Controller-design is hard. Mapping small fast movements to the screen, especially when playing 3D-games, needs a perfectly for the job designed hardware. Consoles lack a good input anyway, compared to the mouse. That is why kinect was so promising, though of course movement-controllers have their own set of issues.
Their solution now is to cave. They didn't design their own controller. Instead, they oviously took the xbox and ps3 controller and merged them. Those controllers solved some issues when compared to the old controllers for the snes and such, with the circle-sticks (which unlike the one from the N64 aren't as high thin and probably therefore longer lasting) and the holdable form.
So the controller is nothing special, but from the conept-side it at least won't be much worse than the ones from current consoles. Maybe using such a generic one was a smart move.
Perhaps it was promising, but it is fairly terrible in practice. Except for a few dance and fitness games. The thing about traditional controllers is they are both precise and abstracted. Button presses are clear, and work well with the complexity of most games. The analogue features give a higher degree of control but are still very discrete. As for their abstracted nature, one of the distinguishing features of humans vs animals is our ability to use tools, devices which are one step abstracted from direct action. This is why controllers, mice, keyboards, etc work. Why not embrace it instead of trying to work around it with immature technology like the Kinect?
>> Their solution now is to cave. They didn't design their own controller
So why do you think they need to revolutionise the controller? The original XBox had a mild stab at something new but they quickly reverted to a design much more similar to the Playstation Dual Shock. The target market for Ouya is XBLA and PSN players, people who want a cheaper, more open living room console. They are sensible not to try to reinvent the wheel when they don't have the resources to do it well and their audience likes the existing wheel.
There weren't really that many changes from the original XBox controller to the 360's controller. The face buttons and the stick positions didn't really change. In terms of buttons, the only major change was the removal of the black/white buttons from the original XBox, and the addition of the RB and LB bumpers to the 360.
The major change was that the side grip rails were made smaller.
I don't. I wanted to point out that they copied an existing, working design. Which is probably a smart thing to do for such a project.
>As for their abstracted nature, one of the distinguishing features of humans vs animals is our ability to use tools, devices which are one step abstracted from direct action.
Careful with such claims ;) Even birds can learn that.
I don't get why some people think that gaming is all about FPS's and RTS games.
Why on earth would I want to use a mouse on a game like Street Fighter IV, Tetris, Bust-A-Move, Pac Man, Mario, Virtua Fighter, Tekken, etc. I can name a lot of games that work better with a traditional D-Pad type of controller than they would with a keyboard or mouse.
I ran into this playing the Tony Hawk games, which I loved on the PC; on the console, executing complex combos feels like a thumb workout.
Obviously it is still a stylistic choice; the keyboard enables faster, more focused play, while the controller encourages a more laid-back playstyle which still feels competitive. But it does that by deliberately crippling the control you have, and you should embrace that.
The reason I think keyboard is superior is that when using a keyboard, I can have few fingers on top of keys at the same time. Whereas when using the controller, I just use two thumbs. My thumb has to jump between buttons in order to switch different moves. That is slow.
Similarly, doesn't their console UI look dangerously close to the current Xbox dashboard? Surely this infringes on Metro in a big way?
I remember reading about it a long time ago thinking that it would be a sign of the future and something I would definitely want to try. It seems to have fallen off of my radar and I don't know anyone who uses their service, and I would consider myself and my friends "hardcore" gamers.
I tried the beta and it didn't even work, but went back when AA was 99 cents and was impressed that they were even able to make a reality. I pre-ordered AC because it came with the console for free, and it was pretty slick.
However, I subscribed to their "channel" and have been pretty disappointed, the games are mostly old or random indie titles that don't always fit the model, and a good number require a mouse/keyboard which you can make work with the console, but is much clunkier than the slick wireless controller (which is _very_ well done).
There are 2 problems: 1) Anything even smelling like a dropped connection boots you entirely out of the game, and can take a few minutes to get back in. This includes just pausing and walking away for 5-10 minutes.
2) The batman games worked because they have a slower, more deliberate input system, and auto-save constantly. Otherwise it just won't be able to keep up.
So, barring licensing, I just don't see it being able to play something that needs a good twitch response time, multi-player, or something that is hard to recover after an immediate drop. So, no diablo, CoD, real-time strategies, or MMOPRGs.
Without those titles, it won't be able to get a lot of traction.
Still, a really awesome technical achievement. The PC executeable is a couple of _megs_ and can then just stream anything, but a lot of gaming needs either fast response time (which you lose with the server round-trip), or the ability to just stop for a few minutes without losing everything you've got.
As someone who's talked to the company a fair bit through work - I don't have any figures to give you (not that I could say if I knew them, but I don't know them), all I can say is that I haven't heard of any problems or any negative news from them. As far as I'm aware they're doing pretty well so far.
I'm kind of hoping to never build a gaming PC again.
Xbox 360 controllers would require either wired or the RF adapter that MS sells for PC use.
This could be solved very easily by picking some symbols to go along with the colors. Of course, our patent and trademark laws are ridiculous and it's highly likely that Microsoft has already patented the letters X, Y, A, and B...
"P.S. We're still deciding on the buttons. For now, we've stuck with the colored circles as placeholders. But don't fret, we won't leave out colorblind gamers. :)"
http://9to5google.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/onlive_control...
Wouldn't Nintendo (Super Nintendo), Sega (Genesis and forward) et al. have prior art on this? Microsoft was far from the first to use those letters.
In terms of patents, Nintendo have the cross-shaped D-pad, Sony have the segmented d-pad and Microsoft are left with the awful spongy rocker pad.
That'd be a shame. X, Y, A and B sounds more Super Nintendo than Xbox.
Nintendo and Sega have both used this scheme since SNES / Dreamcast respectively (as well as Nintendo DS).
