Hello all. First time poster. I am Creative Director & President of Skylance Studio, a new indie game company I founded earlier this year. I figure I would chime in as a developer and give my two cents on all of this.
I feel the concept behind OUYA is interesting, and certainly for an indie developer such as myself. There are of course things yet to be seen. I haven't been following it as close in the last few months so I may be out of date on things as I comment here, so apologies if I am a little off base on some stuff.
Before developing for any platform it is important to really get a feel for what it can do and how well it works. In this case I'm really looking forward to seeing how good the controller is, the actual power of the machine itself, and size of allowed game downloads / system space.
I know third party controller companies have issues with patents sometimes, such as for d-pad's, which often result in really bad controllers. I really hope something like this isn't holding back OUYA's controller. I just have to try it myself and see how it handles. I believe it was recalled, and redesigned, recently due to unsatisfied testers?
And, of course the power of the system is going to be a huge factor as to what I can release on it. While we may be starting off very small now, we don't plan to remain in the mobile sector exclusively forever. Say for example we decided to do a platformer and released that on PC, maybe WiiU and PS4 as well. Because the OUYA has a traditional controller setup as well, I would also look to it as a possible platform to port to. However, presumably being the weakest of these platforms we do have to take into consideration how feasible it is to make a port and if we want to scale back things on the other versions to comply with the OUYA's presumably lower capabilities. The difficulty does not necessarily stem from a coding standpoint though, as cross platform development has never been easier than today. We are currently developing Hamster Drop, our first game, for iOS, Android, and Win8 all at the same time with ease.
The last factor is how much internal storage space the system has, whether it can be expanded easily, and how big of a download file will they allow us to have. Games are getting bigger and bigger, especially on consoles with HD resolutions. I want to make sure I have the space to properly pull off a great game full of a lot of content. I also want to make sure the console owner isn't going to have a hard time downloading it to their console, if the internal storage is small, or hard to expand.
As an aside, the requirement to have a free download version, in some way or form like a free demo, doesn't bother me. I honestly think it's important to do those anyway. Some developers seemed to be hesitant about this requirement though.
All in all, if it turns out to be a good quality console then I am all for it. For indies it is a potentially great opportunity to get a version of their games out there where a controller is the main input. Android is really cheap to develop for, and OUYA seems to be going out of their way to make it even easier by the retail consoles released being ready and able to develop for right out of the box (from what I hear).
As for the yearly console update thing, I would highly doubt that you would be forced to upgrade. Especially for a retail product someone could buy at any time during the year, it would not be fair to buy one in say, May, and then a month later it is locked out and in need of an upgrade. If anything, they would probably allow developers to release different versions depending on what's currently released. Sure this could lead to some lockouts for older OUYA's later on, as the original may not be able to play something three or four years ahead. Developers can easily scale their games to match older versions though. We do it for Hamster Drop already and easily, lowering texture resolutions and other factors for older phones and tablets to make sure they run well despite developing the 'primary version' for the iPad3/4's full resolution.
As far as the price point is concerned for the yearly upgrading, it is 'only' $100. However, consider that, for example, the PS4 is $400 up front and is a far more powerful console. The PS4 will likely have a lifespan of six years. If you are upgrading your OUYA console every year for six years, you are spending roughly $600 on it. Honestly the way games are scalable though, especially within the confines of the technological progress between each year for mobile devices, you could probably get away with upgrading your OUYA once every two to three years and still make out well. This of course all hinges on how they want to make the transition.
Anyway, that is my take on it all so far. We'll have to see how things shape up, but I certainly want them to succeed. Even if the first iteration isn't super great, things could always improve with their second outing and so forth.
Either way, I hope my insight on this was at least mildly entertaining if nothing else. I've been viewing the Escapist site for a while now and figured I'd pop onto the forums and see what's going on. Hopefully I'll find time to post more. (Also sad about no more Geekend Update, especially since they were getting better.)
