Ouya Apologizes to Early Adopters

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Dear Ouya Kickstarter supporters; Thanks for the $8.5 million you gave us to develop, test and bring the Ouya to market. Sorry you didn't get one before your friends and neighbors did. We hope to have yours shipped in two weeks. The good news is that GameStop and Amazon are sold out so you can borrow one from a friend until yours arrives. :rolleyes:

I am pissed. Some of you have not yet received your OUYA -- and, to you, I apologize. I did not promise to ship to *most* of you before we hit store shelves. I promised to ship to *all* of you. I’ve been reading your comments, and we are working to solve this.
 
A bit off topic but fuck Ouya.

Over a year in development, 8.5 million dollars to spend, they're using the tried, tested, and known Tegra 3 SoC, all this talk about how the controller was engineered to be the best, and what do we get in the end? A buggy ass "console" with a shitty controller where buttons stick, triggers stick, joysticks suck ass, D-pad is the worst one I've ever touched, has laggy response, and the Ouya overlay/launcher sucks ass.

BUT! BUT! BUT! A LOT OF IT WAS FIXED WITH UPDATES! Don't give me that shit! This console should have been ready to hit the ground running right out of the gate! Not released to the public in such a buggy mess...there is NO excuse they could give that would make this any better.

Sorry if I seem harsh, but I mean, really. All that money, all that talk, all that time to develop what? A Tegra 3 box (any company could do this in literally a week with off the shelf components), a shitty controller, and a Android launcher and this is what we got? I think some people were too busy drinking on the job and buying fancy stuff with all that Kickstarter money instead of focusing on their actual product.

Now they can't even get the backers consoles to them before retail release? What a slack job this company is. Sigh...
 
A box that plugs into your screen and runs android? I've had one of those for years, it's called a Samsung Galaxy. Pairs great with my PS3 controller and doesn't SUCK!
 
Not too relevant, but just the front and back cases of a plastic cellphone took $2 million to get into production. No flip, no buttons, just 2 Part Numbers, Case, Front, Keyboard. Case, Back.

Hopefully most those kinds of costs are already absorbed.
 
So its a low power requiring emulation box ..

Just what I need...

Just be warned that the included control blows so so hard. You can luckily use a Xbox 360 controller over OTG or PS3 controller via Bluetooth.
 
Similar thing happened with the Raspberry Pi too didn't it? (although I don't think they were crowd sourced, but early pre-purchase people got it later than someone who bought it day one).
 
Just be warned that the included control blows so so hard. You can luckily use a Xbox 360 controller over OTG or PS3 controller via Bluetooth.

I think that's if you got one of the first ones that rolled off the line and not the retail editions. I got one of the last-week backer Limited Editions and I have had zero problem with the controller. No sticking buttons, the side plates are VERY secure and I have not experienced controller lag.
 
Sure! You can't fuck over your investors since they own stock, but you can fuck over the people who helped you hit the ground running out of generosity. 8.5 million compared to a needed 950,000.......
 
That's too bad, I was hoping for this thing to do well. Indie style gaming needs to take over the corporate greed type gaming. Hopefully they can fix all the issues quickly and gain people's trust again.
 
A bit off topic but fuck Ouya.

Over a year in development, 8.5 million dollars to spend, they're using the tried, tested, and known Tegra 3 SoC, all this talk about how the controller was engineered to be the best, and what do we get in the end? A buggy ass "console" with a shitty controller where buttons stick, triggers stick, joysticks suck ass, D-pad is the worst one I've ever touched, has laggy response, and the Ouya overlay/launcher sucks ass.

I'm on day 15 of waiting for an answer from Ouya support, since they don't have a phone number.

Maybe I should just use the CEO's name and plug it into the standard corporate email styles (fname, firstl, first.last) .. ones bound to hit.

They really did this wrong. The hardware is easy, it's been done. They don't have the high costs of cramming all of it into a really tiny phone. They instead, focused on the controller and the UI. Both they failed at. This is why I think they blew up their budget. Tried to go too big.

The controller was more complex than it needed to be. MadCatz could have done a better one and their controllers suck. Infact, better yet, license a third-party Xbox360/PS3 controller (there's plenty) and slap your own housing around it! Problem solved. Have it done in a day.

For the OS, they should have focused on stock Android for the UI and developed a simple home skin. Throw in their own app store and blamo.
 
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For the OS, they should have focused on stock Android for the UI and developed a simple home skin. Throw in their own app store and blamo.

And while we're at it. Let's expand our market ability by offering two sku's:

$99 - Console + Controller
$85 - Console + IR Dongle and Remote

It costs about the same to produce. The Android TV box is dominated by Chinese branded imports. There's a market there, if they wanted to nab it for very little development cost - since they already have XBMC.
 
I very much agree with the last two posts above me. Amateurs have done better android UI's over a long weekend. They shoulda slammed a wad of cash into a few of the major CM mod contributors laps and said "make us this, with these features". The results we have from the Ouya team look like a design grads first major work, which he pained for weeks over how to make it look just right on a few screens...then rushed the functionality to the bare minimum features needed to be called "useable", which it is BARELY.

I don't even have the desire to tinker with it until it starts recognizing my keyboard (which is doesn't atm).
 
A bit off topic but fuck Ouya.

Over a year in development, 8.5 million dollars to spend, they're using the tried, tested, and known Tegra 3 SoC, all this talk about how the controller was engineered to be the best, and what do we get in the end? A buggy ass "console" with a shitty controller where buttons stick, triggers stick, joysticks suck ass, D-pad is the worst one I've ever touched, has laggy response, and the Ouya overlay/launcher sucks ass.

BUT! BUT! BUT! A LOT OF IT WAS FIXED WITH UPDATES! Don't give me that shit! This console should have been ready to hit the ground running right out of the gate! Not released to the public in such a buggy mess...there is NO excuse they could give that would make this any better.

Sorry if I seem harsh, but I mean, really. All that money, all that talk, all that time to develop what? A Tegra 3 box (any company could do this in literally a week with off the shelf components), a shitty controller, and a Android launcher and this is what we got? I think some people were too busy drinking on the job and buying fancy stuff with all that Kickstarter money instead of focusing on their actual product.

Now they can't even get the backers consoles to them before retail release? What a slack job this company is. Sigh...


You decide to pay money for hardware from a start-up before it's even developed and you you whine and complain that's its launch is not perfect and flawless? What the hell were you expecting for 8.5 million in funding? Development of this sort of thing is expensive as hell if you have a company of experienced engineers with built up industry connections backing you. Much less a crowd funded start up with a naive business model. Why on earth would expect more than this?
 
People should should have known better. I was expecting trouble, it's a new company that doesn't have billions to throw around like M$, Sony and Nintendo. They went for what was cost effective and it's biting them back. I really don't know how people did not see this coming.

Granted I have both units now, my backer unit and retail unit. The early backer controller is a pile of s**t. OUYA's team is getting bombarded with other stupid shit like "where's my console" which is fucking it up for everybody else with real problems. I shut the f**k up and waited for mine, it showed up when it did. It's in the shipping companies hands. Daft c**ts.

I'm like 90% happy overall with what I've seen so far. If people would stop bitching to OUYA with "where's my console" and just wait it out. Get their consoles and provide constructive feedback for them to fix things. Things would get fixed and OUYA can solidify their place with proper community support. THIS IS ABSOLUTELY NEEDED GIVEN THAT THEY ARE SO SMALL. But no, people are treating them the way they would treat a multi-billion dollar corporation. People can be so stupid sometimes.

I still think it could be a great platform, if people would stop acting like little children.

The best analogy I can come up with off hand is something like this:
Your kid is in baseball, you encourage him, YEAH GO TIMMY. Then he strikes out a few innings and you berate him and pummel him into the ground instead of encouraging him to do better and tell him how.

It's a startup with a bunch of people with experience individually but not as a team. OUYA won't be good up front, I saw this, many others saw this. However there's that ignorant as hell loud-ass minority that did not read or hear a damn thing that was said over the last year on this thing.

I keep ranting on this and get nowhere with these people. It's mostly spoiled ass first would country people who demand things to be perfect for them RIGHT NOW! Or else they'll throw a shit-fit tantrum and try to bully you into the ground. I gotta stop here.

/end rant...
 
You decide to pay money for hardware from a start-up before it's even developed and you you whine and complain that's its launch is not perfect and flawless? What the hell were you expecting for 8.5 million in funding? Development of this sort of thing is expensive as hell if you have a company of experienced engineers with built up industry connections backing you. Much less a crowd funded start up with a naive business model. Why on earth would expect more than this?

Dude...their initial goal was like $900,000...they got $8,500,000. So yes, yes I did expect it to be perfectly functional in all things on first release. Can you explain to me with over 8 million in funding and a year+ of work how they DIDN'T release a fully stable and ready to go product? There is absolutely no excuse what so ever as to why they've had such a shitty release. None. Nadda. Zilch.

If their goal was $900,000 and that would have been enough to release the console then what in the flying horse shit did they use the other 7+ million...MILLION...dollars on? Come on now, don't be ridiculous.
 
People should should have known better. I was expecting trouble, it's a new company that doesn't have billions to throw around like M$, Sony and Nintendo. They went for what was cost effective and it's biting them back. I really don't know how people did not see this coming.

Granted I have both units now, my backer unit and retail unit. The early backer controller is a pile of s**t. OUYA's team is getting bombarded with other stupid shit like "where's my console" which is fucking it up for everybody else with real problems. I shut the f**k up and waited for mine, it showed up when it did. It's in the shipping companies hands. Daft c**ts.

I'm like 90% happy overall with what I've seen so far. If people would stop bitching to OUYA with "where's my console" and just wait it out. Get their consoles and provide constructive feedback for them to fix things. Things would get fixed and OUYA can solidify their place with proper community support. THIS IS ABSOLUTELY NEEDED GIVEN THAT THEY ARE SO SMALL. But no, people are treating them the way they would treat a multi-billion dollar corporation. People can be so stupid sometimes.

I still think it could be a great platform, if people would stop acting like little children.

The best analogy I can come up with off hand is something like this:
Your kid is in baseball, you encourage him, YEAH GO TIMMY. Then he strikes out a few innings and you berate him and pummel him into the ground instead of encouraging him to do better and tell him how.

It's a startup with a bunch of people with experience individually but not as a team. OUYA won't be good up front, I saw this, many others saw this. However there's that ignorant as hell loud-ass minority that did not read or hear a damn thing that was said over the last year on this thing.

I keep ranting on this and get nowhere with these people. It's mostly spoiled ass first would country people who demand things to be perfect for them RIGHT NOW! Or else they'll throw a shit-fit tantrum and try to bully you into the ground. I gotta stop here.

/end rant...

Read my last post. That's why people are pissed.
 
People should should have known better. I was expecting trouble, it's a new company that doesn't have billions to throw around like M$, Sony and Nintendo. They went for what was cost effective and it's biting them back. I really don't know how people did not see this coming.

Granted I have both units now, my backer unit and retail unit. The early backer controller is a pile of s**t. OUYA's team is getting bombarded with other stupid shit like "where's my console" which is fucking it up for everybody else with real problems. I shut the f**k up and waited for mine, it showed up when it did. It's in the shipping companies hands. Daft c**ts.

I'm like 90% happy overall with what I've seen so far. If people would stop bitching to OUYA with "where's my console" and just wait it out. Get their consoles and provide constructive feedback for them to fix things. Things would get fixed and OUYA can solidify their place with proper community support. THIS IS ABSOLUTELY NEEDED GIVEN THAT THEY ARE SO SMALL. But no, people are treating them the way they would treat a multi-billion dollar corporation. People can be so stupid sometimes.

I still think it could be a great platform, if people would stop acting like little children.

The best analogy I can come up with off hand is something like this:
Your kid is in baseball, you encourage him, YEAH GO TIMMY. Then he strikes out a few innings and you berate him and pummel him into the ground instead of encouraging him to do better and tell him how.

It's a startup with a bunch of people with experience individually but not as a team. OUYA won't be good up front, I saw this, many others saw this. However there's that ignorant as hell loud-ass minority that did not read or hear a damn thing that was said over the last year on this thing.

I keep ranting on this and get nowhere with these people. It's mostly spoiled ass first would country people who demand things to be perfect for them RIGHT NOW! Or else they'll throw a shit-fit tantrum and try to bully you into the ground. I gotta stop here.

/end rant...

^fanboi with no business acumen. The company screwed "investors" to generate cash flow. I would love to see some audited financials. Shipping to Amazon orders = positive cash flow. Shipping to those who's money was spent a year ago is nothing but red.

People are mad cause they paid for a product promised to them prior to commercial release and this product wasn't delivered. This is totally beside the fact that the product is lackluster at best. fanboi is fanboi, facts don't matter.
 
Dude...their initial goal was like $900,000...they got $8,500,000. So yes, yes I did expect it to be perfectly functional in all things on first release. Can you explain to me with over 8 million in funding and a year+ of work how they DIDN'T release a fully stable and ready to go product? There is absolutely no excuse what so ever as to why they've had such a shitty release. None. Nadda. Zilch.

If their goal was $900,000 and that would have been enough to release the console then what in the flying horse shit did they use the other 7+ million...MILLION...dollars on? Come on now, don't be ridiculous.

What some Kickstarter projects do is put the bar far below what they really need, so if their real goal fails they still get some funding. As with any Kickstarter, remember it is a donation and assume you will get nothing out of it.

I agree they are handling things poorly and if they can ship retail units at $100 then they can ship them to the backers who paid over a year ago.
 
Don't freak out too much guys...
Not getting a 99 dollar game console would probably bum me out a little, but its not like I and every one of you don't already have several other consoles/computers to play games on until it arrives.


Although I do think its ok to Freak Out a little since you won't be receiving the AWARD from the International Dork Association for being the first in your group of friends to get the console.
 
They should apologize to ALL of their customers. I played with pre-release hardware back in March and it was trash then. Apparently it is still trash now.

An SoC that was underpowered the moment it was released over a year ago combined with Android, a platform that is seriously lagging with any gaming software outside of emulators. Let's not stop the awfulness there, let's package it with the worst gamepad known to mankind.

Just awful.
 
Dude the controller is sooo bad. I don't understand where the money and "research and development" went. How can they get millions of dollars yet somehow make a controller with the worse d-pad ever (even the 360 d-pad is way better), the buttons travel too far and get stuck under the hole cutouts, my right trigger sticks CONSTANTLY, the joysticks have too little travel in them making precise movement nearly impossible, and the battery placement, while a good idea, is horribly thought out.

Mix that with what is basically a Tegra 3 SoC in a plastic box and a shitty U.I. overlay and yeah...they most certainly didn't spend anywhere near 8 million developing this. Hell, I'd bet money they didn't even invest a couple grand into designing it. I just don't get it.

Over all, if this is what they came up with after getting all that money I would absolutely hate to see what they would have released if they had only gotten their initial backing of $900k.
 
They should apologize to ALL of their customers. I played with pre-release hardware back in March and it was trash then. Apparently it is still trash now.

An SoC that was underpowered the moment it was released over a year ago combined with Android, a platform that is seriously lagging with any gaming software outside of emulators. Let's not stop the awfulness there, let's package it with the worst gamepad known to mankind.

Just awful.

LOL. It's funny, my co-workers were frothing over the mouth when the kickstarter for this thing began, due to how amazing it was going to be. I opted to keep my $100...

Now in the office mentioning the "ouya" gets "oh... that thing... meh" well, at least I've still got my $100. Playing cellphone games for a 5" screen sucks on a 50" TV? Who'd have ever imagined...
 
LOL. It's funny, my co-workers were frothing over the mouth when the kickstarter for this thing began, due to how amazing it was going to be. I opted to keep my $100...

Now in the office mentioning the "ouya" gets "oh... that thing... meh" well, at least I've still got my $100. Playing cellphone games for a 5" screen sucks on a 50" TV? Who'd have ever imagined...

Not sure about the Android selection but the iOS world does have some nice games that would make for decent light game play ... if Apple has any vision at all they would either enhance the airplay capabilities of the AppleTV or expand it to include direct gameplay ... between the Roku, Ouya, and other light gaming platforms I think there is definitely a market for the light casual gaming system with mobile app pricing rather than console or PC game pricing ... I wouldn't trade mobile gaming for PC gaming but I do believe in full spectrum gaming where sometimes I want the full capabilities offered by the PC other times I want something I can play for minutes or in a mobile environment (airplanes, etc) ;)
 
The problem with this kickstarter is that other non-kickstarter investors entered the fray. A few stories made it seem like they started running the show.
 
backers have already paid, makes sense from a business point to get them on the shelves for new buyers and make the ones who already paid wait, sell as many as you can before reviews come in
 
I don't know this ouya looks very cool.. I think I will get one if I manage some spare cash.
I like the idea of indie gaming very much so.
 
How well does this thing run XBMC?
My old WD Live is close to dying and would like to replace it with something better.
 
^fanboi with no business acumen. The company screwed "investors" to generate cash flow. I would love to see some audited financials. Shipping to Amazon orders = positive cash flow. Shipping to those who's money was spent a year ago is nothing but red.

People are mad cause they paid for a product promised to them prior to commercial release and this product wasn't delivered. This is totally beside the fact that the product is lackluster at best. fanboi is fanboi, facts don't matter.

Exactly, I'd like to see that as well. Also if fanboy = I expected this, then you're god damn right I am. I'm not a fucking idiot, I went into this and got what I expected out of it.

Going back to the audit part, the only thing that really needs to be validated is if they actually did get the OUYA's to the distributor. If yes, then every whiny fuck can fuck off, because there's nothing that can be done. I've even heard people say "class action lawsuit." To which I reply, good luck doing that against a Chinese company. If it's in their hands, that lawsuit won't be very strong against OUYA. Oh they gave a buggy interface on release (remind me how perfect my PS3, 360 and Wii U worked at launch, they have lots more money than OUYA and still launched with bugs; so this was expected), with the latest two updates. Most of that bugginess is gone anyway. It's down to minor issues.

One thing they absolutely need to do, is replace the early backers shit controllers. Retail units are fine, early backer units are fucked all to hell. Aside from the controller, I don't see what the problem is. I got exactly what I expected out of a $99 device. I still can't believe with all the videos, articles and information about OUYA, that nobody expected any of this. I expected it, and still saw the potential in the idea. What the god damn fuck? I backed the idea, knowing what I'd get right at the start. I also here people saying well they did not say that, to which I reply, are you daft? Can you not make inferences? Are your cognitive abilities that weak? The OUYA met my expectations on everything except the backer controller. I still think they should have contracted with a 3rd party controller maker to have it done right. Even with 3rd party controllers being kinda shit, they have way more experience than OUYA did.

They should apologize to ALL of their customers. I played with pre-release hardware back in March and it was trash then. Apparently it is still trash now.

An SoC that was underpowered the moment it was released over a year ago combined with Android, a platform that is seriously lagging with any gaming software outside of emulators. Let's not stop the awfulness there, let's package it with the worst gamepad known to mankind.

Just awful.

I'm not going to say that these graphics are fucking awesome! However I will say that they are perfectly acceptable for what was discussed by OUYA. This also comes down to developers optimizing for the platform as well, which is why Shadowgun actually looks decent. It was meant for Tegra, so this is completely in the hands of the devs.

http://youtu.be/UjWqVJgoQT0

And yes, I have the retail and the backer units. The backer gamepad is a pile of shit and I'm sad about that. However the million "where's my OUYA" support requests are the likely reason for not getting support responses in a timely manner. I've heard people whining for months on this crap, while I sat patiently expecting it to come when it comes. The retail gamepad works fine, still not as good as a 360 gamepad, but it doesn't suffer from being a total pile of shit like the early backer version. Still has some button stick if you mash them hard. I haven't been able to get them to stick, but my wife has, she mashes the hell out of buttons.

--fanboi miketrike signing out!
 
Seriously they shipped to stores first before backers. thats really messed up.
 
Seriously they shipped to stores first before backers. thats really messed up.
Does seem really messed up. Pretty bad move for any project, let alone one that is still up and coming and very PR dependent. Hopefully not a sign of how they will be in the future. Odd move from a company who's name is derived from the open source movement. Seems like more of a douche corporate "technically we don't have to send the backers theirs right now" kind of thing.
 
I'd want one, but not as a game console. I'd want to turn it into an htpc or something else. Though I'll never buy one.
 
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