Reply With QuoteComparing roku to PS as an argument why you should compare fireTV to OUYA?Originally Posted by Paul Laimal-Convoy
You just went full potato.
I see this as direct competition ouya is losing a sale to me, I don't see how it could be construed as anything else but maybe ouya is getting their game library put on amazon so they can exit the hardware business or only release "special editions" if that was the case than they would chirp about them not being competition
Comparing roku to PS as an argument why you should compare fireTV to OUYA?
You just went full potato.
Never go "full potato".
Back on topic: comparing the Ouya to the FireTV is like comparing apples and oranges- you can't really, plus I've heard that xbmc performs better on the Ouya than what FireTV offers- granted no clue how accurate that info is, but there ya go. Considering that FireTv's main angle is streaming, that's a pretty big boot in their face already.
Ladies and gentlemen of the Forum. Lets get back on point. I find it interesting that more than one news source are interviewing OUYA about the Kindle fire. Like OUYA are the authority on android console gaming.
I am interested in the Fire TV but have no reason to buy one. Mainly because it doesn't do much more than my current toys can do. The more I read these articles the more happy I am with my OUYA as a media player.
As for gaming. paying an extra $40 for a controller sucks, as we all know 8gigs of storage Sucks. the benefits of the Kindle fire for gaming are more on the look and feel of the games they've shown us. They look polished.
Lots of folks will buy the Kindle fire...not all will play games on it. Just like when the Wii got Netflix...many became used only for that.
I've been pulling up reviews and info on the Fire TV. If I were working for Ouya, I'd play up some of these differences.
-Controller support: Ouya controller works, PS3 doesn't. Haven't seen many others tested yet.
-Sideloading is more difficult than Ouya. Not super tough, but still more steps than Ouya. Enough that it might deter casual users from trying to put stuff like XBMC on it. Running sideloaded apps requires a custom launcher, which also has to be sideloaded.
-As others have pointed out here, controller sells separately. Hence, Ouya is technically cheaper.
-The marketplace runs on its own currency, like the XBOX 360 used to. Most gamers don't want to put up with that.
The Fire TV may have its advantages, but it comes with many drawbacks that you don't have with Ouya as well. If Ouya's worried about this as competition, pointing out some of those drawbacks would be a smart move. However, the company's marketing strategy has seemingly been one of peaceful coexistence since the beginning, so it would take a bit of a shift in philosophy to go that route.
Comparing Fire TV to OUYA is valid. Gaming may not be Amazon's primary focus, but let's face the facts. Fire TV will get better 3rd party support than OUYA has to date (like it or not, that Amazon name carries a lot of weight). Also take into consideration that Amazon has apparently put considerable resources into their own in-house game development, and the whole gaming being a "bonus" line starts to feel like more and more like a purposefully-weighed understatement. I went ahead and have bought a Fire TV.
Does that mean that I'm retiring my OUYA? Not hardly. I still have $25+ worth of game credits I need to use, I still think there are worthwhile games coming and I still think there's a niche for the platform (although I'm not so sure how well making OUYA little more than a game store on multiple hardware platforms is really going to help carve that out, if at all). It's not getting disconnected and I expect to continue using it for XBMC and to play games I love (like Locomalito's games, which I don't expect on the Fire TV, for whatever reason).
I also don't see much point in making the forum a general microconsole forum. There are plenty of general console/gaming forums out there that those of us who are so-inclined already use. Taking away the OUYA-specific nature of the forums takes away the primary-reason I keep coming back. I don't come here to hear about the GameStick, MOJO, Vita TV, Fire TV, etc. I come to find out the OUYA goings-on. Making this a more general gaming site would only make it less relevant. I think it would be easier to find people who are passionate about OUYA than it would be to find people who are passionate about microconsole-gaming in general, (which is frankly, dry, boring and underwhelming, in and of itself). What makes OUYA interesting, to a great extent, is the ideology behind it, not the tech, the chipset being used or any of the things that would group the cube with any number of other Android-based lookalikes.
Amazon's investor's actually aren't pleased with this move. I suspect they're overreacting, but so are we. I think once the hype dies down, this will be just another media box. No more, no less. I posted a link over in the other thread.
I like sports but not all sports. I go to ESPN and go into only the sports I'm interested in. I could find a different site for each sport but that wouldn't be as convenient and would take more time. If I own a website I don't want people leaving my website to view a similar one when I could cover those topics too. ESPN wouldn't be close to what it is if they covered just one sport.
Ouya can still have its whole own section. I don't think it would change the forum too much for ouya fans.
There is a very good chance ouya doesn't make it another year. Eddie has put a lot of time and money in this. Some of the mods have donated a tremendous amount of time here. When ouya shuts down it will be too late to switch then, at least not with a ton of extra work and time. You say you like the forum so this move would help secure the forums future.
Making these forums into a more general site for other microconsoles as well as OUYA came up before, but we decided against it, because changing the whole nature of the forum would cause a whole lot of consternation and drama, but in all likelihood only generate a small number of new members. Plus OUYA is in the name.
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Fire TV absolutely is a games console, but the sort of consumers who it is aimed at, don't think of themselves as "gamers" and get turned off by all the usual stereotypes around gaming. TV streaming is important in of itself, but you're only likely to get one Amazon Prime subscription out of each customer. What the TV streaming does is get this gaming device into the home via the back door.
The point about the controller being optional is interesting: If it came with a controller as standard, then it'd start to look a lot like a games console, rather than a streaming box with games as an extra. That would freak out a lot of potential customers, who in their minds, don't want an "Amazon Xbox". It's better to drive adoption of the device early on, get everyone subscribing to TV streaming, then worry about how to get them playing (and paying for) more content, of which games is the obvious first and biggest category of content Fire TV can serve.
As for the interview, it suits both sides to distance themselves from each other. Amazon are at pains to stress they are not a games console for reasons explained above. And OUYA don't want to be superseded by Fire TV.
Microconsoles represent a massive gap in the market. OUYA was the first product to recognise that and try to fill it, but has ended up getting stuck in one tiny corner, a small niche within that. The much bigger casual games audience is where Fire TV is aimed. Right now, the two aren't competing directly, because there is still a lot of wide open space for newcomers. But I predict that Amazon will eat up the ground between it and OUYA pretty quickly, so that in a year's time (or less?), they are really encroaching on OUYA's patch:
James makes some very good points. Amazon don't want to have the same image OUYA does because it's initial audience is not the same. As both products grow they will eventually hit a point that they compete but both target games in a different way. Amazon are clearly aiming for the smart TV and tablet style casual audience, making the point that the box is more of an entertainment hub than a console, while OUYA are aiming more at the bedroom coder and people who want something a bit different from the big 3 (although still with a crossover with some mobile style games and ports).
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