Service for the Ouya will be ending next month

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The end is near for the Ouya. No, you haven't time-traveled back to 2013; official support for the failed little Android gaming box will be coming to a halt next month, after six years. On June 25th, parent company Razer will be shutting down services for the Ouya, meaning you will no longer be able to purchase games, use any remaining funds, or be able to play games that require online validation checks. If you do happen to have an Ouya, and games for it, you'll still be able to download any titles that you've previously bought. Additionally, Razer will also be shutting down their ForgeTV and MadCatz MOJO services on the same date.

Though the Ouya was considered dead on arrival by many, this marks the official end of the system's life.

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netovsk

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Ounoes

Puns aside, this might be the future of current digital purchases some day in the future. Just lost in the limbo...
 

Foxi4

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Well, it all comes down to if you're going to buy a phone anyways and how much you're going to pay for it. Since I'm not in the "smart phone" camp, the analysis for me is down to total cost. The Ouya as original sold was powerful for what it was and included. For what it's sold for now, it's still pretty comparable to a Raspberry Pi 3.

If I already had a phone, then like you say it'd be almost certainly more powerful than a Tegra 3 and I'd at most be shopping for a controller. At that point, I'd probably forgo getting a modern console entirely--well, I've done that anyways. *shrug*

To each their own, of course. Without the novelty, I'd probably only own one PC and that's it. From that perspective, everything else is pretty under powered and overly expensive.
I might be a bad example since I got a top-end phone at a ridiculous discount which made it viable to buy out of pocket, but I can imagine most people on contracts have hefty gaming power in their pockets too.
 

kuwanger

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I might be a bad example since I got a top-end phone at a ridiculous discount which made it viable to buy out of pocket, but I can imagine most people on contracts have hefty gaming power in their pockets too.

I on the other end could probably find a person or play selling older (3rd+ generation) phones at ridiculously cheap rates just for offline gaming that too would be more powerful than a Tegra 3. So, I can totally understand that perspective at one level. I tend to follow ETA Prime and others on Youtube checking out various new devices, and almost always it's the case that I might think or even comment how you can buy a used PC (Core2 Duo) off ebay for less with substantially more power. Obviously, though, that just isn't really a reasonable comparison for most people. They're not out bargain hunting.

Basically, I can't imagine any mainstream website scoffing at the PS4 because of how powerful their smartphone is. That's sort of the bizarre-ness to me in the comparison. And maybe I'm entirely wrong about it and there were websites doing precisely that. It's just sometimes it seems pretty clear that established industry leaders are treated really differently than unknowns doing the same thing. I guess it makes sense at one level because industry leaders can bleed tens of millions of dollars (or much more) and be an abject failure by most any measure, and people just tend to push all those failures under the rug because their very profitable few successes can fund it.
 
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Foxi4

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I on the other end could probably find a person or play selling older (3rd+ generation) phones at ridiculously cheap rates just for offline gaming that too would be more powerful than a Tegra 3. So, I can totally understand that perspective at one level. I tend to follow ETA Prime and others on Youtube checking out various new devices, and almost always it's the case that I might think or even comment how you can buy a used PC (Core2 Duo) off ebay for less with substantially more power. Obviously, though, that just isn't really a reasonable comparison for most people. They're not out bargain hunting.

Basically, I can't imagine any mainstream website scoffing at the PS4 because of how powerful their smartphone is. That's sort of the bizarre-ness to me in the comparison. And maybe I'm entirely wrong about it and there were websites doing precisely that. It's just sometimes it seems pretty clear that established industry leaders are treated really differently than unknowns doing the same thing. I guess it makes sense at one level because industry leaders can bleed tens of millions of dollars (or much more) and be an abject failure by most any measure, and people just tend to push all those failures under the rug because their very profitable few successes can fund it.
The difference between the two is that Ouya is, at its core, an Android device. A phone plays the same software the Ouya does, so the comparison feels appropriate. Mainstream consoles are more commonly compared to PC's, even though those kinds of comparisons quickly devolve into apples and oranges territory. For what it's worth, the Ouya was a good deal when it was new, it just didn't manage to penetrate the market as well as they predicted it would.
 
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smf

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Anyone remember those PC's that would "never be obsolete" because they had "lifetime upgrades" in the 90's and 2000's?

Lifetime upgrades means for the lifetime of the product, once they stop selling it then the product has reached the end of it's lifetime.

I might be a bad example since I got a top-end phone at a ridiculous discount which made it viable to buy out of pocket, but I can imagine most people on contracts have hefty gaming power in their pockets too.

I got one phone on contract and I am not going to get caught out again, it's almost always the most expensive way to purchase one. Buying a sim free unlocked phone on a 0% credit card is the way to go, although I would try to avoid even buying a phone these days. My friend gave me their old phone because the battery died, I got a clone battery & a new screen protector and it's been working great. The phone came out 5 years ago, but there are Android 8.1/9 builds that works well enough. It's got a few quirks and will probably fail eventually, but it's nice and small but still lasts more than a day on battery.
 
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kuwanger

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The difference between the two is that Ouya is, at its core, an Android device. A phone plays the same software the Ouya does, so the comparison feels appropriate.

But the form factor is completely different. The idea of Ouya was precisely that its store would have games for Android that worked well with a controller--something like Android TV that came out.

Mainstream consoles are more commonly compared to PC's, even though those kinds of comparisons quickly devolve into apples and oranges territory.

Because modern consoles (PS4 and XBox One anyways) are at their core PCs. There was some grumbling about that in the mainstream press, but as you say the apples and oranges territories basically made that more of a sidelined point.

For what it's worth, the Ouya was a good deal when it was new, it just didn't manage to penetrate the market as well as they predicted it would.

Yea, that's basically my point. On a value basis it was a decently good deal at the time, and there was enough apple/oranges to at least give the benefit of the doubt that market penetration was at least possible instead of merely writing it off. :/ I mean, I wrote it off a lot too, but it would have been nice if gaming journalists had been more balanced about it. They don't exactly write glowing reviews about Android TV, but they don't nominally throw shade on it either--which honestly, having Android in tons of devices which have no reason for it might be worthy of throwing shade over.
 

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But the form factor is completely different. The idea of Ouya was precisely that its store would have games for Android that worked well with a controller--something like Android TV that came out.



Because modern consoles (PS4 and XBox One anyways) are at their core PCs. There was some grumbling about that in the mainstream press, but as you say the apples and oranges territories basically made that more of a sidelined point.



Yea, that's basically my point. On a value basis it was a decently good deal at the time, and there was enough apple/oranges to at least give the benefit of the doubt that market penetration was at least possible instead of merely writing it off. :/ I mean, I wrote it off a lot too, but it would have been nice if gaming journalists had been more balanced about it. They don't exactly write glowing reviews about Android TV, but they don't nominally throw shade on it either--which honestly, having Android in tons of devices which have no reason for it might be worthy of throwing shade over.
I don't like the "consoles are basically PC's" line of thinking because, throughout history, this has always been the case and yet nobody complained. Most console designs ape pre-existing computers of the time, with some extra custom sauce on-top. The PS4 is as much a PC as most Nintendo home consoles are Apple computers, for instance.
 

kuwanger

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I don't like the "consoles are basically PC's" line of thinking because, throughout history, this has always been the case and yet nobody complained. Most console designs ape pre-existing computers of the time, with some extra custom sauce on-top. The PS4 is as much a PC as most Nintendo home consoles are Apple computers, for instance.

I don't really disagree, and I'd say the same thing about the Ouya. :/
 

Foxi4

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I don't really disagree, and I'd say the same thing about the Ouya. :/
I suppose you make a good point, as a stationary console with a large heatsink and fan, as well as an uninterrupted power supply, it could certainly squeeze more out of a Tegra than a tablet would, that's for sure.
 

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