OUYA: Open Source Console - Kickstarted in 1 Day

[Thierry Henry]

For $99, everyone who backed Ouya's Kickstarter has unwittingly signed up to beta-test a game console. Alpha-test, even: this is a product with some good ideas and a potentially promising future, but it's a million miles away from something worth spending your money on. Even if the concept is right, the Ouya misses the mark. The controller needs work, the interface is a mess, and have I mentioned there's really nothing to do with the thing? I'm not even sure the concept is right, either: there are plenty of fun Android games, but currently few that work well with a controller and even fewer that look good on your television.

http://www.theverge.com/2013/4/4/4180242/ouya-review

[RyaNtheSlayA]

They've been saying for the last few months that it will only be officially done in June. It's a Kickstarter console, I'm not sure what the Verge was expecting.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/report/arti ... thats-okay

^ That to me is a more reasonable look at it.

That said, it already works out of the box with PlayStation 3 controllers, and already has a healthy amount of emulators, which is pretty much what I bought it for.

[fastbilly1]

Ryan I am curious to how yours performs in multiplayer for N64 games on emulator. Watching videos online of it is a bit disappointing so far.

My real interest in this is if it can handle multiplayer emulation with its super low power consumption and tiny footprint. I can not make a pc that pulls that little.

[Reprise]

I didn't back the Ouya's kickstarter, but I pre-ordered one through the site, for apparently an "April release" whenever that really means.

I'm looking forward to getting one. I don't have high expectations, so will reserve judgement whilst reviews like that come out, as I bought mine with an open mind. You see, I live in a small flat with my girlfriend. We don't really have a lot of space and with me being a gaming enthusiast with multiple consoles and millions of games, this makes things difficult. I just can't have every console and all my games out and easily available. Hell, I still have a load of gaming crap stored back at my parents'. So I thought a nice, cheap console, that is really nice and small and can be used to run emulators would be worth trying out. Plus, if there's some cool games released for it too, then that'll be the icing on the cake.

[fastbilly1]

So the Mupen64 port to the Ouya runs decently:



Still no word on how it handles Goldeneye or Mario Kart multiplayer though.

Edit:
My mistake, the second video shows Goldeneye in multiplayer - it has that terrible flicker issue it use to have on the PC.

[jinx]

I haven't been happy with the performance of N64 emulators on Android in general. It REALLY depends on what game you're trying to play. I find that N64oid is great for most and Mupen64 for others. This will most likely improve with time, as these emulators haven't matured all that much.
That said, I run into a lot of issues with emulations on the PC as well. The few games I enjoy playing on the N64 have major issues in most emulators. For example, the cut-scenes for Space Station Silicon Valley glitch like crazy. Kirby 64 is unplayable no matter what emulator I've used.

[Pulsar_t]

Lots of those souped-up Tegra3 games are over 1GB in size. Which means only a handful can be installed on this thing.. And no SD expansion? Clever indeed.

[isiolia]

Lots of those souped-up Tegra3 games are over 1GB in size. Which means only a handful can be installed on this thing.. And no SD expansion? Clever indeed.

It has USB port, which they're promising USB storage support through.

[Pulsar_t]

Lots of those souped-up Tegra3 games are over 1GB in size. Which means only a handful can be installed on this thing.. And no SD expansion? Clever indeed.

It has USB port, which they're promising USB storage support through.

They had better. Android games are growing in size all the time.

[Jrecee]

Anyone got theirs yet? They've bombed the early release pretty bad. I pre-ordered on their website and it said it would ship by April. Here we are in May and not even all the Kickstarter backers have received units yet. On top of that, the main launch is supposed to be on June 4, a little over 4 weeks away, when they should technically have a mass of units in stock at Bestbuy and Target. So much for having my game ready to go for launch.