So Long Ouya, We Hardly Knew Ye

In the end I used it as a streaming box for Moonlight with my PC which gave it a burst of new life until I improved the setup with a SteamLink. It was okay. Loved the initial idea of the console, but the execution wasn't great*

*it was rubbish.

I had an Ouya, and have had good times with its various Couch Multiplayer titles. The size of the Ouya made it perfect to take it with you (the controllers were bigger than the system itself), and its power was sufficient for simple but fun Multiplayer titles. My favourites were Towerfall, no brake valet, hidden in plain sight, Toto Temple deluxe, Duck Game and Neon Shadow.
However, the controllers were not great, and the gamestore was filled with low quality titles. Quite a few games suffered from low framerates or input lag, for example Giana Sisters - near unplayable on Ouya.
It's not my greatest purchase, but it still was a usable game system. RIP!

I can't say I've ever heard of it

This... thing... was still going?

...totally forgot: I actually brought my Ouya (along with other game systems) to a London game store to exchange it for my Switch!

We had some good memories with the Ouya. Like this game:

And that game:

And who could not forget this game:

It’s not ouya. It’s oooooooh yeaaaaah

Terrible device. GPD XD with 8bitdo controllers is so much better.

SeeeeyaaaaOoooooooyaaaaaaa.
(Looks around room)
Who was that guy?
(Looks back down at Switch)

and ANOTHER reason an always online, service based game system just DOESN'T work

take note Google because Stadia will go the same way

Hope Google are taking notes on how not to do it. Well actually I hope theirs bombs the same way. Hate Cloud based stuff. You don't own games to rent them until the server is turned off.

Poor Ouya, gone and forgotten except to those strange collectors

It's a shame this has gone. I never got chance to play all the must-have games released on it. Or to find out if there were any must-have games for it. I guess in 2013 I was busy with rubbish like Super Mario 3D World and GTAV.

"Hey Ouya, slap on a tow ball and take Googles new machine with you. Save it the trouble of having to carry itself out in a year."

It had it's moments - but a lack of proper management and Razer not giving a toss and simply using the software to shift it's own doomed hardware made sure the ouya never got the chance it deserved. And there are many good games - some indie titles that probably wouldn't have happened anywhere else made it to the ouya and were all the better for it! So as far as I'm concerned, it's a shame and I will miss it. But despite the hate it got, it actually launched and survived - something a great deal of other kickstarters haven't managed!

These days we clearly don't need platforms like the Ouya when it seems to be so easy for indies (I'm talking true indies; appstore-level indies) to publish on a real console like the Switch. Nobody can say "this would only be publishable on the Ouya".

@Bunkerneath
"Hate Cloud based stuff."

Might want to change your avatar then

I had no idea this thing was still going, thought it had stopped a long time ago

Well, perhaps this could make people understand why some people still cling to physical games that actually have the full game on the disc/cartridge. And that are released as a finished version.
Not just because you can sell them after being done with them, and find them cheaper often, but because you can keep playing them as well.

I really dislike games that works only online. Even with the online checkers before you play. Some games from appstore aren't working anymore. You can't even own a downloaded game anymore. And i'm seeing now with some TV shows.... a lot of shows aren't even released on DVD/blu ray anymore either... mostly are Netflix series. I can see gameworld will do the same with stream online. So goodbye good old times when we could own the games physical form and movies physical forms.... bye bye

I guess you could say....

(••) ( ••)>⌐■-■ (⌐■_■)

...we hardly nOuya

@Shambo I (finally) bought Valkyria 4 and was amazed and very pleased that it was all on the cart! No giant patch!

Also a small leaflet describing that the Japanese voice pack was available and how to download it.

May have to support Sega more.

I thought about getting an Ouya just for Towerfall. So glad I didn't.

Ouya had crazy fanboys overnight despite not having any recognizable people behind it just a lady that looked like Rick Flair, really nutty to think about.

This isn't so much a perfect example for those against the 'evils' of digital distribution as it is an example of poor decisions and market penetration. There's numerous instances that can be used to point out the downsides of digital-only distribution; this isn't really a solid one.

I remember seeing this and getting excited, then I lost track of it and never heard about it again.

@Bunkerneath I think the goal big companies have now is even worse... subscription based model where you're locked into whatever content they decide will be available to you. One need only look at the myriad of video streaming services you have to pay for to get all the content you like to see this will NOT at value for consumers.

I have an OUYA hooked up at my office and yes, I do use it on occasion!

I would never have discovered Terry Cavanagh and Stephen Lavelle's treasure trove of bizarre experiements, had it not been for the OUYA. A friend and I got to build a fun prototype together for it, and it gave me confidence that the shareware model of old can still work, if your game is just good enough. So I do think it was worth it to get one.

Well at least we have the Nvidia Shield TV. That thing is a way better product

I had the special edition copper brown Ouya. It looked really nice. But the games weren't that great, and the audio lagged by about half a second for every sound effect.
I could see on the horizon that things were starting to stagnate, so I jumped ship and sold it while people were still willing to buy it.

@Aeleron0X
And that is an awesome piece of hardware. I mean, my son and daughter are both streaming from the Plex server the Shield is running, while I'm copying stuff to it over the network, while my wife watch Netflix on it at the same time, and this thing is not even slowing down a bit. Plus, games, streaming from my PC, streaming free Nvidia games, and this being an Android system, I can sideload my own apps to it if I want. This thing is probably my best tech purchase amongst anything I've bought in the last 5 years.

But in retrospect, I think the Ouya had it wrong when they tried to target the game market exclusively. It's not realistic to think of launching another closed (or semi-closed) gaming ecosystem out there without any decent incentive for people to hop on. I'm sure they could've won over a lot more people had they relase a multi-media box with a remote instead. Granted, the market for such devices wasn't as big back then as it is nowadays, but given media capabilities of gaming consoles aren't always top-notch, such a device can make a lot more sense in the minds of gamers already on another platform. Heck, I have all current consoles in the house, plus two gaming PCs, and my Nvidia Shield is still the king (by a mile) when it comes to entertainment (outside of games or disc-based media).

I get the idea behind the Ouya. But they were delusional in thinking it could rival the big boys. This was forever destined to be a niche product from the get go (although a somewhat nice niche product). And a niche product can't live on a dedicated marketplace. Not enough buyers to generate money to maintain the platform. This was going nowhere, they had unrealistic expectations for the device, which led to a bad commercial approach, which led to commercial failure.

From Ouya to Ouno.

@FullbringIchigo my point exactly, what was that about digital and cloud gaming again? it's the future?

nintendo fans, peer into your future and see what awaits you with your digital content in a couple of years, the clock is ticking.

@Aeleron0X that thing is the bomb, still rocking mine

did anyone get the chance to play Perfect Harmony on the thing?

@DABYX And WHAT a game! Spent countless hours on it, and once I finished it, got some DLC on sale, and downloaded the Switch version of the first game, to play that to completion once more.

So Long Ouya, We Hardly Nouya

Say what you will about the Ouya but at least it was a great little emulation box way before those lame Raspberry Pi came into the picture. I merely bought one just so I could enjoy the entire library of retro games on my television without having to shell hundreds for a lame Pi that does the same thing with less features.

The story here is what can happen to digitally purchased games stored on a cloud.

@Bunkerneath or maybe... just maybe... it will be like the Steam Box, which actually kinda worked, albeit not overly popular, it still worked and given more investment by a bigger company like say... Google? It could work very well.

If most other companies tried this id be sceptical, but there are a handful of companies out there that could pull it off, Google just so happens to be one of them.

@Bunkerneath The differences between what Google is doing with Stadia and the Ouya is that the Ouya is not cloud gaming. The Ouya is basically like a Rapsberry Pi, you download stuff onto it and it will be there for as long as you don't delete anything. Sure the digital store will be gone but any games or software you download before the closure will still be there and you can play them for as long as you have them.

With Stadia, it's just a service and every games they offer required that service and a network connection to play, with Ouya you don't need a network connection to play, games will work offline similar to a normal console. It's similar to the Wii shop situation, though the Wii shop is now gone and you can't download or redownload any software anymore, you can still play what you already had downloaded as long as you don't delete them.

Completionist used Ouya for some Beard Bros games.

Really enjoyed my Ouya back in the day. When I got it off kickstarter it seemed to take forever to come but they gave me a load of credit for my inconvenience.
Never had to spend anymore money on it, but it was good for a little game box before I went over to the pi.
It was brilliant as an retro game box and it was straight forward to sideload apps on via Dropbox so I couldn't really complain.
It never had a chance to seriously compete against the big consoles but it had a go and I seriously commend that.

@Majora101 Not sure Ouya’s failure had anything to do with digital.

I know a few kids out there that this was their first console. It was such an odd experience hearing them talk about how duck game was the first game they got hooked on, cause everyone im my generation grew up on nintendo, xbox, or playstation. Its cool that some people were able to find a different start when their parents couldn't afford the other consoles.

@NEStalgia Or from Ouya to Ohboy...

Hidden in a plain sigh and Elliot Quest was the best game on Ouya!! Never own the console but I had great times with my friends!

But it's just an Android box, right? Can't you just flash the rom and basically restore it to a device that uses the Google Play Store or something?

Farewell, you lovely little cube.

Be sure to grab the 100 free games that I made for it, before they're all gone!!!

@Alucard83 Physical media won't go anywhere as long as some people care about 4K content. The hardcore home theater types are all about physical media, streaming just can't touch the quality of UHD discs. I think streaming games is pushed by "service providers" that want to have complete control, most end-users would say it's a flawed concept based on convenience alone. In the long run it is not economical if you care about a games library over simply playing a game for a while. Streaming has too many issues to become the primary format of games; it's really just the e-books of gaming, sounds like it could be nice, but doesn't really provide enough benefit to give up the old ways.

@SmaMan It's a service. Without the distribution channel it doesn't run the games that were purchased unless you install them and never delete them. That also means no future fixes which can break games. It may be possible to root and flash, but then you just have a cut-down Shield, although the specs don't seem to be all that great.

I don't feel sorry for the people that bought Wii U (myself included) because even though it had a short life cycle it had some great games and a great vc.

I do feel bad for people that invested/bought this though.

@SetupDisk The good thing about the Ouya though is that it is an open source hardware so even if official support for the device had ended, hackers and indies could still do great stuff with it. The create option is still functional making the Ouya still a dev kit and hackers could easily still add new games to the hardware via other method. It doesn't became a useless brick like some other hardware such as the OnLive micro console.

I've got one, and I like it. Of course, once the honeymoon period was over I didn't use it much. But it is versatile and over the years I have used it for gaming and media purposes. The worst thing about it is the controller, but at least it is possible to use a different one.

The most annoying thing is that I would have liked to change the email address for my account, but since the move to Razer I could never do it and I got no reply from their support. So because of that, this news isn't a suprise.

Now that it's officially dead I think I will fire it up and see if I own any exclusive games. If not, I will buy them again on another format and put the device to better use.

i still remember how alot of outlets boldly stating that android/ios gaming will dominate and render console gaming obsolete.

@1UP_MARIO even koolaid man would say oh nooo! To it lol like with yoohoo.
https://youtu.be/XlD-0OWNB1U

Success story???

Soon after the Wii shop shutdown, this is yet another example of why going away from physical copies of games is terrible. Everybody who got an Ouya won't be able to re-download the games (THEY PAID FOR!) if they ever need to, and they better hope the games they do have don't require online authentication! The day physical games go away in favor of digital or streaming is the day I never buy a new console again and can start spending the rest of my life catching up on all the classics I missed in the 90s and early 2000s.

It was to be expected.

I'm actually a fan of the Ouya for a number of reasons. It fell short of what it should and could be and the Switch outperforms the console in every way including core concept. But back in the day, it was a really fun thing to throw in a bag with some excellent party games. And I still the looks are stellar. Too bad the same attention to engineering wasn't applied to the guts. I've been playing mine the last couple days.

Does anyone know if Towerfall will still work offline? I seem to recall it needing an online purchase validation, or something like that for it to work. Can someone confirm please if the devs are planning a patch to allow offline matches before the store closure in June?