Ouya CEO Reveals Plans For Yearly Hardware Refreshes
Ouya plans to release a new console every year.
This should be a little annoying to customers who have been eying the Android-powered OUYA console. Company CEO Julie Uhrman confirmed with Joystiq that unlike the traditional console that sees a new hardware set every five to seven years, OUYA plans to take the mobile route and release a new console every year. That's right: the OUYA you purchase in June will be obsolete this time next year.
"Our strategy is very much similar to the mobile strategy," she said. "There will be a new OUYA every year. There will be an OUYA 2 and an OUYA 3. We'll take advantage of faster, better processors, take advantage of prices falling. So if we can get more than 8 GB of flash in our box, we will."
At $100 a pop, buying a new OUYA every year doesn't seem quite so drastic compared to tablet, smartphone and even console prices. And if anything, the older models will make great media players on other HDTVs in the house once they've been replaced with new models as the primary Android gaming machine. And like Google Play and Amazon's Appstore, all games will be linked to the user, not the machine. They'll also be backward compatible so that you don't have to keep buying the same titles over and over.
On a performance level, Uhrman said that Nvidia has a team dedicated to the OUYA console for getting the Tegra 3 running at optimal levels. The quad-core A9-based chip is clocked at 1.6 GHz and backed by 1 GB of RAM, 8 GB of internal storage (or 5 Gameloft games), 802.11 b/g/n connectivity, Bluetooth and HDMI output. It won't have a rechargeable battery, but instead will plug into the wall like every other living room console.
The first wave of OUYA consoles will head out to the Kickstarter backers in March followed by a full-blown public release in June at retailers like Best Buy, GameStop, Target and Amazon. Additional controls will also be made available, costing $49.99 per unit. Uhrman also said the OUYA's marketplace will be packed full of games at launch.
Lol i can't even process the level of full on retard that quoting this spam so it will never be deleted encompasses
Maybe Tegra 4 for next gen which AFAIK will be a significant performance increase
Be faster to keep up with newer and more demanding games? Seems like an odd question to ask almost a year away from an annual release.
Lol i can't even process the level of full on retard that this spam encompasses
Lol i can't even process the level of full on retard that quoting this spam so it will never be deleted encompasses
Maybe Tegra 4 for next gen which AFAIK will be a significant performance increase
Ouya lasts 1 year.
Ouya over 7 years = $700
Next gen consoles over 7 years = $400-500ish
Suddenly this awesome, new and affordable console isnt so great.
This is dumb. I won't even buy it to play roms from until it refreshes next year.
If you take inflation into account it will probably be about equal. And the Ouya you have now with be a lot more modern than the 7 year old system.
Not to mention that you'll have 6 used ouyas to sell
Starting out you will have a console that is a generation behind in graphics (if not worse). A few years in will probably equalize some. In the last year or two you will be ahead of other consoles. But, the next new console will be coming out and you have spent more on your 7 Ouya's than the other people spent on their single console.
You also lack AAA titles of normal consoles in favor of "indy" or "casual" games.
It also calls into question what a developer is supposed to aim for 3 years down the line. Are they going to create a title that maximizes the power of the Ouya 4 and alienate the audience of the Ouya 1 who didn't want to upgrade, or are they going to create a title that everyone on Ouya can use even though it's scaled down to the original's power level? With publishers all trying to maximize their profit, in most cases it will be the latter. This would then call into question a need for better hardware when the software is still built for the original. This hardware refresh rate just doesn't work.
Keep going Ouya. I can't wait until you eventually tank, if even just to prove once and for all that mobile games are NOT going to replace console gaming.