This is wicked, it's an Android OS games console that has a Tegra4 chip in it that will be rife for modders. It raised $2m on Kickstarter in its first day.
I love the fact that someone is indie-ing games consoles. It tells Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony (who appear to be deaf and dying) that they don't own the market. $2m dollars isn't a hill of beans in a multi-billion dollar industry but it's great that they have the audacity to try.
Google had better buy this bastard.
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As with all consoles it will live and die with the games available on it if all it gets are crappy ports of phone apps that use micropayment hell as their business model then it'll sink faster than a lead balloon filled with tungsten hexafluoride
The counter-point to that is stuff like the Android Humble-Bundle. There are some really excellent pick-up and play games in there (Canabalt is fantastic...shades of Robot Unicorn Attack. Gears is another excellent 3D puzzler), but phone screens are too small for them really.
There are also some games on Steam (ones that jump to mind are Frozen Synapse, SpaceChem, Anomoly! Warzone Earth) that would work really well on a small console and a bigger screen. Looking further out, there are some big "Free to Play" games out there that don't make me want to stab someone to death (League of Legends, I'm looking at you). Tribes:Ascend is a great example.
The biggie for me would be having a simple way to access iPlayer and other online TV channels. Something like this would probably sit outside of the living room (there is already enough competition for the main TV), something like this makes it very easy to add a decent TV into other rooms without cabling in satellite etc.
Also, why do you want Google to buy it? I don't really see any benefit they can bring...why not let them write apps/hack it, and make their stuff available?
It was a slightly flippant comment but I do have a reason behind it. I meant "For Google's sake, they had better buy this bastard" - not for the good of the device itself. Pi has shown that indies can rake cash in.
Google need something like this. Google own internet advertising but the home TV is the place where they've failed so far to get into. Google TV was a "me too" copy of Apple TV. It was too expensive, too narrow and they got cock blocked by content providers. Having a multi-use box that does games, apps and tv stuff would allow them to ensure that they could provide advertising onto the telly. Just a thought.
I disagree... The worst thing a software company can do is get it's own hardware. It's the Apple model, and it ultimately leads to walled gardens of technology.
Google are used to an incremental software model, where everything is always in Beta. To apply that to hardware you get the "BRAND NEW iPHONE 4(s) THIS YEAR, WITH FUCK-ALL DIFFERENCES!!! (UPGRADE NOW FOR $$$)". Apple get away with it only because they have generated a blind-sheep culture of shiny toys. They supplement this with a highly aggressive money making policy off app-vendors in their dedicated store, as well as a sometimes-arbitary banning of some software if it gets too close to their own commercial add-ons.
Do you really want a console with the same half-life as a phone contract? I'd far rather a hardware company work to a hardware business model and timeline (which, from observing other consoels, seems to be 3-5 years), rather than the Apple/Phone model of 1 year.
I disagree! Microsoft has done rather well in hardware.
I would put that down as much to Sony mucking up the console battle with the PS3, and also by taking the massive business risk of selling the initial hardware as a loss-leader (a move that killed Sega off in a single generation...a software company that moved into hardware, and now is surviving only as a software company).
When you have a hardware/software coupling, for every winner (Apple, Microsoft) there is an equally bad loser (Sega, Atari...Sony? Wait and see on that one.). So it seems to be a massively expensive, 50% business risk, no better really than roulette. Those companies that are currently maintaining a walled garden do so with a large, dedicated, well-funded community (examples I can think of are Apple, and Nintendo with the regular revisions to the DS, and the hardware peripherals of the Wii). A business model that survives by fanatical devotion is _extremely_ high risk (akin to fashion labels really), and can also be said to stifle innovation.
Who's to say that Google can't get into hardware because Microsoft and Sony cock up? Who would have predicted Samsung blowing HTC away? Or HTC going to the wall? The Google Nexus sold so well globally that it got banned in the US by Apple. They were that worried. The Nexus is a Samsung phone with Google's spec and brand. A console could do this too. Isn't that a company that does software getting it's own hardware?
The incremental model works fine in mobile because most people upgrade every 2 years. Their 'Beta' model isn't something they've done in years. It's not what they're used to. When Android was first released, it was very much a complete platform.
Google want to sell advertising where they can. If they can use their economic might to push a console out into the market (by partnering if needed) then it means that they can get adverts into the home wherever they can. At the moment, they don't have ads on televisions but with a console like this, there's no reason why not.
I also don't see why a 2 year cycle of technology is a bad thing. A mobile phone costs £400 and yet you buy a new one (via a contract) every two years. But you don't have to pay £400 up front. Surely a console on a monthly pay plan is the same thing? Backwards compatibility can be maintained (although Apple don't always bother) for as long as a console now.
Finally, a community powered by fanatical devotion is actually extremely powerful. Diablo 3 sold well because it (the second version of the game is uglier and better). Minecraft sold well because of it.
I also don't understand how you can say that fanatical devotion stifles innovation?
I don't consider this in any way, shape of form a good thing. It encourages businesses to be lazy, because they think they can get away with anything (see "stifle innovation").. This then leads to them taking the piss, and going bust. (See Sega, Atari...Sony?). In the meantime, the money consumers have wasted on minor incremental flavours of technology could have gone to more well-meaning, smaller, innovative companies.
So you want to rent a console? Pay-to-Play perhaps? A small display in the corner of the screen counting up how much you owe second-by-second? Rather not, thank you very much...
The failures of Atari and Sega were corporate culture, not that they have a lot of fanatical fans. If large tech companies assume that they own the loyalty of their past customers, then that's a cultural perspective. Fanatacism can be a problem with small developers of software or games because the impact of fans can be large. For large companies, it simply doesn't hold water.
No-one was fanatical about Nokia phones but they are still going to the wall. Nintendo have a fanatical following and also home consumers (like the Mrs) and are stronger than ever.
The PS3 was extremely innovative. Multi purpose cell computing? On a consolse? Superb! So much so that it's a pain in the arse to code for. Nintendo, with an world-class army of fanatics released the Wii without any old-fashioned-two-sticks-controller. Apple continue to innovate, their high res screens on the iPad are superb although I'll admit that Apple don't fit into this equation; as a premium brand they're operating in their own market.
I always thought that Atari died because the Amiga just sold more than the ST in the US. They were'nt lazy per se as it had Midi ports IIRC (Baldrick had one). The Lynx was just a bad product, they weren't resting on their laurels because the ST was dead. Atari had always been a bad company, in their console days they sold expensive license games for cheap and released some real shit. Nothing to do with the fans. Don't much about Sega, but I imagine they lost the console war through lack of specific titles. Wasn't the Saturn the first 32 bit console? Was that the fanatacism of the fans doing that?
When did I ever say this? None of this applies to my phone. Nor did it apply to the ill-fated Google TV. Nor does it apply to the Chromebook. Or the Nexus 7. There may be the option to rent. Also, Google are excellent at unobtrusive adverts. When was the last time you read or was distract by an advert on GMail?
Its been a while since we had a proper Rob v. Pete discussion... I'll grab some popcorn :)
For my money, an android console doesn't seem likely to be a big success versus tablets or even slabphones with airplay-like capability. I've seen Will playing a game using his iPad as a controller/secondary display on his acre of TV, and while it wasn't perfect it seemed to have promise. The only reason to bring out dedicated consoles these days is to push new processing power and provide an updated standard platform for game development.
I'd be happy for a new console generation to be released simply to raise the bar on the quality of the console ports that make it to PC...
Anyway, I'll let you get back to it :D
Just Googled AirPlay. That's very cool. I wish I could use my mobile to control the TV/Sky/WDTV/DVD/All the other shit.
Work got in the way then... I had a lovely, half-formed response, with quotes and everything.
To summarise my half-deleted riposte, the corporate culture that Sega, Atari and, to some extent Nokia, was entirely due to fanatical, un-reasoned purchases based solely on brand. I was one of them...I bought Nokia phones long after I should have. The lack of commerical pressure they had at the height of their success meant that rather than innovate and create good products, they just threw any old thing out of the door roughly once a year. In all cases, the end result is a gradual build-up of bad feeling/disenchantment from the core of dedicated fans, followed by an "off the cliff" sales model.
Sega put out the Dreamcast half-arsed, and didn't think they had to bother with 3rd party games. They assumed people would buy it simply because it had "Sega" on the box. Sony released the Playstation, and suddenly there was a better option, and the loyalty had gone.
Apple are on the top of a curve right now...they have their pretty little domain, and strictly control it. They release the same product every year, with one new feature (ooh...a new screen? Still the same bloody phone). They ask for well over the market price for their brand, and exist simply because there is a "cult of apple".
Diablo 3 is a classic example of how a dedicated community can be utterly abused...the product is, frankly, shocking. You can't play it unless they say so (always online system)...you can hardly play it at all for 3 days after buying it. They have damaged that fanatical culture massively with D3 (challenge...find a gaming forum with an overall positive response to D3)...if Blizzard release another product with the same casual disregard for their core consumers, it could well be the death of them. Someone else will come along with a better offer, and give a bit mroe of a shit about the buyer, and the masses will walk. We, the public, are a fickle and petty bunch...as we damn well should be. To be any less to to accept marketing spiel like sheep, letting large companies relase shite with no worries that it will be a commerical failure...after all, why try when someone will buy your product anyway?
Google Adverts...I have them blocked, so not really an issue for me. I use their various free services for now, as they are probably best-in-class currently. If another, better, option comes along then I shall have no qualms in swapping off...indeed, I'm entirely set up to do so.
Square Enix have funded the Ouya and it will be released with FF3 (already on Android store). Very interesting indeed!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19062200