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In-depth overview of the OUYA [VIDEO]

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The OUYA console started reaching developers’ doorsteps late last week if you haven’t heard, and those lucky souls are excited to get their hands on the Android-powered gaming console that OUYA hopes will become a staple in many-a home. One developer — the guy behind Code Zombie Games — was excited (and generous) enough to give the world in in-depth rundown of the console.

We’ll be getting a look at pretty much everything, from what you get in the box and how to hook it up to your television, to what the user interface looks like and how the setup process is. Of course, there will be no games pre-installed on the device or available from download from OUYA’s store so we won’t get a look at how all that works just yet.

OUYA’s interface looks decent enough in the early-going, but there’s no doubt it could do with a bit of polish before these are set to ship to consumers early next year. For starters, the areas of the operating system where you’re kicked to native Android seem to look like and behave as Android smartphones.

With Google TV and Android tablet UIs readily available it’s odd that OUYA’s implementation comes “phone-ified.” Again, we’re a bit early in this journey so things might very well change once the device fully launches.

The developer did sideload a game of his called Deadly Dungeons just for laughs. The game had rough support for controllers and the OUYA supported a bit of that out of the box, though it should be noted that games without controller support would likely need to be reworked as touch controls will not be ideal for gameplay. In fact, it was painful enough seeing the guy just trying to navigate the game’s menu with the controller’s built-in trackpad.

Also worthy of note is the the letter-boxing that comes with portrait-only games, but we figured that would happen with games without landscape support. It will be up to developers to figure out how to tackle that issue, but we imagine it won’t be much of a problem. Be sure to watch all these videos above and below, and get excited as developers begin hammering away at this mini console’s future.

Quentyn Kennemer
The "Google Phone" sounded too awesome to pass up, so I bought a G1. The rest is history. And yes, I know my name isn't Wilson.

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15 Comments

  1. Not to sound like a troll but with new Android phones supporting ps3, xbox, wii controllers I can’t find a reason to buy this. I personally play on my 40″ with my Note 2 and a wireless ps3 controller. Games like Shadowgun Deadzone, NFS MW, FF9 all works great.

    1. Games made for ouya will be made for a controller not a touch screen. Also there won’t be any kind of fragmentation issues.

      1. Hi Len, I don’t think that’s a good enough reason considering how powerful new and upcoming phones are much stronger than this OUYA kit. There are already apps that lets you configure your controller to play the “touch” games so that’s not an issue. I feel like it’s just a case of wrong timing for these guys. kinda like the wiki gaming pad.

      2. i don’t think you understand how to make a proper argument. the dude said with controller support and hooking our android devices up to the tv, why buy an ouya? pointing out that the games are made for touch screens isn’t valid to the topic. if anything it gives our current android devices the upper hand over ouya as they are portable and still offer controller or no controller support.

        1. I’m not arguing… don’t like the ouya? Tell us why, share your list of ideas, educate us.
          As far as people who do like ouya, you will enjoy a cheap fun game system with out any geekdom required. You don’t need to know anything about setting up your device with a 3rd party controller and yet another 3rd party app to link them. Nor do you need to find pirate Roms for your console emulators for games made to played on a console. Don’t even fret over fragmentation, one device, one app store, no problems.
          Now I can understand guitarist5122, you feel this is not great for you. You have a great device that you already plug into the TV and hook up to your ps3 controller. You play great ps3 emulated games on your device (After purchasing the hard copy of course). That’s great for you, but ouya brings that to the rest of us. For only 100 bucks if you invested in the kick start, you get a real console feel, console convienence, console simplicity… but way under console price.

      3. Ironically, the console’s existence specifically creates the potential for fragmentation issues.

    2. I don’t see that as being a troll.
      I see it as putting forth a viable argument that has yet to be countered in a meaningful way.
      If you can learn to set up a gaming console you can also learn to connect and utilize the equipment you may already own that is just as capable, if not perhaps moreso.
      (edited for spelling/grammar)

  2. I like the MOGA. I would like to have the OUYA if it gets support for more games. It is already attracting me with Minecraft. Then again I can play ot on y phone, tablet, or computer. Ahh. Decisions decisions.

  3. wtf have they’ve done with all this time?

  4. Does this have the Google Play store? If not then I’m sorry, I’ll pass.

  5. Any plans for updating the processor? I’m thinking by the time this comes out the tegra 3 will be looking pretty underpowered. Will the steaming services be available, amazon, hulu, etc?

  6. Hey look a bunch of ignorant people commenting on things that they don’t understand. This project is actually meeting a timeline that it threw out, for once. Even the nexus devices from google can’t say that.

    What have they been doing? How about designing a hardware console with controller support and a UI and getting it pieced together to actually ship it to developers so that they can work on it before consumers get a hold of it

    All of you people saying you can already play games on tv, Im sure it was really straightforward and user friendly for the masses. God get your head out of your butts, if you don’t like it it’s fine but if you cant see the difference between this and connecting your note to your tv with a bluetooth keyboard then you just don’t get it anyways.

    1. The difference is the fact that you are getting more useful service from your tablet or smartphone when you connect them to your TV set as opposed to shelling out money for what is essentially the same hardware, only now in a separate device that is tied to the TV and has no connection with the device(s) that you actually carry around with you and use every day.

      Unless they perfect a way of transferring your games over to your portable device to continue playing then who will want to have different versions of the same game going on your personal devices AND on some console sitting at home tied to the television set?

      THAT’S what I “don’t get”.
      Why did I buy devices that already have these capabilities to end up NOT utilizing them?
      That seems like a MASSIVE waste to me. Massive.

  7. Letter boxing is when the black bars are top and bottom. Pillar boxing is what you get when black bars are on either side.

  8. And, people … If you would like to cancel your pre-order, this company won’t allow that. I have tried that and they simply refused to refund. Instead, they asked me to make a dispute with PayPal. Not good!

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