Ouya : First Impressions

Ever since I first announced that I had finally received my OUYA friends have been asking me what it's like. So here we go. 

First of all, I think that explaining my expectations will help to understand my opinion of the console. OUYA was meant as a low cost alternative to the big consoles,  as a console for gamers by gamers, a place for indie games, a return to multiplayer-livingroom gaming, a device you can experiment with, open up and develop for. Paying into this idea (for me) was a protest against the big consoles, in my case the Xbox 360 and trying to wake them up to the fact that gamers have money that they will spend elsewhere if they aren't respected and cared for. (I'll rant about Xbox and their Xbox Live service another day) I just mention all this because I have read comments about the OUYA and it is constantly compared to the Xbox or PS3 - and I think that they misunderstood the concept of the OUYA and had unfair expectations.

The console itself is a small box no bigger than a coffee mug. A coffee mug! There is no external power source and sitting idle it doesn't make a sound, when the fan is on it's a quiet whir. The biggest complaint gamers had as the OUYA was being rolled out was the controller and perhaps there are some bits that I think are a bit flimsy; the triggers jiggle, the d-pad is a little sharp, the U-button got stuck on me twice - BUT when I hold my 70€-Halo Reach limited edition Xbox 360 controller with a chatpad and rechargable battery pack in my hands, yeah it feels great, but it costs 70% of the whole OUYA console. Oh, and I can use my fancy Xbox controller on my OUYA by the way (you can too, it's just got to have a cable).

Booting up the OUYA for the first time I was a little miffed when it asked me for credit card information straight away. I would have liked to be given the option of Paypal or something similar because in Europe not everyone has an actual credit card. Sofware-wise it's got a very clean interface, but I don't understand why I can't organize my game library into categories (such as 'purchased' and 'unpurchased' - not a word, whatever) - and that there is no overview of a download queue, you can't see how much a game costs until you click "buy" - of course there is a confirmation, but still. There's also no child-lock to make sure your kids to go buying up the whole store - but I am sure these things will be changed in the future as it progresses.

Although they guys and gals at OUYA announced that they had more games at the release of the console than any console previously, you have to expect that most of those games aren't going to be great. This comes hand in hand with the publishing freedoms that OUYA has allowed. Think for a moment of the indie games on XBL (after all these years) and we can agree that 89% is crap and I believe publishing is more restrictive and development is definitely more difficult - than on the OUYA. So you have to expect more of the same, at least at the beginning. The games (and apps) will come, as development comes - remember the developers have only had the consoles in their hands for about 8 months.

Games are free to try on the OUYA. Developers make their own restrictions as to what this means: either you can play a certain amount of time per day, or you have a demo-like, or you play to a certain level and then must pay to continue. Remember that we are talking about Android games that cost around $2.99. Developers or journalists complaining that games can't or aren't making money on the OUYA are also being unfair, the console isn't even on shelves in alot of places, definitely not here in Germany, and word just hasn't gotten out yet. I think the users that bought the console are reluctant to buy games so far because they want to see where the OUYA is going first, but I also think that once some original quality games get to the OUYA you will see an increase in sales. Some of the games on the OUYA I haven't bought because I have already played them on PC or on iOS and I see no reason buying them again.

OUYA as a company has some growing pains, but they are doing some things right. They gave their early backers $13.37 to spend on games, to hopefully smooth over any hard feelings about late consoles people might have had. I commend them for this, it was probably adds up to about $800.000 they just gave to people. Sure this means they are giving money to gamers to buy games from their store, but they are getting the ball rolling and I think it's smart. They've also started a "Free the Games Fund" to match funding for games that agree to OUYA exclusivity for a time.

All in all I am satisfied with the console (although I should say I am still waiting for my second controller) - I think they delivered what they said they would and if nothing else comes out of this console other than Sony and Microsoft changing their stances when it comes to indie games on their next-gen consoles then I think that it was already worth it.