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[Radix]

tell me i'm pretty or i'll hurt you

gonna stab you irl

[J-Snake]

Actually what's the difference to xblig? I mean it costs a little but should not hurt too much. Everyone can develop the game he wants for it. I guess the problem is that it is just considered a hidden section on the xbox, and not the main scene. But everyone can get on that if he wants.

So if xblig fails why should ouya succeed? Your opinions on that.

[Richard Kain]

So if xblig fails why should ouya succeed? Your opinions on that.

Well, for starters, I wouldn't call XBox Live Indie a failure. It has just been grossly underutilized and underdeveloped, and a lot of the blame for that can be laid at Microsoft's doorstep. And more than anything, this was an issue with marketing and promotion, not technology.

Also, I honestly don't think that most posters here think that Ouya "should" succeed. They simply hope that Ouya does well enough to justify some indie development. It is a much more modest goal than the uber-competitive level that a lot of people are assuming. There is room for middle ground within the industry. Not everything has to be extremely big or a complete failure. Keeping expectations and goals modest for a smaller effort like Ouya is a good strategy.

If Ouya is able to hang around, its initial support will be primarily from the game development community itself. General consumers aren't going to be nearly as interested in the device as game developers are. A lot of developers have just always wanted a console to work on that isn't tied down by major corporations. And I'm not talking about development companies. I'm talking about individual developers. After years of having dev units that are chained to a Nintendo representative, someone is finally producing a home console without any restrictions. Some of us just like tinkering with this sort of thing.

[J-Snake]

But isn't it more promising to work on a more secure system like the xbox? I personally want a console, well to be a console, closed. I as developer want to create on it whatever I want but I don't want others to hack the shit out of me.

[rek]

But isn't it more promising to work on a more secure system like the xbox? I personally want a console, well to be a console, closed. I as developer want to create on it whatever I want but I don't want others to hack the shit out of me.

I don't think that's what they meant by hack, but really the only difference between hacking the Ouya and hacking another console is that they're making it a little easier (standard screws, doesn't void the warranty, and I assume any OS updates they push won't be designed to brick rooted boxes).

[Falmil]

If you're producing computers or software that people can physically access, your shit is hackable. "Secure" is a highly relative term.

[J-Snake]

Sure thing, but you can affect the motivation-level to do it.

[C.A. Sinner]

yeah exactly, there's a difference whether it's a handful of nerds or joe average consumer pirating your shit

[Richard Kain]

Sure thing, but you can affect the motivation-level to do it.

But isn't that something that the Ouya already addresses? A large motivation for the more hard-core hacking community is challenge and entitlement. They don't hack things just to hack them. They do it as an intellectual exercise, as a means of sticking-it-to-the-man, and for the elicit thrill of doing something they know they aren't supposed to be doing. An open platform like the Ouya negates their primary motivators. Where's the danger, challenge, and thrill if the box's creators ship it with instructions on how to open it up and use it however you please?

More casual users are less likely to attempt "hacking" it if rooting their device will decrease the convenience of using it. This phenomenon is similar to what happens in the Linux community. There are much fewer viruses and destructive software designed for Linux, as compared to Windows or OSX. After all, what would be the point?

[Hima]

It's as if iPhone, Android, XBOX, PS3 , and other consoles/devices aren't hacked already.  They all are, and yet they are still doing fine. Besides, do you think people will not hack OUYA if they said they don't allow hacking/jailbreaking? If it's going to be hacked anyway, and many cases has already suggested that this is not a problem, then isn't it better to spend time on something else that actually matter?

One thing I would be upset is if they don't allow you to install games from other sources without rooting. I hope it'll be like Android and Google Play. You can install games from wherever you want, and provide OUYA store separately.

[rek]

yeah exactly, there's a difference whether it's a handful of nerds or joe average consumer pirating your shit

I didn't see anything on the Ouya page about piracy. Hacking the hardware or getting it to run Linux isn't piracy.

(Besides which, joe average consumer already pirates whatever he doesn't want to pay for – doesn't matter the format or platform.)

[Falmil]

yeah exactly, there's a difference whether it's a handful of nerds or joe average consumer pirating your shit

Except, joe average consumer pirates the stuff via the handful of nerds that hacked it and released it or by using tools they made.

[Ouren]

[SolarLune]

@Ouren - Yeah, the Pandora seems to be a good handheld. But they have had and probably still have problems producing the device, and it's still a HUGE amount of money - $500 last time I checked (which was, like, two days ago). I think some people were literally waiting years for their devices to be shipped to them, and that's after it went into production.

@Everyone else - I understand and agree with what you guys're saying about piracy. Games are gonna be hacked - that's what happens. I'm not sure of why people seem to think that hacking a console opens the way to piracy, and piracy on the OUYA's going to be a huge problem. It will continue to be far, far easier to pirate on the PC. You already have access to all of the files all of the time. What's stopping you from just sharing a PC game directory on a P2P network? Nothing. At least on the OUYA you'll actually have to physically access the hard drive or SD card.

And besides, a lot of indie developers are going the DRM-free route with the Humble Bundles - they recognize that prevention against piracy doesn't really work. It's more of a waste of time and inconvenience than a deterrence. And even if it did work and prevented pirating of a game for a whole year, after that, it only needs to be pirated once to spread across the Internet. I'm not for pirating, obviously, but people are going to pirate what they want, and there's not a lot anyone can do to stop them. The problem won't be any worse on the OUYA than it will be on the PC.

[Richard Kain]

The real measure for how influential software piracy will be on the Ouya is the digital distribution system they come up with. If it is easy, convenient, and affordable to use their digital distribution system, that will be enough to deter the vast majority of piracy. Services like Steam and iTunes are able to make money despite the proliferation of software and music distribution. (of questionable legitimacy) They do so by making their digital goods affordable, easy to acquire, and by providing additional services to improve the end-user experience.

The quality of the system that fuels the Ouya's distribution will be one of the biggest factors in determining whether it can gain mainstream traction, or if it will be a footnote in the history of video games, of interest only to hobbyists and collectors.