1. Limitations. The limitations of the hardware and the limitations of what can be done by a small team ,especially a team of one, produces similar results to retro gaming. Back in the day, it was small teams and they had to be creative with their limited hardware to make a game fun. Having less limitations could also produce good results but could also produce games more like interactive movies which a lot of modern games are like. That is good but it is good to have variety too and OUYA produces that. They can be more creative with game play instead of with a story. Even if future iterations of the OUYA would have specs equal to other consoles there would still be the small teams creating variety to add to what the big studios would bring. It is also interesting watching people try to push hardware to its limits.
2. Being open. With every OUYA being a dev kit and a low barrier of entry, a "homebrew" can be an "official" release. The little gals/guys can compete against the big gals/guys in a much more freer market that OUYA provides. More competition produces better quality and competitive prices over time. It gives us more bang for our buck. It also produces more variety like described above. I would like it to become even more open and as open as possible in the Open Source Software/Free Software sense though.
3. Console exclusives. It being more open than other consoles will bring in more console exclusives because the low barrier of entry will make it more likely that games from other platforms will be ported to the OUYA first before other consoles or brand new games will be brought to the OUYA first. I can already see this by most of the library already being console exclusives. No other console provides most of what is found in the OUYA's library.
4. A "Kickstarter device". It being open will bring in new games and the developers will come to OUYA first to use it to launch to other platforms.
5. Space saving. As a retro video game collector space is very important. The console is small and the entire library can fit on a hard drive. I have it all on one now. Space is kind of like a part of the price,"How much space does this game "cost" and should I get this game or another?" Unlimited space lowers this price to almost zero. It doesn't just help me but helps the developers because I don't have to pick which ones I'm willing to spend space on. I can fit them all on my "shelf".
6. Energy saving. My PS3 uses around the energy that a refrigerator does and doubles as a space heater. My OUYA uses energy closer to the Atari VCS. This has some cheap retro gaming electricity. The money that is saved from less electricity can be used on games. It also saves our planet from the aliens that are trying to change our atmosphere to match theirs.
7. The O-RANK. The O-RANK is genius. When I got Netflix, at first I loved that I could rank the movies and it would personalize suggestions. After awhile I realized that I was receiving the same things because everything else was being filtered out. It also caused even movies I like to get filtered out after my wife had her way with it. When I watch Netflix with her I'm crying for different reasons than she is. When something is personalized it causes a filter bubble to form around me and makes me wonder what I'm missing like searching on Google does by me getting different search results than everyone else(Google is not your friend). The O-RANK isn't like that. It gives us all the same results and those results being based on how engaging a game is produces the best results. They can act as reviews and/or suggestions from all OUYA owners because everyone is voting based on how they engage a game. It puts what most consider the best games on top and buries what most consider shovelware. It is like all OUYA owners are the ones providing the advertisements for the best games. This democratized system is one big "word of mouth" advertising system. It also gives the developers a strong incentive to compete for the "high score" because the more exposer they get the more money they make and the less exposer they get the less money they make. Since the O-RANK looks at things like the length of time a game is played then developers don't just have an incentive to get you to buy the game but they have an incentive to create their games in a way that you keep coming back and playing for long periods of time. This will give games with high replay value an advantage at getting that "high score". All this mixed with OUYA providing a much more freer market will over time make everything you first see the best quality and it will constantly raise the bar.
8. Speaking with developers. I have never owned a console that you can speak with the developers of so easily. Gamers can take part in the creation and updating of games by offering feedback, sharing bugs, etc.. This will produce better results than just guessing or the one way conversation of developers reading reviews and so forth without directly engaging in conversations. Even though all OUYA games are treated like non-free proprietary software(I hope that changes so that all varieties of software licenses can compete and coexist) there are community contributions to games similar to that of Open Source Software/Free Software. It also creates a sense of community which makes a more personal attachment to the games.
9. No discs. Instead of discs getting scratched and losing functionality the games can be updated and gain new functions. Other than scanning the hard drive, downloading games, and updating them there is the convenience of not having to constantly change the discs. There is also the convenience of not having to go drive to buy them with the bonuses of saving gas money and no wear and tear of my car. Faster delivery with the savings of not using a vehicle is time and money that can be spent on more games. There is also no optical lens that needs cleaned and when external storage gains the ability to transfer games from hard drive to hard drive and hopefully make backups then issues similar to a disc drive not working will not happen. Fixing a disc drive is harder than changing hard drives. Other than a hard drive and the easily replaceable fan the OUYA is a solid state device.
10. One year warranty and modifying your OUYA will not void your warranty. With a new iteration of the console coming out every year the warranty basically lasts from launch to the next iteration and with modifying it not voiding your warranty it comes with less restrictions.
11. Every game is free to try. I don't have to waste money just to find out if I like a game because I can try before I buy. It also provides a safety net from being tricked into a purchase with clever marketing that makes me think that a game that really sucks is awesome. So, it makes me more likely to make a purchase because I feel less likely to get disappointed when I can try before I buy. This gives developers a strong incentive to not create shovelware while ,at the same time, developers are more willing to take risks by creating a game that may or may not be shovelware because of how open the console is. This makes the OUYA more likely than other consoles to bring good games with new ideas instead of just producing more of the same.
12. Even though the OUYA runs on non-free proprietary software it is based on Open Source Software/Free Software. That makes it more modifiable so people can fix things. It lowers the price of the OUYA because they don't have to build an operating system from scratch. Since it is based on Android, developers don't have to learn a completely new operating system. I hope the operating system becomes even more based on Open Source Software/Free Software if not entirely comprised of it.
13. I love the design of the controller. It has it's flaws like all controllers but it is the best controller I have held this century. It is like they used my hands as a guide to making them. I love that they don't use proprietary batteries and since launch I have been using the Duracells that OUYA sent me with my controllers.
14. Emulation. The primary purpose of emulation is the preservation of the original hardware for when all the original hardware dies. As a retro video game collector this is important to me. It preserves games for future generations. This isn't a major issue yet but it will be and they can't wait until all the original hardware is dead to start working on the emulators. I hope that people a hundred years from now will have access to all the games we do. A secondary purpose to emulation is the convenience of playing all your back ups in one convenient place. This also helps with preserving the original hardware because I can just collect it without using it or just using it less. I haven't got into emulation yet because the OUYA games are so much fun but I plan on eventually making it my all-in-one console.
15. Virtual console. This is kind of like emulation but the OUYA being so open allows developers of older games to re-release them on the OUYA kind of like the Wii's virtual console. This has already happened to an extent but I expect to see more of it. Just as I plan on making the OUYA my all-in-one console, developers of older games will probably do the same. First party companies that no longer produce consoles like SEGA can bring their games to the OUYA and third party companies for past consoles or even computers, arcade coin-ops, etc can bring their games too.
16. XBMC. This is also kind of like emulation. I own over a thousand movies. It would be very convenient to put all of my movies on external hard drives so I don't have to take my movies out of their cases and create my own personal Netflix. This combined with emulation would allow me to store both my video game and movie collections in another room and have the OUYA with some hard drives hooked up to a TV in another. I could do the same thing with music. The OUYA already seems to be more of an all-in-on than the XBOX 180. I'll probably eventually be able to use it as another computer too.
17. The company. A corporation is legally considered a person but how the employees communicate, make mistakes, fix the mistakes, etc. it make OUYA seem like it is real people instead of an immortal god like entity sent from the depths of Hell.
18. The Revolution Will Be Televised. If OUYA becomes a successful company then other console makers will have to change their ways to compete. OUYA producing a much more open and freer market for console games is a hard thing to compete against. A freer market is a better market.
19. A lot of games/apps. On Christmas day the OUYA would have been launched six months ago but already has 579 games/apps and that number increases daily. That gives a big variety with all of them being free to try. A console has never done that before.
20. Being a member of OUYAForum. It is fun. I love it here. I want to carry OUYAForum's babies in my man womb.
21. Most importantly the games are fun and I'm excited about the OUYA just like I was when new consoles and games came out when I was a kid. I haven't felt like that in a very long time. I'm not even interested in the Big 3's consoles right now. I feel like a kid again.
I probably forgot some things but that is the gist of it.
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