Free to Play on Ouya.

[Zthun]

I did some research on this, but I got a mixed bag of results. It was mostly naysayers that says the Ouya isn't selling games very well and that it's an overall failure of a console. According to the other thread here, I'm thinking it's not that bad of a console. Either way, I was thinking of getting on for my girlfriend for her birthday.

She's a casual gamer that likes phone games. She recently replaced her Xperia Play with an iPhone, so she doesn't have access to the android market games anymore. Her basic interests are mostly free to play games that are ad supported and have micro transactions (she almost never buys anything). She's also big into Facebook games, especially in the puzzle scene.

So my question is how do you think the free to play market is on the Ouya. Is it similar to google play, or is it all just small demos with games requiring purchase? I kept seeing that Ouya dropped the requirement for games to be free to play; I didn't realize that it had that requirement - I though it required demos of everything. Anyway, any thoughts? Please keep in mind that it wouldn't be used for emulation. I have plenty of systems that can do that, and I have all original consoles anyway, so it's not needed for this.

[Greg2600]

The free to play is pretty extensive. Even the pay games, the demos are still sufficient to play for 5 or 10 minutes. Heck, I play Pinball Arcade all the time and never bought it. I'll never get a score high enough to stop play! Ha ha.

[Satoshi_Matrix]

So my question is how do you think the free to play market is on the Ouya. Is it similar to google play, or is it all just small demos with games requiring purchase? I kept seeing that Ouya dropped the requirement for games to be free to play; I didn't realize that it had that requirement - I though it required demos of everything. Anyway, any thoughts? Please keep in mind that it wouldn't be used for emulation. I have plenty of systems that can do that, and I have all original consoles anyway, so it's not needed for this.

I've owned my Ouya for about a year now. There's a lot to like on it.

I actually think the Ouya Discover Store is superior to Google Play. Google play has a ton of junk. You know the stuff. Touch flash drawn boobs to farting apps. That isn't to say there also aren't low quality games on Ouya, but you can easily ignore them.

Until just recently, everything on Ouya was required to be free with optional in app purchases, free to try (demos) or just completely free. The lion share of what's on Ouya is completely free, with only some games requiring purchase. For most of the games that do, I feel like their demos are enough to give you a good taste to determine if you like the concept or not. I've bought about two dozen games. Prices range from 99 cents to $15, but more are $1.99, 2.99, or 3.99. Much better prices than on PSN or XBLA for similar content.

Recently, the newest firmware upgrade made demos no longer a requirement from devs, which seriously sucks. I don't care how awesome your game is. No demo = no sale from me. If I can't play it, there's no way I know if it'll be good or not. I'm not about to blindly buy games that I might end up hating and have no means of a refund. Luckily, some devs still get this and offer demos even now.

The emulators are often talked about, and that's because the majority of them are friggin fantastic. Yeah, other things can do emulation, but the Ouya does it very well, and that's just a bonus feature. Your girlfriend might appreciate playing Tetris or Dr. Mario or Panel De Pon.

There's also XBMC, which shouldn't be understated. XMBC is a one stop media center that can do tons of things, from steam videos from all across the web, play video files in 1080p, steam music, pictures, check the weather, act as media hub from your pc, so very much it can do.

The people who don't like the Ouya are simply ignorant to it.

[T2KFreeker]

Ouya is a cool little system. lot's of really well put together games. It's a mixed bag like lots of other things.

[Zthun]

Thanks for the responses, they help a lot. My last inquery was the WiFi. I've read numerous reports about the terrible wifi that was included with the Ouya. We are heavily dependant on wireless support from devices. Recently, I had to purchase an xbox 360 wireless adapter that supported the 5GHz band because my 2.4 GHz band is so congested, it wouldn't even connect to live. Does anyone know if the 16GB Ouya console supports the 5GHz band? Are there adapters released for it?

[Greg2600]

The issue with peripherals and Ouya is that there's only one USB port, so if you have anything more than a flash drive (most do), you need a hub. Sometimes depending on what you plug in, that hub may need external power. All I've read is that the 16GB version has "better" wifi, but nobody seems to have pinpointed what that means. The 8GB WIFI does suck.

[Satoshi_Matrix]

Thanks for the responses, they help a lot. My last inquery was the WiFi. I've read numerous reports about the terrible wifi that was included with the Ouya. We are heavily dependant on wireless support from devices. Recently, I had to purchase an xbox 360 wireless adapter that supported the 5GHz band because my 2.4 GHz band is so congested, it wouldn't even connect to live. Does anyone know if the 16GB Ouya console supports the 5GHz band? Are there adapters released for it?

The wifi on Ouya is 802.11. The only difference between the 8 and 16 GB models is that they are 8 and 16 GB models, and the 16 GB model has a controller with slightly redesigned thumb sticks and a black matte finish.

The Ouya wifi is terrible if you have really slow internet speed. I do. Once I instead simply used ethernet, all my problems went away. This is also what I suggest. In my case, it was a tricky problem to fix. My router is in my basement and the OUya in my living room, so not even my long ethernet cable was long enough. So what I did was bought a cheap male to male ethernet bridge connector. Unless your internet speed is blazing fast, this is highly recommended. ethernet is superior to wifi for stability too.

The issue with peripherals and Ouya is that there's only one USB port, so if you have anything more than a flash drive (most do), you need a hub. Sometimes depending on what you plug in, that hub may need external power. All I've read is that the 16GB version has "better" wifi, but nobody seems to have pinpointed what that means. The 8GB WIFI does suck.

Yeah, when you buy an Ouya, buy a powered (meaning it has its own power supply) USB hub. You can get small good ones on ebay from china for next to no money at all. The single USB port was an incredibly stupid move and the one thing I really hope they change with an Ouya 2.