News has been coming out in the last two days about the next home video game console, the Ouya. After going through the Kickstarter process and finding it's funding, and finishing development, the console is just about ready to launch.
The Ouya will be an Android based video game console. That means you won't have to head out to the store to pick up games, instead new ones will be available to purchase through the system, with cloud based storage acting in the same way a hard drive does.
Many gamers are excited about the new console, and Ouya (the company behind the console), have already said they will not compete with the other console makers. The company plans to carve out their own space in the market, and those that decide to stick it out with Ouya, may end paying the price.
Ouya CEO Julie Uhrman spoke with Joystiq at DICE yesterday, and said they plan to drop a new Ouya console every year, to take advantage on internal hardware price drops. Note, that means the console will sell for $99, even though the hardware in side of it will be cheaper year after year.
"As it relates to iterating the console and refreshes, our strategy is very much similar to the mobile strategy. There will be a new Ouya every year. There will be an Ouya 2 and an Ouya 3. We'll take advantage of faster, better processors, take advantage of prices falling. So if we can get more than 8GB of Flash in our box, we will. And in so doing, make sure that all games are backwards compatible," said Uhrman.
The Ouya 1, as some are calling it, will be launching with some good hardware and software backing it up.
"We're launching on the Tegra 3. It's a quad-core A9 chip. Because it's not a mobile device, we don't have to balance power for battery life. So when all four quads are running, it's 1.6GHz. It's gonna be the best Tegra 3 device on the market." said Uhrman.
Uhrman said that users Ouya accounts would carry over from one system to the next, so customers need not fear losing their games or saves just because they upgrade. What they do need to worry about however, is constantly having to pay for upgrades year after year.
The beauty of systems like the Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and even the Wii U is that they can be upgraded with software patches, new discs being used, so on and so forth. With Ouya running so cheap, and not having cutting edge technology, upgrading will have to be done with completely new systems.
At the end of the day, gamers will need to invest a hundred bucks a year to have the new games, where other gamers can invest three or four hundred up front for consoles that last seven or eight years.
Gamers may need to rethink this whole Ouya deal.
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