News - OUYA Android console to have annual hardware update cycle

[HEXUS]

Following the smartphone, rather than the generational console, model.

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[crossy]

New Ouya every year? Ouch!

That said, I suppose that $99 (assuming it's not 1:1 for us in the UK) isn't that bad as a yearly expenditure if purchases are transferable.

I've got to wonder what's going to happen to the old Ouya's - seems like a bit of a shame if there's no way to recycle and/or reuse. An obvious question is whether there's any way to reuse the old Ouya's as GoogleTV boxes, media centres or NAS boxes.

[kingpotnoodle]

New Ouya every year? Ouch!

That said, I suppose that $99 (assuming it's not 1:1 for us in the UK) isn't that bad as a yearly expenditure if purchases are transferable.

I've got to wonder what's going to happen to the old Ouya's - seems like a bit of a shame if there's no way to recycle and/or reuse. An obvious question is whether there's any way to reuse the old Ouya's as GoogleTV boxes, media centres or NAS boxes.

Nobody forces you to buy the yearly update... I suspect many games would work on last years model just as well.

I'm actually more interested in them as media clients, HTPC boxes etc... couldn't give a fig about the gaming, nothing powered by a Tegra on my telly is likely to drag me away from Skyrim and Total War et al.

[Noxvayl]

Yeah that would be awesome, sell the old Ouya boxes for half the price and give customers a trade-in option to get newer ones. I'd be interested in spending $50 on a media centre device that can also play games

[crossy]

Nobody forces you to buy the yearly update... I suspect many games would work on last years model just as well. I'm actually more interested in them as media clients, HTPC boxes etc... couldn't give a fig about the gaming, nothing powered by a Tegra on my telly is likely to drag me away from Skyrim and Total War et al.

True, there's not a shotgun to the temple to buy Ouya2, Ouya3, ... On the other hand as the owner of a Tegra2 powered device (remember those?) it's interesting to see how quickly the Tegra-specific titles all moved to Tegra3 leaving us oldies in the cold.

Yeah that would be awesome, sell the old Ouya boxes for half the price and give customers a trade-in option to get newer ones. I'd be interested in spending $50 on a media centre device that can also play games

I'd sign up for that - heck they could even take a leaf out of EA/Activision's book and sell you a "sales subscription" that would give a guaranteed trade-in price and maybe a couple of game credits to sweeten the deal.

[will2]

[QUOTE=kingpotnoodle;39181]

New Ouya every year? Ouch!
.....
I'm actually more interested in them as media clients, HTPC boxes etc... couldn't give a fig about the gaming, nothing powered by a Tegra on my telly is likely to drag me away from Skyrim and Total War et al.

Me too ! - I am looking for a tiny box multipurposed that can ALSO run UBUNTU, connect to big 1080p TV and wired or BT4 keyboard/mouse, and of course stream over dual-band WiFi. Seem to recall reading Tegra4 uses much less energy - so fanless, than 16 month old T3 while being much faster, so I hope current development plans for an early update to T4 or 2013 era Snapdragon so Soc stays insync with other new devices.

[rabbid]

Nice idea, lets hope those (huge?) uncomfortable looking handsets are better in actual use

[nomissivraj]

Does anyone else fail to see the point of this device. If it were cheaper then maybe but i don't use mobile devices for gaming.
It's fun at first but then just gimmicky if i want to sit down and game then i'm gonna play some REAL games on a powerful machine.
This thing will probably sell well but for me i don't see the point.

[smithy1158]

Lamest gamepad ever.

Also if you like smart phone games, why not just play them on your smart phone. Maybe it would be a better idea to introduce a mini thunderbolt port as standard on all phones and then enable them to connect to monitors or TV's. Not to mention much faster transfer speeds.

And maybe a really nice bluetooth gamepad or even drivers to support the the bluetooth PS3 controller.

It's as rubbish an idea as that Nvidia gamepad. Just think!!!

[gonchuki]

This only gets better every time. First they delay the console so the hardware is even more outdated than when they announced it, now they double-cross their customers letting them know that to stay up to date and play all the games they need to spend $99 per year, which in as little as 3 years ends up being more expensive than a "classic" console while probably still being underpowered for 720p gaming. And smooth 1080p with high-res textures? we know this is coming in the next-gen of consoles, the OUYA might need another 2-3 years to get to that point and by then you would have already spent more on OUYAs than a next-gen console on launch date.

[Sohaib.27]

I think this gaming console might be a big hit since no one has released any consoles for a long period of time.

[crossy]

I think this gaming console might be a big hit since no one has released any consoles for a long period of time.

Microsoft is due to launch the next gen XBox this year, and I thought I read that the "PS4" was also 'imminent'. Both of which are likely to be of more interest as gaming platforms than Ouya. That said, $99 is probably in the exalted range of potential "impulse" buys - especially if Ouya manage to get these in Argos, PC World, Asda, Tesco, etc.

On the other hand, as noted above, Ouya could be worth a punt as a "cheap" way to get the basis of a reasonable TV box or NAS device.