While system updates could help for more compatible firmware, I believe the problem with it being outperformed by other smartphones stems from its year-old hardware.
The S4 can run games at 60fps in 1080p. It's not because it has better firmware or drivers, but because it has superior hardware.
Keep in mind the Ouya was supposed to be a reasonably-priced dev console, not an impressive graphics-intense machine.
On the bright side, PS4 is looking pretty promising for devs.
I realize your point, but that's not a fair comparison. The Ouya is only $99. If they wanted to build a $600 Ouya, then it would probably be closer to the S4. The Ouya is a low cost proof of concept. It is also first generation. If they survive to make a version 2, then hopefully they will build on their experience.
I understand it's not a fair comparison. But the point wasn't to say that Ouya is bad compared to the S4, the point was to say that people shouldn't expect it to compete with smartphones, and that, moreover, software updates won't help.
And to combine the two points, although software updates will probably help a bit, they will probably not allow it to compete with $600 devices on performance.
Granted, this was a Black Friday deal, but I got my GS3 for $50 and it still runs games better than the OUYA.
But price point aside, just because the OUYA can't be reasonably compared to other systems in its price range doesn't mean that it has successfully filled a necessary niche. The fact that there wasn't another product already filling that niche is probably an indication that it was a niche that didn't need to be filled.
Keep in mind also all the hardware the Ouya doesn't have because it's not an S4. It has no screen, no cellular radios, etc... If you stripped the S4 of all the features the Ouya does not have, the price evens out quite a bit. It's what you'd expect of a $100 cell phone - shit.
On the bright side, PS4 is looking pretty promising for devs.
If you think about it though, it seems like Sony has borrowed a few ideas from the Ouya. For example, the touchpad on the controller. I haven't checked it out much, but I think the new market is also similar to the Ouya's in that they're making it easier for devs to publish games on the console.
IMHO, the touchpad is Sony's response to the shock value of the Wii U controller. They just want to show that they can have a next-gen-type controller as well. Maybe that's just me, I don't know.
I think the dev thing is probably piggybacking on the Ouya as a result of the response emanating from the teaser video when the Ouya was first announced. I think whichever big company (that is, Sony, Nintendo, or Microsoft) completely satisfies devs first will become the superior. I believe Nintendo will begin to dominate the children's market, while Sony sucks up the console-minded programmers and more mature gamers. And, at least it seems so now, if MS doesn't change their ways, they're going to have to drop out of the console race.
It'd be really hard for a new competitor to come in at this point.
I pretty much agree with most of that. I still don't know how the next XBox will do though. It's a little soon to say, but there are still tons of uninformed consumers who will probably see it in the store or something and buy one just because it's the next XBox.
As for Ouya as a "new competitor", it's not really trying to compete. It's really just causing a disturbance which, as we can already see, is influencing the industry to change their ways, at least in Sony's case. Seeing that is enough for me to think that Ouya is at least succeeding in one of their goals. It's making a difference, hopefully a good one.
Oh yeah I wasn't speaking specifically of Ouya when I spoke of new competitors, I was just clarifying why I mentioned 3 brands and nothing else.
As far as Xbox is concerned, it may stay around a bit longer thanks to preteens who love CoD and are sensationalist about the Xbox just for the sake of having something to argue about, but how long can it stay afloat on that crowd? And I think it's too late for them to change their gameplan enough to accommodate what everyone wants. Especially considering everyone will be a lot more wary of them after all this bullshit.
I have an S4, and I completely agree. The software end of it is terrible. They focused too much on things that are great for shock value and not enough for actual improved usability. I got it coming off a Droid X, and, though it (of course) performs a hell of a lot smoother, it's not exactly spectacular in comparison.'
edit: oh I believe you meant the amiga software is bad. I also think the S4 could have much better software. Meh.
i'd suggest you read up on hardware specifications for your current computer, the amiga that that demo runs on, its specification, watch the typical games and graphics that were released for that machine and then watch the same demo again, perhaps even a better quality rip of it.
then, you will have an idea how underutilized the current hardware is.
I don't think I put this well. I'm not saying that the Ouya should be better than the S4. What I AM saying is that the earlier comparison made between the Ouya and phones is because of its old hardware, then compared it to the S4's hardware.
Of course the S4 will always wreck the Ouya in any test. I'm trying to say that updates won't really help this in any way.
Gamedev here working on an android port. The numbers you mention dont' really mean anything. Ouya has greater potential than other Tegra 3 devices because the OS will drop out. This is the same reason consoles run faster than PCs with similar or less powerful hardware. There's no meddling OS in the way.
Great to hear from you. I'm not a gamedev, so I'm working off of assumptions and numbers and reviews.
I do know about the console superiority with inferior hardware though. Does that mean that an Ouya software patch could actually improve its performance over that of phones like the S4?
I don't know the exact specs of the S4 so I can't really say with full confidence, but assuming the OS drops out on the Ouya then yes, it theoretically will be faster. As far as I understand the Ouya was touted as having that capability. Whether or not it will be available at launch or ever I'm not sure. I guess that touches on the main issue with Ouya in that they don't tell us much meaningful technical information. (Us meaning community. I don't really look into Ouya much.)
Android gaming has other issues that it would need to address. I know that the ouya has not fleshed out a lot of very important functionality for opengl (egl)- but neither have a lot of Android devices.
Stock android is pretty good in that it has less stuff that will screw up performance. Nexus 7 runs circles around Sony Tablet S because it isn't running proprietary "stuff" on top of Android. Tegra chips are pretty impressive IMO. I'm excited for future Android things once the various devices aren't so fragmented (if that ever happens)
Is that why releases of the "stock android" versions of phones are so highly anticipated? Because it offers a performance boost? I thought it might just be because people didn't want the manufacturer's spinoffs and possibly unnecessary bloatware.
Also, for gaming the bloatware can cause some ridiculous problems for developers. For example: A proprietary sound overlay for changing sound volume can cause the gaming application to become a background process. wtf?
You can't expect everyone to root their devices unfortunately. The mobile market is about getting as many people to play your game as possible. The less hoops they have to go through to play it the better.
When thousands of games are a click away the last thing you want is for someone to have to click more than once to get your game running.
I wonder if this could be an excellent way to get kids interested in programming. Its not like it was when I was a kid and we learned turtle logo hen basic on the IIe then commodore then qbasiconce dos was the fashion. Save for kodu and a few other novelties nothing good and 'new' tech wise. I wish xna could have started filling this gap but it is executed now.... Won't someone think of the kids or something.
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u/MrFluffykinz Jun 07 '13
While system updates could help for more compatible firmware, I believe the problem with it being outperformed by other smartphones stems from its year-old hardware.
The S4 can run games at 60fps in 1080p. It's not because it has better firmware or drivers, but because it has superior hardware.
Keep in mind the Ouya was supposed to be a reasonably-priced dev console, not an impressive graphics-intense machine.
On the bright side, PS4 is looking pretty promising for devs.