One of the major arguments that’s been made against the Ouya’s chances for success is that there won’t be any games, that nobody will be interested in developing exclusives for something with such low specs and such a high threat of piracy. Well, that second one remains an issue, but it looks like the console now has a better chance of actually serving as more than just an emulator or fancy living room decoration thanks to the recently announced deal that’s been made with game streaming service OnLive.
OnLive’s goal since it’s launch has been to enable gamers with underpowered systems to still play the most recent releases. They do this by hosting the games on their side, streaming a video of the gameplay to the player. It’s by no means a perfect system, hindered by the difficult problem of input lag being tied to your internet connection speed, but some see it as the way of the future if the technology can get there. While the Ouya’s specs are low, they are more than sufficient to handle quality video streaming, making OnLive a natural fit, though again, you’d need a very solid internet connection to get the most of it. Many backers have shown a rather naive demand for seeing games with specs far beyond the Ouya’s capabilities appear on the system, and this might just serve as the necessary work-around to make it happen. Or it could be a total flop. While OnLive has been moderately successful since it’s launch, it’s far from being a mainstream hit and doesn’t have the most expansive library. But who knows, this deal could result in a wave of new subscribers.
The full controller for the Ouya was also unveiled. It looks a bit cramped, and that D-pad is all too reminiscent of the atrocious Xbox 360 D-pad, but it looks like it will fit rather comfortably in your hand. All in all not so bad.
Reminds me of a cross between the S-type Xbox 360 controller (meh) and the Gamecube controller (one of the most comfortable of all time for my hands).
I’m so glad we’re doing news now!
I thought of using this thing as a dedicated emulation box, but with that d-pad and without analog video output it’s useless.
0/10, would not fund
and people complain that they dont technically own steam games…
Exactly what I was going to say. I’d never knew exactly what OnLive was before, but that’s like every awful form or DRM put together. Always online mixed with never actually owning the game or having it installed on your HDD, plus they can do so much more with the games hosted strictly on their servers if they wanted to. I didn’t really care about this system, but now I hope it tanks hard so that OnLive takes a hit.
OUYA + OnLive. Man, it doesn’t get any better than this.
i bet i could install the OS on a galaxy tab and then jam a remote in the side and everything will work
The controller looks like a cross-breed between a 360 controller and those goofy boomerang controllers the PS3 was going to have.