In my many years of buying tech products, I have never seen a product with so many poor product reviews online from people who obviously don't 'get it'. Anyone purchasing an Ouya because it is called a videogame 'console', and are expecting to see the same types of AAA games they see on an Xbox 360 or PS3 are going to be disappointed. I am convinced that the majority of people writing these reviews on some of these sites are simply not old enough to realize what makes the Ouya special, at least for me...
To me, the Ouya is a throwback to an earlier time in computers and video games. It reminds me the most of the Commodore 64 era, where not only could you buy a system just for playing games, but you could also, if you wanted, either by yourself or with a couple of people working together, create own game, let other people play it, and if you were good, sell it. There was a lot of terrible software produced during this era to be sure, but some of the most fun I have experienced playing video games was had in discovering those games which could be learned in a few minutes time, yet provided hours and hours of entertainment. Not only was there 'big name' titles for the time such as Mule, Archon, Toy Bizarre and Jumpman, but there were memorable titles such as Campaign Manager, Space Thief, Krylon Lander, and many more that were available on public domain software collections, or by typing in the code yourself out of a magazine.
This software discovery, and the potential for a hidden gem is where the Ouya excels. There are many good games on Ouya right now, and since anyone can potentially develop and publish games on this system, and new titles appear all the time, you never know when the next future classic like a Duke Nukem, Bomberman or Worms may appear. Sure, there is a lot of 'bad' titles, but so what? Everything can be tried for free, so there is nothing to lose, and in my opinion, exploring is half the fun...
If I had to pick something to score the Ouya down on, I do wish it would have shipped a little more up-to-date on its android hardware specifications, but realistically, with the simple 'pick up and play' type games this is targeting, the specifications should be fine for a while.
I had no issues with setting up my unit, installing firmware updates, or with my controller, as others have reported. I paired a PS3 controller to it very easily, and this is a great option vs. buying an expensive 2nd controller for multiplayer games, especially if you already have one around. An Xbox 360 controller works as well.
I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the Ouya to anyone, just know what you are getting, and go into it with reasonable expectations. If you think you are buying a console to play the latest and greatest 'next-gen' games, then you should probably hold off, but if you are looking for an inexpensive way to play hundreds of simple, fun games, or even get into game development yourself, then you cannot go wrong with the Ouya!
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I was an early backer on Kickstarter and received my unit a couple months back, so I've had plenty of time to play with the Ouya. Here is a list of the pros/cons:
******PROS*******
1) Local Multiplayer gaming is GREAT. Games like Towerfall, Bombsquad, Amazing Frog, etc. are perfect games to showcase the true strength of the console: couch gaming with friends. My friend brought his Ouya to a LAN party a month back and we had a blast with Bombsquad. A lot of people were crowding around and claiming the next round to play. There are plenty of games like this on the console so it's hard to get bored.
2) The UI has slowly but surely been improving. Recently they added a "Recently Played" box and "Discover" boxes on the main menu. Additionally, the UI is snappier and more responsive than first release. Pairing controllers is easier with these updates as well. Updates are relatively small installs, so it generally takes 5-10 minutes at most.
3) The ability to easily sideload apps is great. You can download Airdroid and access it that way. It's not a fully unlocked Android box, but it will do most of what 99% of the population will most likely want without rooting.
4) The controller feels nice and hefty. It also gets great battery life from my experience. Make sure to buy at least one extra so you can take advantage of my first pro.
5) The unit itself is small, and relatively quiet (actually, silent the majority of the time, slightly less so when the fan kicks in intermittently). It's very stylish, actually, though I wish the button on top was a little more hearty and not just a "click" pushbutton. That's just minor nitpicking, though.
6) Every game has a free component for you try, most of which are extensive. If you decide to drop money on the games that aren't entirely free, buying games is relatively easy. Link your credit card and buy in-game without exiting. Very similar to the way that some of the apps work on the Apple Store. Either way, there are a number of free games out there so you don't really have to drop a dime if you don't want to.
7) There are plenty of emulators and they run most games flawlessly. SNES, NES, Genesis, Game Boy, PSX, N64. Don't expect blistering speeds on the last two, but it's serviceable, especially since we're only talking about a Tegra 3.
*******Cons*******
1) This definitely isn't entirely ready for primetime. While the UI is improved, it still has a long way to go. There's no social aspect to speak of at this point (besides you account name in the upper left-hand corner), so non-existent online multiplayer except where games have their own dedicated servers. There's no messaging, invites, or anything. A relatively minor quibble, though, as its main strength of local multiplayer is enough to sate my coop gaming for now.
2) Wi-Fi Connectivity is a bust. It's well-documented all over the Ouya forums and on Reddit that the Wi-Fi antenna is poor at best. I personally experienced connectivity issues in locations where other devices had solid connections. I even purchased a network extender, hoping to fix it, and it still made little difference. For people that might not have access to a wired connection,this is a catastrophic oversight. I'm hoping this is fixed in the next hardware refresh.
3) The controller is hefty, and the buttons and joysticks feel fine, but the triggers are a nightmare. For me, they're too far back on the controller. The top triggers feel too "clicky" and you have to hit them at a particular location to register (can't hit them too far on the right or left). As for the back triggers, they're too mushy and feel awkward in the fully-depressed position.
4) The "Discover" section (Ouya's version of a store) is a little convoluted. They try their hardest by splitting into genres and subcategories (for instance, "Couch Co-op" is one category), but I think it still makes it difficult to navigate and find games. As for the "Trending" category, I have no idea where they get these analytics from, but some of the games on there appear to have no "Thumbs Up" ratings, which begs the question of why they're there.
5) Arbitrary rating system in "Discover". Their rating system is entirely based on thumbs up. Either you like it or you didn't click like. There is no text-based review system and nothing to provide negative ratings. For games that might not have broad appeal or be well-known, it's easy to pass them over because they might have 20 "Thumbs Up". For shovelware, they appear to get same ranking as GOOD games. This needs to be fixed if the cream is going to rise to the top.
6) Support is a joke. If you have problems, don't look forward to receiving a quick resolution. There are several reports of people waiting 3 weeks+ on tickets without response, after which tickets are just closed without resolution. Ouya REALLY needs to step up the support game.
So, there you have it. Is it a nice little local multiplayer box and emulator? Absolutely. Is it the revolution they billed it as? Absolutely not. Wait until the next hardware refresh and for a few more system updates.
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I also own a g-box midnight mx2. I thought the Ouya would be an upgrade to the mx2. Big mistake! The Ouya doesn't know whether its a gaming unit or a media center. It ends up doing both functions poorly.
The biggest issue is the controller. It may be okay for games but it is a nightmare for media. I have a Logitech k400 that I use for my mx2 so I hooked that up and it helped immensely. However I had to switch back to the Ouya controller for some functions.
Setup for the Ouya was so frustrating I wanted to put it back in the box and into the garbage. There was no page in setup that had browsers to choose from as shown on the Ouya forum site. When I should have been on the browser page I was actually on the developer page. I had to mess with an address bar on that page to download anything for the Ouya. To get to downloads I had to go back several steps and still had trouble finding anything. Ouya seems to take great pleasure in having everything you need scattered about the system.
This thing was obviously rushed to market with a terribly mishmashed UI. It should have come with a separate well designed and thought out remote and not a game controller for a remote.
After two days I realized that I would never use this thing. I unplugged it and went back to my mx2. The whole media experience is a joy on the mx2. The Ouya is a failure in its current state of development. If the developers insist on using the controller as a remote the Ouya will go the way of disco. You have been warned!
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Ouya must have paid XBMC to be recommended because this was the WORST decision ever! The MX2 trumps this device on all grounds. At least as a media center, but it also holds up pretty darn good to the ouya when it comes to Android gaming too. I was a kickstarter backer but even a friend's ouya they just bought a week ago has the same identical issues mine has. This is a fast box with tons of potential but the hardware and software issues of this thing kills it.
First of all the Ouya stutters in XBMC terribly with some common high bitrate video formats regardless of the latest fiwmare updates and XBMC with libstagefright. After about a minute of playing a simple 720P MKV file the video starts to chop up and lose frames. The CPU is also running under a lot of load, meaning at least some of the video processing is being handled by the CPU and not the GPU like it should be. I'm not the only one, it's all over the forums. Some people seem to get it working good for them but I question if their media collection is quite as demanding as my own. Standard definition content is no problem for this box but nobody is going to take this thing serious for a real HTPC replacement if it can't play high bitrate 1080p video without artifacts and playback issues such as stuttering and sync, both of which I constantly run into. And please don't tell me to upgrade. I'm already running the latest firmware and XBMC made specifically for this that was deemed to be the best. Well, it maybe the best for Ouya but it just won't work for me and surely won't be good enough for other hardcore home theater enthusiasts either.
The wifi in this box is terrible. The ouya shows signal but transfer rates are almost non-existent unless I move it closer to the router. The MX2 I have sitting right next to the Ouya is streaming HD content just fine. This is only one room away from the router. If the Ouya is in the same room as the router it works fine but this is completely unacceptable. The only solution I could come up with was a wireless to ethernet bridge which I just happened to have one. A dirty hack but solved that problem.
The support for this thing is non-existent. You would expect a company that raised millions on kickstarter to at least have SOME support. There's nobody to call and after two weeks after submitting a ticket I finally got this response: "We're continuing to solve for every last question and issue sent to us. In order to keep our Problem Solvers focused on answering OUYA's tickets as quickly as possible, we're going to close out your ticket and hope that your issue has since been solved." Really?? This didn't even ATTEMPT to answer my question. I waited two weeks for this response, mind you. So if you want any kind of support you're going to have to go to the forums and pray that another user is kind enough to help you with an answer. Whenever I ever had any issues with my MX2 I call Matricom and always get a real person to talk to. That's really not too much to ask for is it?
Now for gaming, the one thing the Ouya was actually intended for. This thing plays Android games, folks. Almost all the same games play on any other Android box I have and I can't even tell the difference in gaming quality comparing it to the MX2. All the games I like including all the emulators that work on the Ouya play just as good on my MX2. Keeping in mind that the Ouya is a quad core device I would expect it to really shine and out-do in this arena, but its nothing very special at all. Maybe in the future as Android gaming development gets more hardcore the Ouya will pull away from the MX2 in performance but for now there's only a marginal difference in performance, if that.
Another strike is the lack of Play Store. I realize this was never an intended feature, but c'mon. It's an Android device sandboxed into their own "app store", which coincidentally only scratches the surface of the stuff that you can actually use a device like this for. They claim this to be a hackable system. I don't see how they promote any hack-ability considering its locked down tigher than Fort Knox.
I'm not even going to get into details on how hideous the controller is. Even as bad as this controller is its better than the mx2 remote control which is practically useless.
Now for the pros: The packaging the Ouya came in was very sexy. I loved the red greeting on top of the device and the custom moulded plastic tray that holds it all together. Far better packaging than the MX2 in my opinion.
This device was obviously rushed to market due to their time crunch to fulfill their promises, which was already delayed. This thing was a failure from the start and will eventually die off as a fad. It's unfortunate and I had huge hopes to see this thing lead a new era in gaming but unfortunately this will not be the device that paves the way. If anything, it has made a big gash in the whole retro gaming industry with a wound that will probably take ages to heal.
I have hopes that this device will be improved with software updates, but to be honest I think there's some serious hardware issues inside of this box that prevents it just from working properly such as wifi and bluetooth issues. Overall this has been a very unimpressive device, especially considering the months of anticipation from waiting for this to finally be released. If you're looking for a retro gaming machine only, have a ps3 controller laying around to replace the one that comes with it and have the router in the same room as the device then this might be for you. If you're looking for a serious media center box this is not for you. I recommend the MX2 if you want the best XBMC experience you can get. This comes from tons of trial and error with virtually every android box on the market. Nothing I have used yet is better than the MX2 for XBMC, regardless of what XBMC themselves say, believe it or not.
Fingers crossed that the Ouya team can make some serious headway with this thing. I'd love to update this review with a high recommendation instead of more complaints.
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I bought the OUYA console based solely on the recommendation by the folks at XBMChub. What a let down! Because the folks at XBMChub claimed it to be the best XBMC box I expected it to be leaps and bounds better than my G-Box Midnight MX2 but, boy, was I in for a surprise. First of all, there are no clear instructions on where the batteries go into the remote and how you are supposed to open the remote to insert the batteries. When I finally figured things out and set it up I quickly discovered that DTS and AC3 audio will not play and give a really annoying sound. To add to that, HDMI passthrough cannot be set. That forced me to do a search on the web and find out that this has been an issue with the OUYA console for over a year and has still not been corrected! How could the folks at XBMChub have missed this is beyond me?! Compared to this, my G-Box Midnight MX2 is great in spite of its quirks. I've read this issue being discussed as being an Android issue. Well, then how come my MX2 does not have the same problem??? Why does the problem correct itself when I unplug and replug the HDMI cable as some people had suggested? Clearly, this is a problem with the OUYA console. I must admit that I wrote OUYA support and they responded. They said that this is a licensing issue and that they are working on a fix. Although I appreciate that support actually responded to me (I read that many others didn't even get responses) what I don't appreciate, or comprehend, is that this has been going on for quite sometime and it has still not been resolved!
I haven't returned my OUYA yet because I don't know what to replace it with (I hear that the MX2 is now in short supply and they are having manufacturing issues) and I'm partially hoping that the folks at OUYA will fix this issue ASAP. I must say that other than the DTS and AC3 issue the console works just fine but if it is not fixed, it is a dealbreaker!
