Android gaming platforms

[Tanner Netterville]

Last weekend I received my OUYA console and have been playing some
awesomely fun games. The catalog of games is still pretty small and
there are quite a few that barely qualify as alpha builds (some that I
tried barely qualify as tech demos.) The most entertaining OUYA games
I have seen so far are the ones that have everyone on the couch
laughing and yelling through huge smiles like Stalagflight, Ice Rage,
and Square Off. I'm excited for the platform and the hours of arcade
style multiplayer my living room will see.

A few days ago I saw an article about Mad Catz android console and
this morning I saw an ad for Nvidia's Shield. My first reaction to
seeing both of these was "crap... we're going to see an explosion of
android gaming platforms." My concern was that having too many android
consoles out would slow the progress that any one could make.

Then I realized it may not matter that much because any game that
comes out on one can be ported to another very easily (an assumption
but I'm fairly confident of it.)

However it goes I'm still happy to have a direct path to building
games my friends and I can play in the living room.

How do you feel about the Android platforms?

-tanner

[Christopher Cotton]

If you want to get more responses, you might want to try posting it on the facebook group too. There are more folks who are active there than in email.

I think the Android platforms are good, though the big issue is what version of Android do you write for. Plus, what hardware capabilities do you plan for. With our game, Spaceward Ho! we have had lots of issues trying to adapt for different phones, and hardware, and OS. plus, we still get lots of support email about how it doesn't work on some version of the device.

For OUYA, I still don't think they will really sell enough to be a major platform, or to really be worthwhile enough to write for just it. We will see though.

 

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Christopher

[Caleb Garner]

Yea I'm on the fence with Ouya.. http://venturebeat.com/2013/06/20/i-kinda-hate-my-ouya/  and i'm definitely glad I wasn't an early adopter.  I am glad at least that the system didn't hit any significant snags to keep it from launching.  The fact that it's live is a great accomplishment.

I'm rooting for it though.  I believe the Ouya could still be great and I don't think it's time to throw in the towel at this stage.  They are pioneering a whole new platform with far less resources than any other console maker had.  Even with the millions they have, its chump change compared to PS or Xbox

What is nice to see though is that there are more android base game systems which actually is great news.  Because now if you make a game with android using a joystick, now you can port it to several platforms that require joystick..  and most likely they will all have similar enough buttons and layouts that this gives a single game that many more platforms and gamers to discover your game..   So I say bring it on..  

Caleb

[nick wagner]

I think the Ouya is super cool, and like Caleb, Im rooting for it as well.

I didn't back the kickstarter, but i'm looking forward to cheering from the sidelines.

[Christopher Cotton]

> Even with the millions they have, its chump change compared to PS or Xbox

I'm pretty sure they don't have anywhere near a million users yet. The kickstarter only had 63k backers and not all of those bought devices. My guess would be 100k max, and not everyone has one yet.

[Caleb Garner]

I was referring to millions of dollars they have.  that is chump change compared to Microsoft or Sony.

On Jun 24, 2013, at 11:34 AM, Christopher Cotton <m...@christophercotton.com> wrote:

> Even with the millions they have, its chump change compared to PS or Xbox

I'm pretty sure they don't have anywhere near a million users yet. The kickstarter only had 63k backers and not all of those bought devices. My guess would be 100k max, and not everyone has one yet.

[Christopher Cotton]

Ah… yeah, they don't really have the millions of dollars either though. Since a lot of that has to go to the hardware costs of the devices they are producing.

Anyway, will be interesting to see what happens with it.

--
Christopher

[Caleb Garner]

well they only needed $950,000 to have the amount needed to go to market and i'm sure that $950k already had a fair amount of buffer space in it...  and yes of course the extra approx 7.5 million was for additional units, if they didn't have some millions left over, after those expenses, they don't have a very good business model..  

remember $99 is the retail price..  that's what it will sell for at best buy.. or wherever they go to market..  so they MUST have a far lower price point to develop the hardware in order to be able to sell it to retail and still make something off those units.  This means they made that much more off of each of these preordered devices than they will ever make in retail so i'm sure they are still sitting on a nice chunk of change.  

I can't fathom they are anywhere close to broke right now..   but the point is even if they had all 8.5 million as pure profit, even that is still chump change compared to what Microsoft spent to get themselves in the business or Sony to develop the playstation, be rejected by Nintendo and go into the retail market.  

The big thing now is that they need to improve the quality of the games and the discoverability of quality games.  One of the downsides of having a unit that only costs $99..  its "just cheap enough" that people could probably buy it.. try it and shelve it..    never come back..   heck.. think about how the Wii became like that for many people..  it was $250 undercutting all the others.. but it was fadish and in time without more killer games people got tired of it..   who has a Wii now and regularly use it?  I never owned one, but i just never hear anything from anyone about them playing a game on their Wii..   this could be what happens to Ouya but faster..  

[Justin Giles]

The big thing now is that they need to improve the quality of the games and the discoverability of quality games.  One of the downsides of having a unit that only costs $99..  its "just cheap enough" that people could probably buy it.. try it and shelve it..    never come back..   heck.. think about how the Wii became like that for many people..  it was $250 undercutting all the others.. but it was fadish and in time without more killer games people got tired of it..   who has a Wii now and regularly use it?  I never owned one, but i just never hear anything from anyone about them playing a game on their Wii..   this could be what happens to Ouya but faster..  

Um....I have a Wii and regularly use it.  Honestly for my kids, games like Mario and Zelda along with the oldies from the original Nintendo & Super Nintendo are perfect for younger kids.  We play as a family and the kids get a kick out of it.  I have a Xbox 360 as well, but never got into it and the kids don't like it either.

Away from the digression though...I am an early backer of the Ouya.  I posted a review after I got it back in May.  They have come a long way in just a months time with the interface and fixing bugs.  It is great to see how much work they have put into it to make it better for release. The bigger games that studios have "committed" for the Ouya won't be out for a few more months.  I'm hoping that as more games come in, people will adopt it more.  What I fear though is players will not pony up for the full versions of the games as a whole and just play the demos.  That will be what ultimately kills the platform.

[Caleb Garner]

Well obviously some people still use their Wii..   however you also bring up a really great point about the exclusives..  if you had no Nintendo made games, would you play your Wii much then?  How many 3rd party games on the Wii keep you coming back?

the Ouya will need to find some games like this.  Either exclusives or I could see cost effective ports.  Probably ports because i can't imagine any studio would gamble on an untested platform.  

And yea with all games requiring a free to play / trial approach it will be interesting to see of the devs can get the big numbers needed for Free to Play to pay off.  

I was talking with a lead person at subatomic studios and they had negative experiences with their game (fieldrunners) being an "at launch" game on some prior platform.  So yea its still too early to say.

In my talks with Adult Swim, it seems that consumables are what people buy in their research compared to "unlocking content" aka Shareware.  This is unfortunate to me because I'm a fan of the shareware model.  So yea we'll see how it goes.  The good news is that it IS a console and with that people are more likely to understand that console games do cost more than $.99

I hope it works out.  It sounds like they are moving in the right direction and that's the most you can ask for.  The rest is up to the community to champion it or abandon it.