+ minute 'install' (after agreeing to a EULA, and maybe a TOS change or two) requiring 2 restarts.
bleh.
You'd think somebody would learn from Microsoft's long, hard struggle with Windows Update, and make consoles do the same thing Windows now does: download the update in the background at low priority while the console is on, then install it when you shut the console off. (And, for added effect, make the console actually look and sound like it has powered off while the updates are still installing. Windows 8 does this.)
> then install it when you shut the console off.
I seriously hate that on my laptop. I want to switch off and be on my way and suddenly Windows tells me it needs to install an update before shutting off. Seriously wtf! This is the kind of things that drives me to Linux, where I know that when I click Shut down, the system will be off in 20 seconds.
Why not just close the lid & put it to sleep? You really shut down every time you move somewhere with your laptop?
That's really bad from a security perspective. It's possible to retrieve all sorts of data from a machine that has been 'slept', especially things like the decryption key for the HDD. Various ports on the outside of the laptop, like USB, have DMA for performance reasons.
Wouldn't all these issues be present anyways if the thief simply turned on the machine?
No. If I shut down my laptop, my hard drive is encrypted and keys are no longer in RAM (modulo a cold-boot attack, but that is only really useful for <30 minutes after shutdown without preparation).
You must have great reasons to be so paranoid. I am slightly jealous.
I mean the chances of putting the laptop to sleep and having your laptop stolen by someone with enough knowledge to obtain access to the keys in RAM to decrypt the hard drive - well, that would be an amazing story! Not to mention the fact that you have data that would be worth all of that trouble!
Boot Bios password. You ever heard of this ?
Well, the shut down button shows if it will install updates. If you don't want to, choose restart, then do a hardware shutdown during POST.
That's not what I expect from a OS in the 21st century. I want to be able to do things my way without having to circumvent the system.
I think OSX has been doing this since Leopard, but instead of forcing the update during shutdown, you can apply it whenever you want (it's already downloaded unless you turned auto updates off). I much prefer this route. Forcing the update on a restart or shutdown ends up being more annoying than you think.
I think the problem with that approach is that if you want to play online then everyone needs to be running the same client version.
I went over my ISP bandwidth cap twice before I realized OSX was doing this in the background. For people with limited bandwidth allowances, this isn't a good option.
> look and sound like it has powered off while the updates are still installing
What happens if the user unplugs in this state?
It says not to while it's doing it in large lettering. You'd likely corrupt the installation. How much that would affect the user would probably depend on the update.
That is really good to know, thank you. I've been thinking of getting a console, but I have limited bandwidth via a satellite connection. Constant updates as you described would eat my allowance up really fast.
AppleTV is pretty similar. My parents use it only when I come home about once a month. At that time, there's an update that needs to get installed. Now my parents have the impression that the AppleTV just takes that long to boot up every time. Hard to change people impressions after they've noticed a pattern.
I seem to remember Apple TV updates are optional, and can be deferred until later.
I have the same problem with my gaming PC. When I boot it up, I have numerous updates for Windows, Steam, games, etc.
But how often do you not turn your PC on for a month? That's much more common with consoles.
Steam is running all the time when my computer is on (and I use my computer every day), and games just keep themselves up to date. For a given game that I'm trying to play, there's maybe a 15 minute period every couple of months when I wouldn't be able to launch it immediately.
The Windows updates aren't required in order to play games, and they can just be delayed until the next time you're restarting. Not a huge deal there.
Very often. I don't have a regular gaming habit, that applies to both my gaming enviroment (strictly speaking, the Windows side of my mac) and my console.
For the console, btw.: all of them support nightly updates, so I rarely have the problem there.
My gaming PC is used occaisionally, and I do not leave it on when not in use. My day to day computer usage is a separate machine running OSX.
The worst was when my Windows machine would restart itself in the middle of gaming to install updates, but luckily you can turn that off.
Sure, but that's been true of PCs for ages. We're all used to the idea that PCs need to be updated. To me one of the advantages to consoles was that they could pick up and play at any moment.
At least with my PS4, I've never been forced to download/install an update, either game or OS. You simply can't use online features if you aren't up to date.
One of the reasons I switched from windows to debian was not having to deal with windows-style updates: you can have the computer running and don't need to reboot after updating. I wonder if someone already thought of applying the same principle to consoles.
How is it that you don't need to reboot your computer to update with UNIX but you do have to reboot your computer quite often on Windows?
There are still a few instances where rebooting Linux after an update is a good idea. Kernel updates, for one.
Mostly, though, the applications and services in Linux can be restarted individually, making updates a non-reboot snap.
Windows updates are the worst. Once it decided to restart to install updates right in the middle of a dota game.
I now run linux mint on my gaming rig, so that's never a problem
another solution (solely to the updating problem) would be to disable automaitc updates, no?
Well, in a sense. I'd still want automatic updates, but what I don't want is it to automatically force the computer to restart.
This is possible to turn off in Windows, but requires fiddling with the registry.
I just realised that my original post wasn't clear - my computer RESTARTED in the middle of my game. Hence my frustration :).
unless something has changed, steam updates are usually optional.
Also pc's are often left on/used for other things so the windows, steam and game updates all kinda just download and install in the background so when you go to play its usually just ready, unlike consoles where you turn it on and it then has to download/install everything as you wait to play.
Windows updates aren't required before you can start playing a game, which is a huge advantage.
This is why I don't play my 360 anymore. A few times a month, I find I have some time during a lunch break to play a game. My free time is completely consumed by a system update, then I turn off the console and go back to work.
This happens to me. I think I'll turn on the old console for a quick game. 30 minutes later it's still updating. Guess I'll go do something else then.
I have the same (shitty) experience with the PS3 (a little less with the Xbox 360 and somehow updates seem faster on that one). This is basically pushing me away from consoles which were supposed to be "plug and play" in the first place. The best thing is just to put these consoles offlines so that you cannot technically update anything at all. Some newer games may complain about the need of a new firmware, though...
The playstation 3 has a feature that will update the games over night, do you utilize this feature?
That only works with a paid PS+ subscription.
A subscription you're particularly unlikely to get if you only use the thing every couple of weeks.
I don't know. I'm not a heavy user (I am in bursts, but not on average), and I'm happy to pay for PS+. I like the "free" games, it's introduced me to stuff I had never considered before that I really enjoyed. No, I don't think you need to be a heavy gamer to appreciate PS+.
Agreed. It pays for itself immediately. Anyone with a PS3, PS4, and/or Vita that doesn't have PS+ is objectively Doing It Wrong. Anyone who is such a non-gamer that there isn't a single game on PS+ that they might conceivably enjoy is such a non-gamer that their big mistake was buying a game console to begin with, not the fact that they did or did not get PS+. Seriously, it is that good of a deal.
Finally, anyone with a modern or semi-modern Sony console that refuses to pay for PS+ based on "the principle of the thing" needs to revisit their life choices and find vastly better principles to fight for (trust me, there is a limitless supply). Again, it's that good of a deal, and FFS it's only $50 people.
This is a problem Samsung has replicated with their SmartTVs. Turn on SmartHub, and 30% of the time it insists on an update. Then randomly sometimes it updates in the background with a popup notification when it is done.
Useful platform, but really annoying in that regard.
Well, if I let my PS3 in the box for about a year and then try to play a quick round of some casual game downloaded from the store, I'll have to go through the same ordeal. If it's used daily, then not. It's a function of how often you use your console.
I don't think anyone would argue the PS3 is the perfect party console, either.
I bought the PS3 and Wii around the same time and obviously the "party console" prize went to the latter - particularly early on it seemed like every third time I put a game in there was 15 minutes of firmware and software updates.
Slightly off-topic, but if you're looking for a good party console I'd recommend a GameCube. You can buy a used one and a few controllers for about $100. There are a ton of great local multiplayer games: Smash Bros, F-Zero, Def Jam, Mario Kart, Blitz 20-02. Plus, no need for updates.
I can confirm this recommendation. When I bought my Gamecube a decade+ ago I figured it would eventually get donated or sold off as I continued on the console upgrade treadmill.
But everything that has come along since has had the glaring problems noted in this thread, such that I still have my Gamecube, the controllers, games, etc. It always works, when I need it to work.
Now if only Perfect Dark had been released for it...
Earlier model Wii's also have backwards compatability with Gamecube, so all you need is the games and controllers if you already have one of those. Not sure if that's going to see many more updates.
Though not a party game as such I'd recommend buying Jungle Beat and a pair of bongo controllers if you do go down the Gamecube route.
I got my gamecube with two controllers for $20 at Electronic Boutique... recommend+++ :D
$20 folks! There is no arguing there. I play my OUYA more than the GC but they are the two consoles I like the most and I have a ps3....
Plus, Gamecube controllers are very well designed, especially for people with smaller hands.
It's not like the Wii never needed any firmware updates either.
Doesn't the Wii let you postpone firmware updates unless you're trying to play a game/app that demands firmware version X?
And iirc they shipped the upgrade on their tent pole first-party games so even if you didn't have your wii hooked up to the internet you could still take advantage of the updates.
Yes. I don't think I have ever been required to install an update, with the exception of the one a couple years ago when Nintendo EOLed some of the default channels.
I seem to remember that it downloaded (and maybe installed) some of these while the box was in standby mode, so rarely did I have to install one while waiting to play.
Well I certainly didn't say that. But they were less frequent than the PS3 and generally much smaller/faster.
He compares it only to the PlayStations but in my experience the Kinect with an Xbox makes it a pretty good party console. One day at work, we had everyone including 60+ year old women who never played a video game have fun with some of the Kinect motion games. I can't imagine the learning curve for them to even press a couple of buttons on a controller.
The updates take long on any console though, so I wouldn't blame the Ouya, especially with its weak controller. The biggest problem Ouya has now is that it's competing with Xbox360 and the PS3 on price. You can used ones for around $100 to $150 and they have vast libraries of games.
My PS3 is kept up-to-date and despite this my typical experience launching a game I haven't played in a while or installing a new game is 30m-2h of patching with comically uninformative progress bars.
I don't know if the XBox 360 would have the same problem if I bothered to hook it up to the internet. Frequently installing a new game requires a lengthy patch to the OS, but I don't get over-the-air updates so overall my XBox 360 experience is better.
It's not like you have to update it/configure controllers every time you turn it on. My Xbox often has to update prior to me being able to use it if I haven't played it for awhile too.
To be honest the Wii U launch day update was pretty bad. It took much more than one hour, and you'd brick your console if you powered it off thinking it was "stuck" during the update.
It's worth noting that the most recent update includes the ability to skip a firmware update if you only want to play the games already on your system.
While this might not have helped him here (his firmware sounded really old), they've already taken this sort of annoyance into account, and so at future get-togethers, even if there's an update, you'll just be able to go and play.
It probably only took 1 hour to do it because he hadn't been doing updates in months and months .. I'm sure if the system was in solid, regulary (say: weekly) use then it wouldn't have been such an issue ..
My take-away from this article was that if every OUYA shipped with a $10-$25 gift card or starting account balance, people would get into it a lot easier, and not box it up after a week.
Most consoles ship with full games. If the OUYA is only shipping with free trials, they aren't really competing.
Side-note, the home page of their website, what are they thinking? It looks like a stop sign. Or a "come back later". I literally went to their site earlier this year and thought it wasn't live yet, didn't bother going any further - until today. Shoot, it might as be one of those giant red circles with a line through it saying "go away!"
"the home page of their website, what are they thinking?"
You're right... this should be put in the 'bad ideas' portfolio for web design instructors to use in future lessons.
Even after you know that it is not a "come back later", it still feels wrong and awkward having to ignore your natural instincts to leave, as you look past the big red circles and explore the site!
You mean the http://ouya.tv website?
Didn't think it was quite that bad - a red tinted smiley face.
What I did see $99 - made me assume that it was only available in USA. Turns out you can get it in UK/CA. UK price is ~$170.
Just a note, every game in the Ouya store has a free trial or some kind of free mode. You can download every game & start playing it right away, then choose to pay to unlock the rest of it later. Of course some games are completely free, but they're generally not very polished.
This may have been true at launch, but it is false now:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/213775/Ouya_ditching_prob...
Just another ill-fated and ill-considered promise from the Ouya staffers. Unfortunate; I liked it on principle.
OUYA engineer here (not PR).
Developers kept telling us that requiring a free component was discouraging them from publishing.
Since we changed our stance on that issue we've received a large influx of new and awesome games. So while it might not seem ideal from a gamer's perspective at first, the availability of a lot more games is pretty nice.
What is their rationale? I saw one rant on Reddit where the dev was angry that OUYA forced him to give away his work for free and people would just play a demo then never pay. Are they all like that? As I understood, the technical implementation is fairly straightforward, right?
> As I understood, the technical implementation is fairly straightforward, right?
As has been pointed out elsewhere in this thread, the technical and design challenges of offering a working subset of a game as a demo can be quite high for a small developer. Even AAA studios can't always justify the cost.
Oh :( I didn't think it was that ill-considered. Since the rest of the platform was designed to be very developer-friendly, it was nice to have a few pieces that were friendly to players.
The core problem is that it appears player-friendly, but in practice it is not, because it wounds developers. If you're an indie with limited resources, being forced to build a demo means you end up having to ship a bad demo (actually reducing your sales in many cases) or not ship on the platform at all.
In an ideal world, 'all games have free trials' is good. The realities of game development mean that even for games where it's possible to build an excellent trial, it may not happen. Budget cuts happen, resources you thought you had go away, your schedule slips or deadlines draw closer - in those scenarios, it would be unreasonable to make the core game suffer in order to have a demo ready by the deadline. Most developers would instead focus on the most important part - the core game, the thing people are paying for.
There are also games for which it is near-impossible to build a free trial. A recent example is The Stanley Parable; the nature of the experience made it impossible to have a 'free trial' version of the game, so they had to instead build an entirely separate game that they then gave away for free, and tried to use to convince people to buy the actual game.
That solution worked great for them, but it took time and resources. I wouldn't be able to bring myself to tell every developer they had to do that just to be on my store.
Note that demos and trials are great when they work: They help convert slight interest into sales. However, many successful games sell entirely on the strength of good reviews, word of mouth, and press coverage. This is part of why sometimes the wisest choice is not to have a demo.
You can just add a timer, like Bomberman did, or limit the number of levels or something. I played a puzzle game where the free version was limited to a certain number of moves per day. A timer would have worked fine for The Stanley Parable.
Maybe OUYA could take care of this automatically, just freeze the game after the time limit had been hit. The developer could just specify how long they want the trial to be.
I like that. But what I would like to see would not be a total hours timer, but so much time in a given period. This should be set by developer per game.
I'm thinking of the scenario mentioned in the article where the owner tried it once and put it away. If he had tried a couple demo games that first day by himself, then came back to it months or a year later, then those games might no longer allow the trial.
I think a great thing would be based more on total game time. You get 8 hours of in-game time to try this, then you must pay. Then another factor could be "the trial resets after 30, 60, 90 days".
As long as these are options the developer can pick and tweak, that would be great. It would also be good for the developer (though maybe not for privacy) if the Ouya could report game play stats (avg times opened per day/week/month, avg time played per session, users that "max out" their trial vs those that "abandon" the game).
I'm very reluctant to buy a game if there's no demo, unless it's throwaway-cheap, the reviews and word of mouth are stellar (they're usually not for any but the biggest hits), or the concept immediately clicks for me. It's worth putting a bit of time into making a good demo.
I take this sentiment a bit further - unless it's throwaway-cheap, the reviews and word of mouth are stellar (they're usually not for any but the biggest hits), or the concept immediately clicks for me, I will pirate the game to try it out. If I like the pirated version, I _usually_ purchase the full game (but not always). Not having reasonable demos just increases game piracy.
That's exactly the problem.
When I bought the Wii U for my kids, if they got to the end of the new Super Mario world and I had to go pay $N.NN to unlock the rest I'd have a really bad taste in my mouth.
What about at least including a couple awesome titles with the console? They are all around $1 to $10 (ish) right? Heck you could include 4 A-list titles where I only get ONE with a major console.
Just saying... nobody is blinded by the "free to try" idea. All that means is that I will need to spend MORE money before it's fun.
The Wii U costs $300 and includes 2 games. The Ouya costs $100 and comes with no games. So pretend the Ouya costs $200 and comes with $100 in store credit - it's still $100 cheaper.
Point. At launch, the Nexus 7 included $25 of Play money.
It's pretty much an example of everything to not do on a landing page.
This is exactly how I feel about my Ouya. It sits on the side of my TV stand completely unobtrusively, and if friends come over within 30 seconds we can be playing frantic, immersive games. Not desperately struggling to figure out how we get a second player online without a second xbox live account.
It's a shame enough people didn't realise this from the start, but $150 is not a lot of outlay for what I got in return and when the games eventually move on to Ouya 2, I will just put XBMC on it and it's still a great device.
Yes. This. Ouya + XMBC is amazing.
While modern $99 "video pucks" like AppleTV, Roku, or Amazon are good streaming clients for NetFlix, etc, they utterly suck at playing files from a local network. Ouya + XMBC is an incredibly option for this use case, now that Boxee is gone.
I've been having a lot of success with the Chromecast lately. The more I think about it, the less I want an intelligent TV or yet another device (which needs updates and config) and controller (which needs its batteries replaced and fished out of the couch cushions) attached to it. A dumb receiver like the Chromecast seems to be the superior solution. I have no shortage of smart devices, I don't need another. I just need an easy wireless way to get whats on my smart devices onto my dumb TV.
Hard to beat at $35, or $29 at Best Buy right now due to a sale. That's practically sales tax on the AppleTV plus the more or less required AppleCare.
Agreed. I don't want a smart TV or a media-player box, I want a smartphone/tablet/PC and the ability to easily get its content onto a TV.
And if you're inclined to tinker, the Chromecast is a ton of fun: it's actually running a full browser engine, and you can send it a page to view. That page can then use things like WebRTC streaming.
Two things I would like to put forward in counterpoint:
1. Communal browsing of content - you sometimes want to browse available content on the big screen so everyone can join in. That means menus and UIs on the TV not the device
2. Controls with physical buttons have two advantages. A well-designed remote is much easier to learn and use without needing to look at it. Secondly - games controlled via a touchscreen when you're actually looking at the TV are a fairly unpleasant experience.
I do want a smart TV with a physical controller. I also want Chromecast/Airplay etc. Different beasts.
I think that being able to "fling your screen" like Chromecast or Airplay is a future I'd like.
But what about latency ?
Roku paired with Plex works extremely well (thanks to Plex). Plex reminds me of VLC in how well it does exactly what I want it to do. I'm a fan.
Chromecast works with Plex
>While modern $99 "video pucks" like AppleTV, Roku, or Amazon are good streaming clients for NetFlix, etc, they utterly suck at playing files from a local network
I bought a Chromecast for $40 and the Plex iPad app for $5 and can now sit at the tv, controlled by the iPad, and stream content from my HDD flawlessly.
I've heard really good things about the Amazon Fire TV + XMBC (Gotham) from multiple sources at this point. Haven't tried it myself admittedly.
That's what I'm doing and it works very well. As a media device, it's the best option I've found. Built-in wireless, fast CPU, lots of RAM, supports Netflix, Amazon Instant, Hulu, XBMC, Pandora, and more. Roku has more channels available, but doesn't have any options for streaming content over a LAN.
I played a few minutes of Minion Rush on the Amazon Fire TV. It had some laggy moments, certainly not the gaming experience that they claimed it would be.
>but doesn't have any options for streaming content over a LAN
This is simply not true. Plex has been available on the Roku for years. It's one of the most popular channels.
Plex is terrible. It requires transcoding audio and video on the fly, which requires a hefty media server. XBMC decodes everything on the fly on the local box requiring no transcoding.
> It sits on the side of my TV stand completely unobtrusively, and if friends come over within 30 seconds we can be playing frantic, immersive games.
So, it's the new Wii?
> I have terrible memories of coming to a gamer’s place to spend the afternoon playing Fifa, Street Fighter 4, etc… in all these AAA titles, the guy who owns the game basically beats your ass so hard that all the fun is gone.
This is not a failure of those games, this is a failure of the person who owns the game to not be a dickhead.
Street Fighter 4, for example, has handicapping. You can tilt the game wildly in the novice's favor, to the point where if they land a few lucky hits they win.
I've never played FIFA, but I'd be surprised if it didn't have some way to skew the balance of the game in favor of the novice.
The FIFA equivalent (which was how I learned the game with my roommate who was very good at it) is that the more skilled person picks a lower-ranked team and the new player gets their pick of any team. The difference in maneuverability between teams is enough to even most odds, at least after one or two games of getting used to the controls.
I find games with friends to be substantially less fun when people have to be handicapped. When I win, it feels like it's because of the handicap, not because I did anything right.
I find this phenomenon very interesting. I mean, obviously, you won because you did right things. You would have lost if you didn't. By definition, handicap should be set so that you have an even chance of winning.
This may be a cultural thing? In Go, handicap is a normal part of the game and everybody (but see below) is fine with using it. In Chess, people seem to detest handicap and insist on even game.
I live in South Korea, and I visited US Go club when I travelled there, and I was extremely surprised to find that some Go players there insisted on even game. Why would they do that? I mean, if you normally need 4 stones handicap in Go, you have exactly zero chance to win without handicap. What fun is that?
The chess/go difference in accepting handicaps may be due to chess's culture of memorization & opening study. Also since in chess all the pieces begin the game on the board (rather than players alternating placing stones) if you it's hard to reconcile that any deviation from the standard game (e.g. removing pieces as a handicap) "doesn't look like chess."
Well, handicap also destroys Go's standard opening theory, which is very extensive. (Start with 4-volume Dictionary of Basic Fuseki: while far from comprehensive, it covers basics well.)
But! Handicap is common enough in Go that there is opening theory for handicapped games! This may not apply to Chess directly, but my point is that if handicap is a normal part of the game, you will have opening theory for handicapped games. This is kind of obvious if you think about it.
I've always loved handicap systems in any game; if I'm playing a stronger player in a game that doesn't have one, I set my own mental victory bar as 'lose less badly than previously'.
I suspect it's a psychological function of valuing absolute victory over valuing progress in your abilities, and which of the two you consider more important - and while this is entirely subjective, I feel like Go plays better to the latter set of values and Chess to the former.
This is why certain games hide the "handicap" from the users, such as mario kart. It has quite a lot of rubberbanding but since it's hidden and unnoticeable for most players they don't mind.
Generally, yes. But sometimes you can turn the handicap into something interesting.
Back in the day, some friends and i used to play a lot of Goldeneye on the N64. Like, a lot. We used to turn our health down to minimum to make it more exciting - a single hit with almost any weapon would kill you.
Sometimes, one of my friends' girlfriend was around, and we wanted her to join in. But she wasn't a gamer, much less a Goldeneye hotshot like us. So we gave her a handicap - she got maximum health, loads more than you'd get even in a normal game, and she played as Oddjob, who is half the size of any other character, and so harder to hit.
This still left game play a bit imbalanced; she could soak up huge amounts of damage, but wasn't aware or accurate enough to really take part in the highly mobile cut and thrust of deathmatch. So we played 3 vs 1, with our fragile ninjas darting around her indestructible, lumbering tank, desperately trying to get enough shots on target to take her down, while she spewed various flavours of death from her tiny bowler-hatted form. We called it Hunt the Freak, and we'd ham it up with an over-the-top commentary about the horrifying scenes of destruction wrought by the unstoppable Freak. All four of us found it highly entertaining, and often hysterically funny. It was so good, we ended up playing it even when she wasn't around.
Disagree. There are certain games that you have to be 'good' at for it to be fun. My friends can't play Fifa. No matter how easy I am on them, or what team I pick, they just run around and shoot the ball every time. But they LOVE Hidden In Plain Sight. We have played it for hours.
Then they mash the buttons away and win almost half of the time.
He's right, these games are meant to be played by people with about the same experience, or at least a decent amount of experience and then a bit of handicap.
They're not exactly Mario Party.
Talking of Mario, Mario Kart is famous for it's "rubber banding" where if you fall behind you are showered with powerups that can put you right back in the game, while those in the lead get less powerups and get targetted by the blue shell.
Yeah, but still it's a skill game for the most part, except some particular versions like Mario Kart 64 which IMO is piss poor.
That's why Diddy Kong Racing was such a massive success. The truly good party racing game for the N64.
Wired Xbox 360 controllers work out of the box, as well. I feel like they missed an opportunity in promoting the compatibility more, especially as they got so much negative press about their controllers.
Local multiplayer is also coming back on other platforms, by the way.
For example, the recently released Sportsfriends (a collection of four local multiplayer games): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zh5EXf4rpo
I really hope so. That's what has largely killed commercial video games for me...
I'm excited about Sportsfriends, but is it really part of a trend?
Very much so. Oddly enough the largest quantity is on pc though.
These are all fun games, but the Ouya's problem is that these are all the same games the author would have been playing a year ago.
That's mostly the fault of the author and our marketing budget. We've been getting a steady stream of awesome new games including Duck Game, which I'm sure would have been a hit at this guy's party: https://www.ouya.tv/game/DUCK-GAME/
The trend the author is seeing is not just on Ouya. 'Sportsfriends' on PS4 (and PC soon) has four unique games as good as any he played for local multiplayer. Towerfall is better on PS4. And many more like these the pipe! I heartily recommend Nidhogg when it comes out for PS4 later.
If you have a PS4 and more than one other local person to play with occasionally you must be Sportsfriends right away!
But the PS4 is $400, and makes a lot of heat. The Ouya is $100 + money for other controllers (which could be Ouya, PS3 or Xbox controllers). If you just want Towerfall and Nidhogg, the Ouya is a much better deal!
Very interesting, I'm surprised to see that Ouya is still alive. This is sort of what I want in a console today. I don't have time to play lengthy AAA games and prefer social games, but there are few alternatives for that type of gaming.
Ouya just had their retail launch last June. Less than a year would be fairly soon to pack it in.
A lot of his arguments (good party console, hardware doesnt always matter, etc) also apply to Nintendo consoles. Ive always loved the Wii for similar reasons (the fact that it is easy to softmod doesnt hurt either :P )
This article put the Ouya back on my radar. I'll have to look into it.
The Ouya has some fun games and it's a cool little console. It's not even remotely perfect, but I'm glad it exists. Between Ouya, Kindle TV, and maybe someday Apple TV or other smart TV's, there's going to be a nice place to put fun little indie games in more places, which is good for developers.
His favorite Ouya game, Hidden in Plain Site, is also available for Xbox 360 and it's totally excellent.
Vote for it to come to Steam: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=206372...
Towerfall is also on the PS4.
And the version on PS4, "Ascension", is better than the version available for Ouya right now. They say the Ouya version will eventually get the extra features. http://www.polygon.com/2013/11/16/5108514/is-towerfalls-move...
Yup, in June.
In the meantime, I recommend Duck Game. A new 4-player 2D combat game that just launched exclusively on ouya: https://www.ouya.tv/game/DUCK-GAME/
I guess this is self promotion but it seems relevant.
I probably should have posted this early but I've been working on a library/framework for making party games with lots more than 4 players.
Players use their smartphone as the controller but all look at the same TV to play the games.
I've only had a couple of "larger" sessions so far but have had 17 player space wars and 14 player bomberman like. Going to try for 30 to 40 players in a few days.
Is this the same wololo who hacks Vitas and PSPs? If so, this guy's a legend in the handheld hacking community.
Yes.
Is anyone else finding this article's pale-gray-on-white color scheme very difficult to read?
Yes, but that's color scheme of half the internet these days so you just have to deal with it :-/ I recommend this bookmarklet: https://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/zap.html#zap_colors
I see no text at all, whatsoever, even if I highlight. Chrome on Windows.
I probably would have actually enjoyed the Ouya, but it had such terrible input lag that it was effectively unplayable. Couldn't find any way to fix it, so it just sits on a shelf in my apartment now.
Mine suffered from the same. Two things fixed it:
1) Flipping the unit on its side so that the power button is facing me and the wires stick up in the air. Apparently the original run units had a metal base which affected signal from the antenna.
2) Switching the Bluetooth controllers to get the priority no matter if there's a game downloading or not. This feature/option was included in a recent update and you can find it in the Controllers->Settings menu.
I have a chocolate brown Kickstarter-backer model and I no longer get controller lag.
You may have some luck opening a support ticket[1]. I had the same issue and they sent me a shipping label to send the controllers in for a firmware update. I haven't turned the console on since I've gotten the controllers back, so I don't know if it fixed the issue but they claimed it would.
Do not own an ouya, but I have been very pleasantly surprised by both performance of the device and quality of the games on my FireTV. Expect great things going forward.
I just can't see the OUYA surviving the Fire TV
I know this is exactly the opposite point the article is trying to make, but I'll wait until they're selling a version with a Denver CPU and a Maxwell GPU, before I even consider buying one. However, I'm not sure they'll survive that long. Maybe releasing one with Tegra K1 this year would sustain them a bit longer. I don't think you can even do 1080p games on OUYA, unless they are 2D. Maybe that's fine for kids or something, but not for me.
I also bought an Ouya, but for some reason.. I only use it for Plex...
Haven't gamed with it, but perhaps i should after reading this.
I wish people would stop using the term 'AAA' . Its meaningless imo as any other members from the implied scale (AAA, AAB, AAC, whatever) are never referred to. I find it one of the more annoying americanisms.
edit: What people actually mean when they say " an AAA game" is "a game with a very large development budget"
Oh, so it's apparently not meaningless, and not even confusing, as you were able to figure out its meaning right away.
No. Read this. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AAA_Gaming_industry
The terms supposed meaning is about various aspects of game quality and also implying some kind of scale. But it is commonly used in a very vague way to denote "game with very large budget" or "game from huge publishing house" Things which have nothing to do with quality and are vague to the point of meaninglessness.
Look, if we're going to stop using terms just because they don't mean what they originally meant when first coined, we lose about three-quarters of the English language. That ship has sailed.
Yeah, it is confusing, because "very large development budget" is extremely ambiguous.
As it turns out, "AAA" is shorter to say and type than "a game with a very large development budget", hence its common and semi-nonsensical usage.
"AAA" is a marketroid term which means at least three things: a good game, a popular game, or a game with a large development and especially marketing budget. To the marketroid, each is coterminous with the other two.
Similar ambiguity exists around "hardcore" which means roughly the intersection of gamers who seek out challenging games, gamers who play competitively online, and gamers who enjoy adult content like sex and violence.
Nitpicky, but generally the scale with something like that is AAA -> AA -> A
ok, but even that is never used. For instance no publisher ever announces the release of their new "AA" or "A" game.
AA is absolutely being used in the gaming press, particularly to distinguish mid-sized decently-funded (eg, Kickstarter'd) studios from proper indie games.
I doubt you'll find many instances of "AAA" in press releases either. It's an industry term, not intended for the general public.
It's supposed to be A each for:
1. Graphics & Sound
2. Controls
3. Gameplay
So the game would get a magazine review rating of A,A,A (top in each). Hence, AAA.
Remember, it was coined at a time when those three factors were significant to a gaming experience. Not so much now, but still relevant enough.
I'm pretty sure the terminology actually comes from Major League Baseball farm teams: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minor_League_Baseball#Current_s...
I can't recall a gaming magazine that used a grading scale as described.
Fair enough, how would you like us to identify the tentpole games like Madden or Call of Duty, vs the smaller games that have less artwork, fewer levels, and limited professional voicing/bodywork?
Apparently he wants everyone to say "a game with a very large development budget" because "AAA" is some sort of Americanism and he doesn't approve of Americanisms. As a compromise measure, I would actually go along with this if the rest of the English-speaking world would let go of the term "maths".
"an AAA game"
Hopefully the "an" is a typo and you don't actually pronounce AAA as saying the letter "A" three times. :)