OUYA Video Game Console
One of the recent popular projects on the crowd-funding site Kickstarter is OUYA, a video game console with great hardware and powered by Android 4.0. The idea is to be an open and cheap console-based development platform for developers of all sizes. Not only will OUYA run most of the Android games already available (albeit some better than others depending on the input changes), developers can readily use popular Android development tools, such as Unity, to create new games and experiences. The team behind the project, and an impressive one at that, claims to already have a working prototype. And, as of this post, even though they originally asked for $950k, they?ve already raised more than $5.4 million! The market has spoken loudly and clearly.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-video-game-console
This is fantastic news, and if and when it becomes a reality, you can bet Hug a Panda will be on-board to bring some fun and unique games to the console. Before founding Hug a Panda, I worked as a computer programmer for a big-name developer of AAA titles for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and the likes. Video game development has always been my passion, and console video gaming in particular has been my love. During my 7+ years working in that industry, I?ve witnessed first-hand how resource-intensive, both in terms of money and time, developing a console game has become. In fact, one of the reasons I left the industry was that on the last game I worked on, my contribution was so insignificant in the grand scope of the game and so removed from the core gameplay that I realized this wasn?t what I wanted to do. Console games had become gigantic and complex beasts of endeavors. With the rise of the iOS development platform at the time, I turned to mobile app development, which has given me back the joy of making games again, despite on a much smaller scale, because I have much more control over all aspects of a project. However, I?ve always viewed mobile games as only part of the Hug a Panda portfolio and that one day I will go back to console game development when I have the resources. The advent of Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network games, which have proven that console games don?t have to have exuberant production values (read: insane development costs) to be fun, has shown me that the time to have a second look is getting closer. Still, it costs an arm and a leg to get a PS3 or an Xbox 360 development kit, and apparently the line to get an XBLA or a PSN game approved is longer than an indie developer like Hug a Panda can afford. Without a significant clout in the industry, Sony or Microsoft would never take me seriously.
OUYA is accelerating the time table of making this goal a possibility. Sure, Hug a Panda has yet to release a game on the Android platform, so there is still some learning curve ahead, but the path is significantly shorter and easier. On top of the developer-friendly technology, they have a simple and proven profit-sharing model ? developers set the price of the game, keep 70%, and they take the rest, just like the iOS and Android platforms. No crazy console maker licensing fees, no drawn-out approval time because you?re not a big publisher, and no rejection because your game isn?t ?appropriate? for the audience (translation: your game has very weird gameplay or simply not good looking enough for our console). OUYA will be the open game console not only in the technological sense but also in the business sense. In addition, not only is the development cost much lower than traditional gaming consoles, the expected retail price of $99 will be greatly appreciated by consumers as well. Big publishers can still port their $60, high-production-value games to this console, but the smaller and indie developers can also release the small and light $0.99 games. If there?s ever a console with true choices for the consumers, this will be it. I?m pledging my money today.
We live in an interesting time. In the last decade or so, games have become so expensive to produce that independent studios have been bought and merged into bigger companies. Then came Apple, who pioneered the smartphone as a software platform model, and it led to a surge of game veterans leaving the traditional game industry to make games for iOS and Android. Somewhere along the line, the rise of crowd-funding, spear-headed by Kickstarter, has become a great way to raise money to make higher quality games than your average indie offerings. Now we?re seeing hardware projects, even one as complex as a video game console, funded by purely word of mouth and the resource of many. When the big businesses in this industry get too set in their ways, we find a way to break out of the box and change the market.
This OUYA project has everything going for it. It has the support of both the developers and the consumers. It has all the ingredients of a disruptive technology for a stagnant industry. Targeted to be released in the first quarter of next year, only the market can show if there is room for an open game console. What do you think Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo will do? Will this push Nintendo to exit the hardware business as one predicted? What are your thoughts on OUYA?
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