Should You Buy OUYA Gaming Console?

Whether its PC, TV or Mobile devices like Android/iOS portables, Gaming is one thing you are never far from.

But the best Gaming experience is still the best on the largest screen in your Home: TV. This is one reason why hardcore gamers stick with PS3 / Xbox 360 and PC. Well, OUYA is another attempt to bring Gaming back to the TV, at a very affordable price.

OUYA is a startup based in California (LA) which came up with this idea of making Gaming fun, more reachable, and affordable. OUYA has raised $8.5Million in matter of days and is gaining traction from around the world. The Game console ships at as low as $99 including controller if you live in US and $110 if you live outside U.S. You can, optionally, add a number of Gaming controllers to your pre-order.

Should you follow the Hype?

OUYA swiftly acquired a slew of partnerships from companies like OnLive, Square Enix, XBMC, Vevo, and Robotoki — and as if that wasn’t enough, Namco Bandai and Plex officially joined the content-providing party as well. What’s more, we now know that each console will support up to four of those touchpad-equipped controllers for local multiplayer action.

They promise to ship devices to developers in december this year, and available for Pre-order for everyone right now. The developers should be able to port existing Android Games to OUYA pretty easily, thanks to the SDK they would be releasing to Game developers and App developers.

Is OUYA’s Hardware Good enough?

OUYA Full Specs

• CPU: Nvidia Tegra 3, clocked at 1.5Ghz (ARM)
• GPU: Nvidia Geforce ULP (Ultralight portable)
• OS: Android 4.0.4 ICS
• RAM: 1GB
• 8GB of internal flash storage
• HDMI  1080p HD output
• WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
• Bluetooth LE 4.0
• One USB 2.0 port (you will have to use USB Hub)
• Wireless controller with standard controls (two analog sticks, d-pad, eight action buttons, a system button), a touchpad
• Gigabit Ethernet

The specs look much like any Quad-core Android Tablet or phone you see in market today. Would this be able to handle FullHD 1080p Games nicely? Well, Tegra 3 isn’t a processor designed for Gaming consoles, but it can do the job pretty well as long as you don’t throw insanse level of detail to it. At least today, all the high-end games on Android run butter smooth on Tegra 3 processor, thanks to the Nvidia certifications and partnerships. But this may not be true for games coming in later half of 2013 or 2014, which would be targeting Tegra 4 hardware.

When OUYA comes out, i.e. March-April 2013, this configuration may already look outdated to enthusiasts, but will be decent enough for avids and semi-professionals (aka prosumers). OUYA certainly has a roadmap where they would upgrade the hardware to meet the growing demand, but right now they target an affordable Gaming console that can do a lot more than that and reach every home. Serious Gamers, please look elsewhere.

OUYA – A Console Beyond Gaming

It would run it’s own custom modified Android, the UI for which would be fully Hardware accelerated. Users would be able to play all games for free, before they can buy the full version. Now this is unique, and users had been asking for Try before buy for a really long time.

OUYA founder claims that the device would be open for all sorts of Hacking, so this means you would be able to use this device like a Google TV device, and run almost any Android app on it. So let’s take a look at list of things you would be able to do with OUYA

What You can Do with OUYA:

1. Gaming (Of course) – Play any game for free, buy it if you like it.
2. Run Android Apps / Games – Almost any Android app should run with Hacks
3. One Stop Multimedia Hub: Stream Videos, TV shows, Movies, Music — XBMC is officially coming to OUYA.
4. Browse the web
5. Cloud based Gaming on Demand: With OnLive coming to OUYA, if you live in US, you will be able to play cloud based games.

If you look at all those features in a single box, that offering looks like Google TV or a Smart Tv on drugs.

We’ve pre-ordered our very own version of the OUYA Gaming console, and we’re excited for the opportunities it brings to TV. We’ll keep you posted of the OUYA Announcements and reviews.

Questions? You can leave them in comments.

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