Lets be honest - Controller Recall

[Nitrogen_Widget]

Nitrogen, that does make sense - but since so many users report the same problem, I assume there is a common cause. If OUYA knows these cause, they should fix the problem at it's root. The logical conclusion from their behavior is (a) they don't know what's wrong, so they troubleshoot from small to big, or (b) the issue is different from user to user.
(a) seems highly unlikely (and too terrible to consider), so I must stick with (b), I guess. I'd still much prefer if they enquired about the OUYAs serial number, the controller serial number, firmware version and after that would be able to say quite clearly: "It's your console" or "It's the controller".

but, define "so many".
I see a handful of the same people always complaining and most of those not even bothering to contact customer support followed by people all over the internet who don't even have the device just repeating what they "heard" on blogs in the comments section.
Some are also xbox fanbois & just trolling also.

Clearly how ever many controllers are bad it isn't enough to put them out of business.
The fact they are selling refurbished controllers & consoles also should tell us they are taking back the bad equipment & replacing it with working devices.

How many xbox 360's had to have their gpu lift off the mainboard due to overheating before they actually issued an official recall?
Oh wait, microsoft didn't issue a recall, they extended the warranty.
Half of those units wound up dieing.
Yet considering how many xboxone's sold people seem to be ok with those numbers.

OUYA's percentage of bad products is not that high.
If it was they would be out of business because they couldn't swallow that expense.

[arcticdog]

This is the whole problem. The mistakes have been fixed and they aren't making the bad controllers anymore. Again if they would have changed model numbers for each revision they wouldn't have to recall everything.

Anyway I'm not sure how much you guys know about recalls but they could recall only certain chunk of serial numbers. Unless ouya is the stupidest company ever and just made random serial numbers and din't keep track of which serials were made when then a serial number recall would be fairly easy.

My dev-tier cheap-wad clear case kickstarter controller has a serial number on it.

But just because you have a list of serial numbers, perhaps even narrowing it down to a particular process identified as the cause of the problem, it's not always certain you'll know which items came out of that are problematic. Surely Microsoft had these serial numbers as well, but they addressed RROD the same way OUYA is with the controllers. Send them in and we'll fix/replace it.

That's not to excuse OUYA or Microsoft, by the way. It's just to illustrate that a recall is enormously expensive, and a nuclear option for things like this. Not only is the resolution similar to what it already is ("if you've bought this, send it back to us.. except this time, you should send it back even if there isn't a problem."), but it disrupts the retail presence. I guess you could argue that having these items on the shelf is disruptive as well, and I'd agree to that to some extent.

But it's pretty drastic to require Target and Best Buy to forcibly retract all of the products off the shelf, leaving that space empty until replacement products find their way there. In retail, back-order status is typically the only reason why a buyer/merchandise plan-o-gram manager will let a shelf space sit bare for any period of time because that's typically indicative of demand. Any company that hasn't paid for the shelf space is shooting themselves in the foot to voluntarily give up their presence on the sales floor, even if it's due to a mistake of their own doing. And that is why it never ever happens over a non-dangerous defect.

Recalls really only happen when there is a huge liability at play. And by that, I mean.. a huge class action problem resulting from injury or collateral damage.

[simple-smile]

but, define "so many".
I see a handful of the same people always complaining and most of those not even bothering to contact customer support
OUYA's percentage of bad products is not that high.
If it was they would be out of business because they couldn't swallow that expense.

Well, of course I don't have any numbers. So, are you saying you believe it's just a random malfunction that hits without a common cause? My view is naturally biased to see people complaining about the input delay, but from what I've read (e.g. the reviews on Amazon) the sense of input lag is common. Some may actually confound lag with TV latency, or there might be different issues at large, but lag is a widespread phenomenon as far as I can judge it.
Also, even if it's not THAT widespread, I would still believe there should be a way to find out what exactly is wrong, to tell people what to do to find out, and to act according to the cause. But of course I'm assuming certain things here. After all, it might be a rare, random event to have lag and throwing controllers at me twice that didn't help and then offering me a console is the very best solution.

I completely agree with your second point, by the way. Neither has OUYA much more faulty stuff, nor did they manage it completely wrong (or worse than other companies). Still, the silence bugs me. *If* they know what's going on, some transparency would be great - completely regardless of what Sony or Microsoft did in the past, for OUYA, Inc. and the present time, some transparency regarding the (IMO) common complaint of lag would be very welcome.

[arcticdog]

Well, of course I don't have any numbers. So, are you saying you believe it's just a random malfunction that hits without a common cause? My view is naturally biased to see people complaining about the input delay, but from what I've read (e.g. the reviews on Amazon) the sense of input lag is common. Some may actually confound lag with TV latency, or there might be different issues at large, but lag is a widespread phenomenon as far as I can judge it.
Also, even if it's not THAT widespread, I would still believe there should be a way to find out what exactly is wrong, to tell people what to do to find out, and to act according to the cause. But of course I'm assuming certain things here. After all, it might be a rare, random event to have lag and throwing controllers at me twice that didn't help and then offering me a console is the very best solution.

I completely agree with your second point, by the way. Neither has OUYA much more faulty stuff, nor did they manage it completely wrong (or worse than other companies). Still, the silence bugs me. *If* they know what's going on, some transparency would be great - completely regardless of what Sony or Microsoft did in the past, for OUYA, Inc. and the present time, some transparency regarding the (IMO) common complaint of lag would be very welcome.

From my understanding, the lag has to do with a couple of things that they've been able to identify for sure, and have often been able to correct when users engage them to begin the troubleshooting process:
1) The firmware on the controller is stale.

2) The antenna on some iterations of the hardware shares the burden of dealing with both wi-fi and bluetooth. And in some instances (not all), performance is affected for both WiFi and controllers.


So.. since there's not a real simple means of determining the version of your controller firmware (there is a way, but it's not really the press a button and give us a number solution that would be ideal for common consumers), and there's no way to know if the console antenna thing is the issue, their first course of action is to start with returning the controller. It's the least expensive, and still leaves you with your OUYA hardware so you can play games with other controllers you may have that work with the OUYA.

And since they can't create conditions that are specific to the environment your OUYA operates in, it's hard for them to test everything to make sure it works before sending it back out to you.

I have a clear case plastic kickstarter unit. No lag issues with the controller, but they are pretty cheap and crappy. I did have some wifi issues, but then that wasn't unique to my OUYA in my household because I have so many wifi and radio devices around (my wireless audio ceiling fan has been known to disrupt my Wifi, for example).

[SenVilan]

I only have one, simple thing to add to this thread:

If it wasn't for my DS3 working so well with it, I wouldn't have an OUYA right now.

At the same time, I don't think a recall would be the best way to handle things either.

[Ant]

but, define "so many".
I see a handful of the same people always complaining and most of those not even bothering to contact customer support followed by people all over the internet who don't even have the device just repeating what they "heard" on blogs in the comments section.
Some are also xbox fanbois & just trolling also.

Clearly how ever many controllers are bad it isn't enough to put them out of business.
The fact they are selling refurbished controllers & consoles also should tell us they are taking back the bad equipment & replacing it with working devices.

How many xbox 360's had to have their gpu lift off the mainboard due to overheating before they actually issued an official recall?
Oh wait, microsoft didn't issue a recall, they extended the warranty.
Half of those units wound up dieing.
Yet considering how many xboxone's sold people seem to be ok with those numbers.

OUYA's percentage of bad products is not that high.
If it was they would be out of business because they couldn't swallow that expense.

basically everything nitrogen said. we've got 20 members here bent out of shape. im sure ouya is well within the acceptable failure rate for hardware otherwise it would be a bigger story. as it stands its a handful of unfortunate forum members wherever ouya is discussed online making the most noise. but thats the case with every single hardware malfunction for every single piece of electronics ever made so what are ya gonna do?

if youre unhappy with a product dont support it.

[Nitrogen_Widget]

Well, of course I don't have any numbers. So, are you saying you believe it's just a random malfunction that hits without a common cause? My view is naturally biased to see people complaining about the input delay, but from what I've read (e.g. the reviews on Amazon) the sense of input lag is common. Some may actually confound lag with TV latency, or there might be different issues at large, but lag is a widespread phenomenon as far as I can judge it.
Also, even if it's not THAT widespread, I would still believe there should be a way to find out what exactly is wrong, to tell people what to do to find out, and to act according to the cause. But of course I'm assuming certain things here. After all, it might be a rare, random event to have lag and throwing controllers at me twice that didn't help and then offering me a console is the very best solution.

I completely agree with your second point, by the way. Neither has OUYA much more faulty stuff, nor did they manage it completely wrong (or worse than other companies). Still, the silence bugs me. *If* they know what's going on, some transparency would be great - completely regardless of what Sony or Microsoft did in the past, for OUYA, Inc. and the present time, some transparency regarding the (IMO) common complaint of lag would be very welcome.

in short, yes I am.

I suspect the boards inside of these OUYA's and controllers are reference boards manufactured by someone else, then assembled into a console by someone else after that.
Each one the lowest bidder.
I seriously doubt there was a big enough run of the original batch for whomever did the manufacturing to track bin #'s.

It's obvious they know there was an issue with some because they came out with the plastic OUYA with an internal antenna instead of the on chip antenna of the original.
But they can't just track it and publicly admitting their product has quality control issues when say maybe 10% actually does is just suicide.

I don't doubt people have issues with their consoles.
but I doubt it's as widespread as people seem to think simply because not everyone who buys product goes online & talks about it.
I doubt a quarter of the people who bought from amazon actually reviewed it.

[fireballs]

My dev-tier cheap-wad clear case kickstarter controller has a serial number on it.

But just because you have a list of serial numbers, perhaps even narrowing it down to a particular process identified as the cause of the problem, it's not always certain you'll know which items came out of that are problematic. Surely Microsoft had these serial numbers as well, but they addressed RROD the same way OUYA is with the controllers. Send them in and we'll fix/replace it.

That's not to excuse OUYA or Microsoft, by the way. It's just to illustrate that a recall is enormously expensive, and a nuclear option for things like this. Not only is the resolution similar to what it already is ("if you've bought this, send it back to us.. except this time, you should send it back even if there isn't a problem."), but it disrupts the retail presence. I guess you could argue that having these items on the shelf is disruptive as well, and I'd agree to that to some extent.

But it's pretty drastic to require Target and Best Buy to forcibly retract all of the products off the shelf, leaving that space empty until replacement products find their way there. In retail, back-order status is typically the only reason why a buyer/merchandise plan-o-gram manager will let a shelf space sit bare for any period of time because that's typically indicative of demand. Any company that hasn't paid for the shelf space is shooting themselves in the foot to voluntarily give up their presence on the sales floor, even if it's due to a mistake of their own doing. And that is why it never ever happens over a non-dangerous defect.

Recalls really only happen when there is a huge liability at play. And by that, I mean.. a huge class action problem resulting from injury or collateral damage.

Do you know what caused the majority of the RROD?

I had 2 during my 8 years with a 360. Both times it happened on my day off when I first got a new call of duty and had gamed for over 12 hours straight. My daughter has had a 360 for about 6 years no problem but isn't a hard gamer. My extra 360 I keep at my moms house for visits has never had a problem. I've know a bunch of people with 360s and every single RROD came during a extremely long gaming session. All the casual game player I know that play a hour or two here and there haven't had any problems.

So the 360s were good unless you put them through extreme situations. Clearly they didn't make the 360 for 12-24 hour sessions so when someone consistently does that it will break the system. Seems more like the problem was people were using it to a scope that it wasn't designed for. I'm using my ouya controller 6 feet away from the ouya. Am I using it for something it wasn't designed for?

There is a big difference between a product not working correctly day 1 in optimal conditions and a product breaking a year into being constantly put through extreme situations.

Not only did they extend the warranty from 1 years to 3 years for the 360 warranty on RROD but when I needed my 360 fixed the first they sent me a loaner, a box, packing material and a shipping label. Second time since I already had the box they shipped out a new console and I sent in my old one. Both times from my system breaking to getting a console to continue playing was less than 5 days. I believe Microsoft handled both my RRODs extremely well.

Ouya had me waiting 6 weeks for new controllers and the new ones are still terrible. They are forcing people to pay for shipping to return their poorly constructed controllers. How is that right?

Not only is it poor customer service to make people wait 6 weeks for replacements but its poor customer service to make customers pay for your mistakes. Its also really poor that the first controllers were going out with stick mapping issues that were quickly and easily noticed. Quality control sucks too. Communication sucks abs so does marketing. But hey instead of improving those things at least they have been ignoring us to make ouya everywhere that me a paying customer gets so much benefit from.

[flamepanther]

Actually, I read several places that the factories that built a lot of 360 units used solder with a lower melting point than what was specified in the design. So as far as Microsoft is concerned the 360 is made for marathon gaming sessions. Or rather, it's supposed to be, but the factory didn't build it right. That's why leaving it on for hours on end doesn't void your warranty even though it causes the system to desolder itself.

[sconfig]

Now I would like to share my customer service experience since the thread is going into said subject and it STILL deals with the controller and honesty here.

I have never witnessed a faster response from any customer service team in my life. And that is saying a lot since i'm a repair tech and am forced into doing warranty processing for places like kingston, dell, toshiba, you name it! What I think really speeds up my customer service response time was I did a lot of the troubleshooting for them be stating the version number of my controllers.

For those who cannot find their version number of their controller: go to MANAGE > SYSTEM > ADVANCED > arrow down to Bluetooth and select that > using your mouse pad select the equalizer bars/Settings icon next to "Ouya Game Controller" that has the word "Connected" underneath > Arrow down to "Firmware version" and select it. It will tell you what number you have: 0x0101 was dev controllers, I haven't heard anyone say that they have a 0x0102 perhaps its those bronze controllers? 0x0103 is the Ouya retail launch controller version. and 0x0104 is the version Ouya will update your controller to as of this point.

Once you give them your firmware version number and it is out of date they will give you an RMA within 24 hours.

I had 5 controllers that needed updating (4 for my gaming Ouya, 1 for my media center Ouya), shipping costed me $13.50 for Priority Mail to Ouya in California. 3 days to get there. Ouya received the controllers, updated them and send them back FedEx ground which I received in 4 days. Factoring in the weekend grand total round-trip was 7 business days or 9 regular days. Which is spot on average . They even updated my Ouya with the Orange xbox analog hats on it. Which a lot of companies would not even touch if the end-user modifies said controller. Although I can tell they popped it open to see what I did inside.

I suppose if I wanted it done faster I could've sent it next day with an ARS label to next day it back. But that would just be stupid expensive!

All of this was done at the end of July so the timing I used the support option in comparison to fireballs may be a major factor in the difference of support that they finally know whats going on. But I don't think you can really get any better with the tech support side for Ouya.