In-depth overview of the OUYA [VIDEO]
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.
