Ouya has been controversial, at best. People are either excited by the possibility, or incredibly dismissive. Now that it's a month away, I'd like to gauge the GB community interest level.

Personally, my faith has been shaken slightly - the hardware reviews, specifically the lack-luster controller, put a damper on my excitement, as well as the notion that it'll be on a yearly hardware cycle. I don't imagine it picking up much steam among the Joe Bestbuys, but I still think it's a worthy investment, a worthy item to own as part of the gaming landscape. Sure, it's a pretty weak "console", even more so with all the PS4/XBONE news, but those are incomparable; they serve different markets.

To wrap up, it's a hundred bucks; hell yeah I'll plunk down a Benjamin for a part of a dedicated indie platform.

This thing's going to crash and burn faster than a drunk horse that's been set on fire.

I haven't been following very closely, but is there a whole lot to get excited about? It plays Android games. That's fine, but I'll just keep playing Android games on my phone.

I am not sure about the value of a $99 android phone which can't make phone calls.

It might be reminiscent of the plane crash in Knowing.

Movie wasn't great but that plane crash definitely was.

Sorry, too busy dismissing the new Xbox reveal over here.

Since there's almost no way they fixed all of the problems that reviewers ripped the thing apart for, I highly doubt this thing will be worth the asking price. If they want any success the interface has to be so easy and smooth to use that a monkey could use it effectively. Even if they magically fixed all of the performance problems, it seemed like the software was just poorly designed from a usability standpoint.

That makes it sound like anyone will notice when it fails. I'm thinking it will be more along the lines of a, "not with a bang, but a whimper," kind of death.

I've had one for about a week now, and it met my (low) expectations. It's not offensively bad, the worst part is definitely the interface, I hope they overhaul it. I haven't had a problem with the controller, but I haven't played any games that try to use all the buttons.

It seems like the kind of thing that you already know if you want or not. It runs emulators fine (except for the DS one, I couldn't get that to run too well) and it seems like the kind of thing homebrew people will love to fudge with. An important thing to know before buying one is that you can't access the standard android app store, there is a dedicated Ouya store. You can sideload android apps into it though, but most don't work too well with the controller and have to be used with the touchpad.

@ch3burashka: What market does the Ouya serve?

@gumdealer: Do you think that you'll get a lot of use out of your Ouya and is there a chance that it could become your go-to device for multiplatform indie titles?

If enough mobile indie developers support it and make use of the controller, I could see myself using it a lot. But if I had to choose between an indie game on the PC with a 360 controller or an Ouya version, I would choose the PC version 100% of the time. Most of the reason I picked this up is because I needed an extra media box, the game part is just a bonus for me.

This is what I think of the Ouya:

Oh god, thanks for reminding me, I could be watching UFGT on my TV right now.

May I point out a minor misconception - that's it's not a phone? Yes, it's ranked like 70th among the most powerful Android devices, but the format itself is what's intriguing - a console with a controller. You can technically have a similar set-up with a 3rd party Bluetooth controller, but that's not appealing on any kind of scale. A neat packaged console at least directs energies (development and consumer) in the right direction.

Early impressions of that controller, at least as far as I've read, haven't exactly been positive. It's, at best, a middling input device that isn't up to the standard of the big console makers. I think, at best, commentary has been along the lines of "Well, it's a controller."

For some reason, I thought it came out already.

This thing was dead before it's kickstarter even got funded. My Android phone is more powerful than this thing is and people making games for android aren't going to aim at a console that has fewer instals than samsung s2's alone. This thing was a pipe dream from day one, it is going down like the chopped tree in the forest. No one is going to hear it cause no one with any sense cared.

Hasn't it been proven time and time again that power is mostly irrelevant? PS2 won over Xbox, 360 won over PS3, etc. Granted, the comparison between years-old consoles and constantly updated phone specs isn't the same, but had they unveiled different specs that were 6 months more advanced, your complaint would still hold... 6 months from now. The basic premise of the OUYA is that you have a dedicated platform to code for (rather than a billion phones), not that it's supposed to be the most mind-blowingest tech on the market. There's a reason it costs a measly 100 bucks.

Oddly enough, it seems that people are more interested in the Ouya than the Xbox One :o

got it because similar speced htpc cost 3 to 4 times as much and wanted to support someone trying something new xbmc is on it so I'm set to use it for the foreseeable future - I've tried pretty much everything when it comes to streaming thing to my TV dlna is one of the worst implemented standards I know and all the on the fly transcoding things are really bad/picky, had an old pc and that worked by far the best using a blu tooth keyboard. Do I care if it is a success - sure it would be nice for it to make them money and get people making apps for it but I won't hold my breath for that to happen

I'm curios, what are you getting for defending it?

Even if all the hardware issues work out, I still find the idea of the Android OS being a home gaming platform to be ridiculous. It's the "chicken and egg" problem. Developers won't put a substantial amount of their resources onto home Android OS gaming unless the Ouya (and other Ouya-like products also running on Android) gets a large install base. The install base will never grow though unless games come out for the platform that would warrant a purchase of the device. This is where having a platform holder and a curated experience would benefit the system. A platform holder could entice developers with to make games for the system with financial incentives. They could also promote these games and put some marketing force behind it. The Android OS as a storefront though is completely open. No one is responsible for it.

We have those. They just don't play phone games.

Android is just an OS. The Ouya is just a platform which uses that OS. There is nothing inherently compelling about games made to run on Android, there is nothing particularly interesting about the Ouya as a device. If the yearly upgrade cycle turns out to be a reality, the device doesn't even bring anything new to Android as a platform because it'll be in a constant state of flux with new hardware running a different version of its (third-hand) OS just like Android tablets and cellphones.

The idea of an open games console is interesting (if a bit redundant) but the Ouya is not going to popularize or prove the concept.

I don't really understand it. I mean, OK it can play indie games, that's cool but so can my PC. It can play Android games, so can my phone and tablet. I don't have a problem with it but I just don't get what it is meant to give me that I don't already have.

@ch3burashka: Seriously? This isn't a "console" it is a phone OS rammed into a little box, with a pretty par controller attached to it, and it's connected to a tv. No one is going to support it. Why make games for this thing when you can instead just make a game for the latest android OS and hit millions and millions of devices? Any game made for the OUYA is going to do "okay" or completely fail. Not only will they need to be designed to require a controller but they will also need to be designed for tv display, not android. Even worse.... you don't need an OUYA to do any of this anyway. You can get controllers for your android devices already and there are plenty of ways to play android games on a tv or monitor. Youwave for example.

This was a bad idea from day one, it never should have seen the light of day. If you want to make an open source console guess what? You need to build it from the ground up and your OS better be superior to Ice Cream Sandwhich, Jelly Bean, or whatever the heck the current version of Android is.