Ouya Upgrade Theories

[knave]

The problem with that is sooner or later there will be a new kid on the block who can bring the power. Look how many imitators have popped up already.
2 years may be 2 years too late.

I could get behind a new/upgraded console sooner if they have enough improvements to add and if perhaps they throw out a discount to backers or somesuch. But I don't think any of this years tech is enough of an improvement for hardware...that leaves only more storage...and they did that with the white edition.

[Killswitch]

I could get behind a new/upgraded console sooner if they have enough improvements to add and if perhaps they throw out a discount to backers or somesuch. But I don't think any of this years tech is enough of an improvement for hardware...that leaves only more storage...and they did that with the white edition.

Someone could use the K1. But the price point will be higher.
They do need some wholesale changes like Discover and all that.

[wizzdingo]

...perhaps they throw out a discount to backers or somesuch.

I'm not holding my breath for this at all. In my mind at least, OUYA has met their obligation to their backers, and if their is an upgrade, everyone current owners and new, will be more or less on same playing field.

[TheJesBro]

I posted this in another thread, but it fits in nice here too:

I have a theory that they [Ouya] tested the market with the more expensive white console and the CALAMITY $40 off code. If you assume/guess they sold close to the same number of each, the average price is $95, which is about average retail (expensive version payed for the discount). Based on the positive response from the white console with a higher price point, they will probably be adding storage and breaking the $99 price point.... again, just a theory!

It would be interesting to see a $60-80 Ouya 1 redesign and a $130-150 Ouya 2 with a the newest Tegra chip and 16-32 GBs. That might fulfill a couple different markets: the cheap/casual/entry-level buyers and the technical/upgrade buyers .

Does Ouya's business model depend on game sales or console sales to survive?

[Eldon.McGuinness]

I think it has already been said by OUYA that they want to stick to the $99 price point, I'll see if I can find the article that mentioned it. The model is really supported more so by game sales, they take a 30% cut of game sales from devs.

[mmartino]

I posted this in another thread, but it fits in nice here too:

I have a theory that they [Ouya] tested the market with the more expensive white console and the CALAMITY $40 off code. If you assume/guess they sold close to the same number of each, the average price is $95, which is about average retail (expensive version payed for the discount). Based on the positive response from the white console with a higher price point, they will probably be adding storage and breaking the $99 price point.... again, just a theory!

It would be interesting to see a $60-80 Ouya 1 redesign and a $130-150 Ouya 2 with a the newest Tegra chip and 16-32 GBs. That might fulfill a couple different markets: the cheap/casual/entry-level buyers and the technical/upgrade buyers .

Does Ouya's business model depend on game sales or console sales to survive?

Consoles are not sold at a profit. They make their money on a 30% share of software sales

[knave]

I too have heard the OUYA team say they want to stick to the $99 price point and that's great. However, I think the Market (US) would have acceptance if the product was $129 or even $150 with better tech.

More power too them if they do stick to $99. I know that at $99 I am willing to buy two...but otherwise wouldn't if the price was higher.

[Eldon.McGuinness]

I would walk away from OUYA if it had a $100+ pricetag. Just not worth it IMHO.

[arcticdog]

It isn't just a library of established games that is important but if every year or two there is a new iteration without it then the developers have a very limited time to make money off of their games and less of an incentive to developer for the OUYA in the first place. But with backwards compatibility the developers have the opportunity to sell their games as long as OUYA is selling consoles. The things you are talking about with working on optimizing the software plays into backwards compatibility and the next iteration because Julie said they aren't fragmenting their OS. So, an OUYA 2.0 is suppose to be backwards compatible because it is suppose to be backwards compatible with the entire OS. In other words, instead of having two OS's for both, the current one will be on the the next iteration. So, software updates is working on the next iteration as much as working on hardware upgrades. It is suppose to be like upgrading to a new computer and putting the same OS on it that was on your last with all your old software working.

The "fragmentation" problem is hardly ever on the OS even though most journalists and end users attempt to put the blame there.

It's almost always on hardware configuration and usually the binding drivers. Even when sitting within the same hardware family (i.e. Tegra), the chips are manufactured with a different specification and doesn't guarantee compatibility. Sometimes the OS changes enough to require the drivers to be re-written. But that "fragmentation" doesn't exist at the OS level either (it's a single spec that several hardware profiles have to re-write to be compatible with). But it sure feels like it since you're shielded from all of it. At that point, it's on the manufacturer of the binding component to provide a stable driver. Not the OS developer.

So in short.. you can't really have certain hardware changes without introducing fragmentation. It's just not possible. You can possibly have the illusion of backward compatibility, but it's still running under a different hardware profile. For instance, a game could be using a bad strategy for frame rate timing that that works on OUYA 1 since the hardware and execution environment is uniform, but gets unpredictable or unstable on a faster OUYA 2. Or maybe there is a bug in the network drivers that went uncorrected in OUYA 1, and those bugs were compensated for in some of the games. What happens if the new version of the hardware corrects those bugs? To be truly backward compatible may possibly require emulating those original bugs because you will have some hardware with the bug and some of it without.

Let's go simpler. Say that the chip set/drivers/speed doesn't change and they simply put more RAM into the system. Even that very simple change has fragmented the platform because some games will expect to have more memory than others (RAM availability, believe it or not, can make a huge difference on how some devs code their games).

OUYA 1 and OUYA 2 are going to be different devices. There is no blurry line here even with Tegra involved all the way. If OUYA 2 devices are also dev units, it raises the capability limit and locks games developed on that device to the OUYA 2 spec, perhaps on something as simple as RAM consumption (unless it has some sort of downgrading/neutering OUYA 1 mode.. and even then, it's still running on different hardware). If OUYA 2 dev units can only develop to OUYA 2 spec, that is in essence starting the user base over unless OUYA intends to freely upgrade everyone's hardware (they won't). "Backward compatibility" at that point only really means OUYA won't have to start their catalog counter over.

OUYA will have to upgrade eventually. But they have to do it carefully to avoid the pitfalls of other ecosystems and consoles who've attempted this. Or at the very least, they'll should come up with a way of managing it better. Having well defined hardware profiles and segregating them out in the store would be a good start, as well as allowing future devices a means of developing and testing against lower powered profiles.

But as I've said in other posts, I don't think they'll go there at all. I think they'll try to sell their firmware/hardware specification to OEMs. In that case, what I'd do is allow the device to be as powerful as the OEM wants and they throttle games to a very specific execution profile. They could update that profile yearly or more often if they want so that devs can test and upgrade the compatibility list, but it would essentially be the equivalent of a predictable yearly device without the headaches of managing hardware.

And beyond that, OEMs then share in the marketing and distribution expense. Powerful hardware could be "future proofed" to a couple iterations of profiles, etc.

[Nitrogen_Widget]

I think it has already been said by OUYA that they want to stick to the $99 price point, I'll see if I can find the article that mentioned it. The model is really supported more so by game sales, they take a 30% cut of game sales from devs.

I read in another article they were testing the market with their higher priced console.