Opportunity #11: Big Screen Rivals

[James Andrew Coote]

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Big Screen Rivals

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OUYA’s biggest threat comes from Valve, but OUYA has the ability to harm steambox sales through PC streaming apps

Valve’s upcoming Steambox console has the potential to really upset the hegemony of the big three console makers head on, in a way that OUYA is only able to do indirectly. As champions of the PC platform, Valve is also well positioned to bring their loyal customer base across to the console space. With many AAA games being released cross platform, including on PC via Steam and on other consoles, it should be relatively straight forward for developers to port their offerings across to Steambox.

It can also provide indie developers new opportunities to get their games onto the TV and likely with a considerably larger audience than OUYA will initially have. All that adds up to a serious threat to the OUYA.
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<td width="60%" valign="top">Rewind back to summer 2012, and one of the early hopes for the OUYA came in the form of OnLive. The cloud gaming/streaming service allowed gamers to remotely play video games over the internet, with their games controller sending inputs to the central servers playing the game, and the corresponding audio and video stream being piped back to the gamer’s TV.</td>
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Unfortunately, as good as the idea was in principle, the business side of the equation was unable to make the concept work, resulting in eventual bankruptcy. Despite being bought out, a big question mark was left hovering over the future chances of OnLive coming to the OUYA.

While cloud gaming may have failed to take off (at least for the meantime), there exists a far simpler solution, and one that may yet put OUYA on a collision course with Steambox: Streaming games from PC to the TV via the OUYA.

Most PC gamers naturally opt for high end machines capable of both running the latest games and handling the processing needed to capture video output and stream it across the network. In turn, the OUYA is perfectly capable of receiving that stream and outputting it to the TV in full HD. With Steam’s Big Picture mode, designed for when PCs are directly plugged into the TV, it would be relatively easy to stream the OUYA controller commands back to the PC and have them mapped to whatever setup the player desired.

The network latency problems that come from cloud gaming would be much reduced, as people stream across their local network, rather than to a distant central server. In fact, such streaming apps already exist for PC to Android streaming, and it is not hard to imagine one retrofitted with the OUYA in mind could have a big impact.

I should point out that this is all hypothetical. The current PC/Android streaming apps are not ideal for use with games and the OUYA, and the Steambox has not even been seen by anyone outside of Valve (much less launched to the general public). Never the less, these two new entrants to the console market may find themselves stepping on each other’s toes, and perhaps not entirely unintentionally

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Published simultaneously in conjunction with Crystalline Green (You can view back issues here)

[tickling]

Biggest threat in order is from Apple, Amazon (not a misprint!), Google and then Valve. Valve will challenging the big three as mentioned in the article the others will go after the micro-console market. I understand that the steambox will be coming in 3 flavours. If Apple add a controller, as rumored, and partner it with their Apple TV then what happens Ouya will not get a look in. All indications are that Amazon are going into smartphone market shortly. Many people will not be aware that they have been building up there gaming infrastructure with both GameCircle and there own Gaming studio. Add into the mix there current ecosystem a Kindle TV box is not out of the question. They you have google who pulled there media streamer shortly after the Ouya finished its Kickstarter. Again its not out of the realms of possiblity that they would pull off something similar as above.

Your second point about streaming games then project shield would be a bigger threat as its already in their plans. Overall the biggest threat to Ouya are Ouya themselves for the well discussed issues. Again I am very worried about the future of the Ouya and imo they are trying to run before they can walk.

[James Andrew Coote]

Yes, I didn't mention Project Shield actually. I think the big catch there is needing an NVidia graphics card, while many PC gamers are still opting for ATI/AMD. Plus the price and some other factors I think make Shield a touch less appealing.

With Apple TV, it's a huge and looming threat, but just lacks in content curation and indie appeal, two areas where OUYA and Steam have enough advantage and/or differentiating to be considered as competing in a slightly different part of the market. People will inevitably compare an Apple TV to a PS4 or xobx720, just as they have done with the OUYA, and I suspect the conclusion once the hype dies down is that it can't deliver the really high quality graphical fidelity, while suffering from exactly what OUYA has been (somewhat unfairly) accused of: Being full of mobile games a) designed for touch and b) of a shallow and less immersive nature

[AdyCarter]

You can walk into GAME and for £99 walk out with a device that has online functions, can browse the internet, stream movies, access netflix/lovefilm and such, has a catalogue of thousands of titles, most of which are free to try and still has hundreds more titles coming out this year. Games for this device start for as little as free! and you can buy them digitally. It has a thriving selection of exclusive titles, a dedicated digital store and even a whole armada of "indie" games and theres nothing really to stop anyone else making and releasing games for the device through its indie channel.

I am of course not talking about the Ouya, I'm talking about picking up a 120gb Xbox 360 and spending the extra £9 on something else.

That to me is Ouyas biggest big screen rival. Not things that don't exist yet, but something thats here right now and offers quite a tempting proposition...

[James Andrew Coote]

MS can't really push the xbox360 on the basis of the indie selection since they ditched XNA, and by proxy, the community built up around it. The exclusive titles and AAA games of yesterday look a little tired compared to the new generation consoles. Or at least they will in a year's time, which I think is when the OUYA will really start gaining mass market traction if it ever will. By then, nothing new will be on the horizon for old-hat PS3/xbox360, and people will have munched their way through the next gen launch titles. OUYA will offer something quirky and different, will have battled through the early criticisms and all the hate directed at it, picked up a clutch of excellent titles, with a large lineup of solid if otherwise unremarkable games to back those up, and be perfectly poised to provide an alternative gaming experience

So while I agree it is a big dampener right now on both opportunistic / impulse purchases, as well as consumers new to the market, the 360 is on an inextricable downward curve that will really start to drop off just at the point when OUYA should be doing the inverse.

[tickling]

MS can't really push the xbox360 on the basis of the indie selection since they ditched XNA, and by proxy, the community built up around it. The exclusive titles and AAA games of yesterday look a little tired compared to the new generation consoles. Or at least they will in a year's time, which I think is when the OUYA will really start gaining mass market traction if it ever will. By then, nothing new will be on the horizon for old-hat PS3/xbox360, and people will have munched their way through the next gen launch titles. OUYA will offer something quirky and different, will have battled through the early criticisms and all the hate directed at it, picked up a clutch of excellent titles, with a large lineup of solid if otherwise unremarkable games to back those up, and be perfectly poised to provide an alternative gaming experience

So while I agree it is a big dampener right now on both opportunistic / impulse purchases, as well as consumers new to the market, the 360 is on an inextricable downward curve that will really start to drop off just at the point when OUYA should be doing the inverse.

Cant see it now they had momentum and killed it with this shipping fiasco. The ouyagameathon reminds me of the schemes tried at Onlivefans to get developers on that system. While very noble it smacks of desperation. Compare it too the gamestick at the moment. Everyday announcing games and a lot of them are games you would like to play. Adys point on the Xbox is well made you walk into the shop do you take the chance on a £99 Ouya or the established system like the Xbox or PS which I expect will get to level soon. Like Onlive it may of been a little early it will launching into the market when current gen consoles will be at the same price and they are more powerful than it and it will not get to the mass market to succeed.

[Masaaki]

The ouyagameathon reminds me of the schemes tried at Onlivefans to get developers on that system. While very noble it smacks of desperation.

You do realize that's a community run effort and not an official OUYA Inc thing, right?

[tickling]

You do realize that's a community run effort and not an official OUYA Inc thing, right?

yes i do something similar was done at onlive forums. again its down to imo no killer games for the ouya and the community is trying to pull some bigger name games on board. Its all fair enough having indie games on board but there isnt mainstream support it will die.

[JCPRuckus]

Of the possible rivals...

"Project Shield" costs too much... i.e., as much as a major console.

"Steambox" will probably cost too much... i.e., as much as or more than a major console.

Gamestick offers nothing over OUYA except a small increase in portability. Outside of a paying contract I can't see why any game on Gamestick wouldn't come to OUYA. However, the more powerful hardware and additional buttons will limit porting the other direction.

Used 360...I would never purchase a used 360. I'd rather pay full price for a new one that I know won't RROD.

Potential Google game box... I wouldn't worry about an official one yet, but we'll see what they do with Google TV at I/O next month. They might make it very easy for one of their partners to jump in the fray.

Apple TV with controllers... Could be a killer... On the other hand, it could have been a killer for the past several years too, but it still hasn't happened. So no sense in worrying until it's actually announced, I should think.

This is, of course, just my opinion. But I don't see any meaningful, direct competition for OUYA until at least next year. The closest thing is Gamestick and that's not as good for the money unless it gets a bunch of good games that OUYA doesn't.

[James Andrew Coote]

The point of the article was not really about who is the bigger rival to OUYA. It's that there is an opportunity for PC to TV streaming via the OUYA. I.e. The OUYA could in theory run (stream) Steam from your PC, which somewhat negates the need to buy an expensive Steambox for those that already run Steam on their PC, but still want that (steam) Big Picture Mode experience.

The point about OUYA is that there are some really exciting things that could be done with it, and nothing else offers quite the same breadth of capability. This is just another example of something that may turn out to be the killer app.