Implications of the New Ouya Game Console

Hello again ladies and gents. In addition to this blog chronicling the adventures of Deedlitt through the vast and expansive World of Warcraft, I'll also be commenting on various emerging technologies and gadgets related to the gaming industry.

An "Ouya" console with controller.

Starting off today, I would like to mention a Wired.com article regarding the Kickstarter-funded game console "Ouya", which has been causing quite a stir due to the massive amount of funds that have been flooding in for it. Since just yesterday when I last checked the numbers, the console's funds jumped already by another $200,000. So what is so special about Ouya? Get familiar with it first by checking the Wired.com article below, as well as a link to the Kickstarter site:

http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2012/07/ouya/
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-video-game-console?ref=live

A $99 console you say? 1 GB of RAM and a quad core processor you say? Free games you say?!! This sounds like it's too good to be true!

Well, that's because it probably is.

Perhaps I'm just being too much of an Ebenezer Scrooge coming to put a damper on everyone's Christmas, but I have serious doubts about the positive effects this console will have on the industry. Before I go too much into the details as to why I think that though, I would like to go off on a slight tangent.

There's been a running joke on the Internet that refers to outspoken PC gamers as the "glorious PC gaming master race", poking fun at the fact that they are perhaps a bit too passionate and elitist about the benefits of gaming on a PC over a console device, but nonetheless, there are good reasons why they are so passionate about it. As someone who has been playing games on nearly every major gaming hardware platform for over the past decade, I can attest that the PC, even with its lacking lineup of exclusive AAA titles and numerous poor console ports in recent years, still easily beats out all the other competition in terms of the amount of entertainment value you get out of it and the sheer versatility it offers for gaming. Playing that same game you thought was good on a console but now with true 1080p resolution, buttery smooth 60 frames per second, precision keyboard and mouse controls, and endless modding potential makes so much more of a difference than many people may think, and yet sadly the majority of gamers are still largely ignorant that such a gaming machine is quite easily within their reach. It's a common misconception I see over and over again that console gamers think you need to spend upwards of $3000+ for any kind of decent gaming PC, and this simply isn't even close to the truth.

So what does all that have to do with Ouya? Well, I would be willing to wager that of the 36,000 donors who raised $4.7 million for this console thus far, probably 75% if not more don't even own a decent gaming PC, and it's a real shame because the PC already offers more or less all the same features and open-ended capabilities of the Ouya console and then some.

The Ouya Box

I can really appreciate what Ouya is trying to do. They want to bring more diversity and innovation back into gaming, and that is something I can very much sympathize with. Looking back at some of the most popular games from a decade ago, nearly every one I can list off the top of my head plays vastly different from one another. Now looking at some of the top games within the last couple years, they're almost all games that aim for ultra-realistic, dark, and gritty graphics, and the gameplay involves some kind of shooting and killing. But nonetheless, I think that Ouya is taking the wrong approach. Innovators like Notch and his creation "Minecraft", the team behind the Humble Indie Bundles, and the Steam marketplace for the PC have already been helping facilitate a boom in the indie game scene that has been producing many diversified titles, and they're doing all this without having to create yet another hardware platform to cram into your living room.

"Canabalt", a game coming to Ouya.

Ouya strongly wants to push a free-to-play model for the majority of games, but for anyone who has experienced this model before, they know that it's hardly free, and in many cases in order to unlock all of the premium content in the game, you can easily find yourself spending well beyond the standard $60 for a retail AAA title. Because all the charges are incremental, it can insidiously make customers end up spending more than they normally would without even realizing it. I can see this model quickly becoming even more abusive than other underhanded content distribution methods such as day one DLC and pay-as-you-play subscription services. In fact, there's already an emerging alternate terminology that many gamers have begun to use to better describe free-to-play, and it's called pay-to-win.

There's also the problem to consider that the introduction of this new console means we will continue to see new games become arbitrarily more inaccessible to gamers merely by virtue of being exclusive to a certain console. Because there would now be four main contenders in the console market, that means you've got to drop yet another hefty chunk of money on another piece of hardware just to play a new exclusive title for it, which many gamers won't be looking forward to doing if they've already bought two or three systems that more or less perform the same function. Compound this with the rumors that Valve is possibly developing a "Steambox" console, we could easily see this jumping to five contenders in the next generation, which if that turns out to be true, console gaming just got doubly expensive really fast if you want to experience all that it has to offer.

A shooting game on Ouya.

Admittedly I may be over-generalizing a bit when I say this, but I just get the overwhelming feeling that the gamers who are funding this console are so eager to experience something new and different in the market that they are letting their emotions cloud their better judgment. Ouya doesn't bring anything really revolutionary to the gaming industry; it's just continuing the trend of bringing more limited versions of content to consoles that PCs have been delivering already. If you're really craving for something new and fresh in the gaming industry, save up some money and grab yourself a gaming PC, then hit up the Steam marketplace for a plethora of unique and engrossing indie titles. The more you support indie devs, the more you help encourage innovation in gaming. Perhaps I'm wrong. Maybe Ouya will revolutionize gaming somehow, but for the time being I remain very skeptical.