First CD versus vs First Streaming Consoles

General and high profile video game topics.
Paul Campbell
Posts: 259
Joined: August 12th, 2015, 10:52 pm

Re: First CD versus vs First Streaming Consoles

Postby Paul Campbell » July 12th, 2019, 1:03 am

djc wrote:Very fitting topic as the Ouya servers just went offline effectively rendering them semi-functional (and new old stock or factory reset ones as paperweights). I'm still annoyed by this - I actually like the Ouya.


I liked the Ouya too. I think, besides a less than optimal controller, it's main downfall was that it became popular to diss the sysyem. I got my money's worth from that sysyem many times over, and I often saw people bashing the sysyem for reasons that proved to me that they had likely never even been in the same room with one.

I still have two Ouya consoles and three controllers. If I fire it up tomorrow, will I still be able to play the games I downloaded, free or paid for? If not mistaken, there's already a website offering free downloads of Ouya exclusives. Might be nice to bust that baby out again if it will still contain my favorites...

Sonicx9
Posts: 1818
Joined: April 27th, 2015, 6:37 pm

Re: First CD versus vs First Streaming Consoles

Postby Sonicx9 » July 13th, 2019, 8:45 pm

Responding to two parts:

Edward M wrote:I hate hate hate the idea of streaming consoles. This will completely remove any ownership of games. As soon as those servers go down, you can never play your games again. However, I assume this is what the game companies want. They want complete ownership of games themselves, and make gamers have to repurchase games over and over again. However, games that get stuck in legal hell, such as the Scott Pilgrim downloadable game did, will no longer be purchasable. And if the only way it was ever made was for streaming, you won't even be able to pirate it at that point, and the game will simply disappear from existence.



I also hate the idea of streaming consoles as well, and not alone as Dreamcast Guy hates Google Stadia like us.

Paul Campbell wrote:
I liked the Ouya too. I think, besides a less than optimal controller, it's main downfall was that it became popular to diss the sysyem. I got my money's worth from that sysyem many times over, and I often saw people bashing the sysyem for reasons that proved to me that they had likely never even been in the same room with one.

I still have two Ouya consoles and three controllers. If I fire it up tomorrow, will I still be able to play the games I downloaded, free or paid for? If not mistaken, there's already a website offering free downloads of Ouya exclusives. Might be nice to bust that baby out again if it will still contain my favorites...


Have you tested Ouya after June 25, and how well does the device work?

djc
Posts: 279
Joined: September 24th, 2016, 3:42 pm

Re: First CD versus vs First Streaming Consoles

Postby djc » November 12th, 2021, 1:56 pm

djc wrote:Very fitting topic as the Ouya servers just went offline effectively rendering them semi-functional (and new old stock or factory reset ones as paperweights). I'm still annoyed by this - I actually like the Ouya.
...


Not to revive an old thread but...

By happenstance the other day I wanted to see if there was anyone still doing anything with the Ouya console. I stopped using mine shortly after the service was discontinued in 2019 in favor of an NVidia Shield TV (more on that later).

To my surprise, I learned that a group of people took it upon themselves to archive nearly the entire library of published Ouya games and created an API/server that the Ouya could connect to.

A very easy update to the Ouya console (copying a two-line text file to the main storage area of the console) restored access to the Discover channel and brought my Ouya back to life. Even more impressive is that in the last two years there have been a number of new homebrew titles created for the Ouya and available in the store.

This makes me very happy for a number of reasons. First - I actually like the Ouya so being able to have it set up again and fully working is a blast. Second, I started looking more into these enthusiast groups that work to keep older server based systems online and I found there are a number of them. For example, there is a group that has restored online capabilities to the Wii, Wii-U, and DS that were lost when Nintendo took the servers offline.

This gives me more of a comfort level with digital platforms because if there is a way that an enthusiast server can be brought online and made to work after the official servers close, it is in theory possible to keep these consoles functional for much longer.

Finally - the NVidia Shield TV. It's certainly impressive and being a streaming console, can play high quality AAA titles BUT I always felt like it was an Android box first and a game console second (which is the opposite of how I feel about the Ouya). Also I do not like the whole streaming aspect of games for a simple reason - when I first got my Shield set up, I loaded a game into my library and put in a lot of time completing it. When I got close to the end of the game, it vanished from my library because NVidia had a licensing dispute with the publisher so the titled was pulled from their service. That means all the time/effort I put into my game was lost which kind of sucks. I am much happier being able to download/install the games locally - of course physical media is better still.

TLDR; It's 2021 and my Ouya is pretty much functional again thanks to the people involved with the Ouya Saviors Project. And yes - I am equally shocked that there are others out there who like/use the Ouya :)

-DJ

CaptainCruch
Posts: 662
Joined: July 17th, 2015, 11:26 am

Re: First CD versus vs First Streaming Consoles

Postby CaptainCruch » November 18th, 2021, 11:40 am

I loved the time of the first CD consoles. I was such an existing games for videogames and many new things were tried (I doesn't matter most of them flopped: CD-add-on consoles, FMV games, the first "home-entertainment consoles" (CD-i, 3DO) for "all your multimedia!). I loved reading the gaming magazines back in the 90s. The medium was truly evolving. Back to the present: not such much, not much existing is happening in my opinion. Because of the high costs all developers and game manufacturers do the same: milking old ideas and franchises. Even the indie scene is oversaturated with the same sort of games nowadays. You can't play, according to the sales it seems to be what users want.

I'm not exited about streaming consoles, but just like in the movie and music business I think the gaming industry will evolve into 90% streaming and 10% physical (just like a small number of people still buy CD's, DVD's or Blurays). In the long run, it will be cheaper for developers and manufacturers and a better way to commit users for them for almost for ever, because swapping to another platform will be a burden (just look at Apple users). Personally, if internetspeeds will be up to the task, I think streaming can be convenient (I use Netflix all the time and never buy DVD's anymore). But I will miss the charm of physical media and also, I wonder what will happen when those console disappear. Will the games released for it be gone forever? (exactly like many iOS or Android games?)


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