Tag Archives: YVES BEHAR

The Ouya is Today’s Failure

The Ouya is Today’s Failure, because every Wednesday is going to be failed crowdfunding projects, because otherwise we’d never learn anything.

The Ouya was a micro-console, I say was, you can’t get the misbegotten thing anymore, for which all of humanity ought to be immeasurably grateful, it was a silly thing. Annouced in 2012 as a “revolutionary” home video console by Julie Uhrman, described as an industry veteran by many, she wasn’t an industry veteran when we’re talking about a console, she would be one talking pure business development, but that didn’t translate over.

HELLO! MY NAME IS JULIE UHRMAN! I AM VERY PASSIONATE ABOUT THINGS!

They used kickstarter and did get over eight and half million US dollars, not bad for the former Vice President of Digital Distribution of IGN (Note, IGN doesn’t actually do proper digital distribution, IGN is a website for basically paid reviews), at the time the fifth largest sum kickstarted, even on that platform it has been eclipsed, all the way down to nine, including all platforms Ouya isn’t even close to the 200 million US$ and more StarCitizen has raised.

Still, not to shabby, combined it with various venture capital, they actually managed to release the product, that’s right, for my fellow engineers out there, they released a “Minimum Viable Product”.

Fucking hell, this was massively popular? Why?

It was a smartphone in a box, literally, the blasted thing used Andriod and had an Nvidia Tegra 3 chipset to handle the lifting, wont call it heavy, it can run mobile apps, that isn’t heavy lifting even at the worst of times.

And guess what, the design of the ugly little shitbox? YVES BEHAR, the primogenitor of the damned himself returns to sprinkle failure all over the venture, the Ouya had issues with overheating and STANDING UP, mostly due to issues with the case.

The controller? The buttons would get stuck all the time, the touch pad in the center, designed to handle mobile games touch controls, didn’t work properly in the earlier versions and it felt cheap. Then again, what did people expect from a device costing 99 US$.

HATE
Hate.

April 2013 they began delivering the pre-ordered Ouyas, June it was put up for sale, October they announced a redesign in 2014, it went up in the end of January 2014, double the storage and a new controller, hot damn.

Now, as with virtually all consoles released since like 1995, Ouya didn’t make any money on the consoles, nobody does, except Sony on the first PlayStation but they basically made the whole thing in-house from whatever random crap they had around, the money comes from licensing and software sales.

But the Ouya was terminally stupid, you could replace the entire thing with a HDMI cable and a laptop, then add in various casting devices and the Raspberry Pi being better in almost every way.

In 2015, Alibaba for some forsaken reason, throw ten million dollars at the sinking ship, guess what? The whole mess was sold to Razer in July of the same year, frankly, Alibaba probably didn’t even notice the cash was gone.

Razer only purchased the software and developer relations elements, the rest was left to rot in the sun, they used this technical staff to support their own micro-console and what do you know, it was discontinued in 2016.

And how does this sordid tale end? Total shutdown of everything in June this very year, rendering a default Ouya an even more useless hunk of junk.

Julie Uhrman now works as Head of Media, for Playboy.

The lessons learned are that micro-consoles are silly.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouya

https://www.linkedin.com/in/julieuhrman/

The Ouya: Still fucking stupid!

So, the Ouya, is it still a useless pile of engored over-marketed shit? Of course it is, the core concept is broken as all fucking hell, a useless consoles to play mobile games, games that are almost universally unplayable and shouldn’t exist outside of Newgrounds.

Another sad tendency, is the fact that flash games, previously something you’d play on Newgrounds when you where bored, are now sold as actual games, genuinly expensive games, a staggering concept to me, games like these aren’t worth anyones time, least of all me.

Now, the Ouya does live on, of a short, it runs on the nightmares of deranged marketing people, the dreams of redditors who flock to anything vaguely rebelious and the money, the money, the fucking money of Venture capitalists, who happily hurl cash at anything that have even the slightest chances, of making them fortunes.

To bad nothing good will ever come from the Ouya, other than more than a few laughs and giggles.

And behold, Amazon’s getting into this too, or are they? Nope, it’s just another little happy TV thing, with the whole console thing added as a little bonus.

TOUCH IT
TOUCH IT

There is no real demand for the Ouya, everything it can do, can be done better or easier with something else, like say, a laptop and a HDMI cable.

But alas, it was marketed as some liberating concept, handed down to us, humble plebs, by the Great and Glorious gods from upon high. Free the games, indeed. I don’t want the games free, Quality control is awesome.

But that’s not to be. But enough of all this, we all know the Ouya’s a stupid pile of crap.

Yves Behar’s design is still fucking stupid, and sweet lady, have you seen the design he made for the One Laptop per Child idea? Why the hell?

Why wouldn’t they just ask Lenovo if they could use the ThinkPad instead, cheap and durable beats overdesign crap anyday.

HATE
Hate.

The OUYA: Bullshit marketing and idiots

The OUYA: Bullshit marketing and idiots.

The OUYA, a magical beast from a time that never should, is a kickstarter funded, andriod-based video game console. It became an overnight success on Kickstarter, because people bought the Virtual Boy, the Philips CD-i, the Ngage and stupidity, and went off and raised over eight million US$. Why? How? Simple comrades, simple. An effective “stick-it-to-the-man” and “rebel-without-a-cause” approach, combined with the incomprehensible growth of libertarianism, add in a dash of idiocy, no sense of quality or control, a lack of knowledge about HDMI cables. And lo and behold! A stupid video game console.

It was sold, in the start, as a sort of “poor-mans” console, 100 US$ for a console? Sold! But consider this, what kind of poverty stricken human being, would waste 100 bucks on a fucking video game console? No, that’s not the right answer, the correct answer is absolutely no one on the surface of the planet. So we return to the first proposal: Idiots, with no knowledge of HDMI cables. HD-TVs are fairly expensive anyway.

It was then sold as a “rebellious” alternative to “the Big Three”; Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo. Who, with their old well-established consoles, surely need an opponent! With a 60.000 strong user-base, who has no clue how HDMI cables work, playing bloody mobile games on their giant HD-TVs, well done. Sony must be shitting bricks, out of sheer existential dread. Again, nonsense. So we’re back to people, who can’t hook up a pc to a TV and who has no earthly clue how HDM*I works.

And then, and then, the argument became: “I want to play Android games on my TV” , because, well, who doesn’t want to play “Angry Birds” on their television. Other than people with a bit of taste, and a laptop, or a PC, or perhaps AppleTV, or a Rasperry PI, or the future SteamBox, or a smartphone, or an Xbox, or a Playstation, someone with a chess set, or perhaps an old fucking Sega.

So, morons, who enjoy simple colourful lights, I mean, mobile games, have no knowledge og PCs and cannot fathom how HDMI cables work.

Then they brought up the open nature of the platform, which sound really good, if you are blessed with a completely lack of common sense and logic, because at the point where this stupid thing get’s close to release, and surprise, “open” means, absolutely no quality control, at all, nothing, nada, zip, zero. so the OUYA shop looks like unregulated Newgrounds, you know, without the quality control that site has.

A 100 bucks to play flash games? And add whatever devestatingly stupid price to “developers” ask for their games, that parts that aren’t “free”. The hell? Just hook up and old laptop or something. It’s bound to be cheaper and much more flexible, than this stupid, barely working, box of cellphone innards. And hey, you don’t have to pay to use Newgrounds and Kongregate, so that’s a Vicory, and very small one, but a Victory is a Victory, no matter its relevance, size or meaningfulness.

And thus, comrades, we return. Back to the unbelievably thick, optimistic, gullible, stupid and weak morons, who fall for anything, even the smallest, most pitiful, hype. Who cannot understand how cheap PCs can be. Who cannot use HDMI cables. Who pays money for flash games. Who rejoices in pointless rebelion against targets, who are not even remotely worth it. And deified Julie Uhrman, a maniac, a former “Junior-Vice-President” of Digital Distribution, sadly not at Valve or Microsoft, but at IGN, so not actually someone who knows anything outside marketing phrases. I’m more of a Video Game Veteran than this bag of empty philosophy, you people will fall for anything, wont you?

Julie-Uhrman-OUYA-Founder
BEHOLD! THE DARK MISTRISS OF TERRIBLE HAIR!

So here we are, the OUYA, you know what? Fuck that name, I’m just going to replace it with random phrases, makes more sense. The OGABO is being released, technically, slowly, and probably not at all anyway. And guess what? To rave reviews! In the deranged mental landscape of its mentally deluded supporters at least, everyone else just thinks it’s rather shit. The Verge thought it was spectacularly rubbish, in one of those “Oh shit, I really don’t want to actually say how shit this is, let’s just fire of meaningly bullshit and give it a low-grade” ways. Joystiq went slightly harder, more honest, to work, and called the UOYA: “The Infinite Garage Sale”, presuming the damn thing ever get’s out to all 60000 users, and not just to the roughly thirty it’s reached so far, You can even get a picture of the Hardware if you check this one out, you will have to scroll, a lot.

And of course, the marketing machine went fucking haywire. And unleashed every single one of their awe-inspiring weapons of sales directed psychology. Or that’s what those maniacs thought they did, for the rest of sanity, this is what they did:

They claimed that reviews shouldn’t be made, until after the OKLHA had been released, because, get this, it wasn’t “ready” for reviews. How the hell does anyone even remotely believe this? Even after Uhrman’s insanity made her claim the damn thing was “finished”, and hey, seeing as no one’s actually getting this stupid thing, I guess she was rightWRONG.

WHY? YOU FUCKING MORONS! WHY? WHY DID YOU DO THIS?

I guess the HOKAH is only really useful, as a very expensive decorative item. A decorative item designed by Yves Béhar, a big fan of boxes, squares and useless overhyped junk. apparently he’s biggest credentials is his involvement with some “Laptops for kids” initiative, not sure what a designer does on a charity project, money’s better spent elsewhere, just go use IBMs old laptop design, cheap, indestructible, perfect.

The OUYA isn’t anything new and shiny, there’s been attempts to make Open platforms before, many attempts at “indie” consoles, all have faded into obscurity, none has ever taken off, this is just another Ngage, CDi and almost a Phantom.

The OUYA was stupid when I saw it on Kickstarter, it’s still fucking stupid, if you think otherwise, then do I have an offer for you! A free Eiffel Tower, only 100 US£, slightly used.

Philip “Ragnarokz” Balfour, is a useless hack, you shouldn’t read this.