So I played with it in various ways most of last evening. There are some interesting bits and there are a lot of bad bits.
First off the default controller is terrible. I was expecting that but its even worse than I imagined. It's like a really bad PC gamepad from the 90's or something. Not only that but my left trigger stick makes an annoying clicking sound like something is broken in it. So right off the bat, you really need to use a PS 3 controller or a 360 controller which wouldn't be so bad because that's the same case on a PC but I couldn't get my 360 controller to work in some games even when they specifically said they supported the controller. I'm probably doing something wrong but still. The PS 3 controller seemed to work with mostly no problems.
Another annoying bit is that it only has one USB port which is very limiting in this day and age. It's nice that the ouya has the ability to recognize mice and keyboards and mass storage devices, etc but only being able to use one at a time without some sort of usb hub is a waste.
The interface at first seems decent and simple but its kinda slow and it seems to hang occasionally. It also has occasional weird android error messages when something doesn't go the way the system is expecting. Not a game breaker or anything but surprising for the lack of polish for something that is supposed to be aimed at casuals.
After trying a number of the games, it seems roughly slightly behind my Ipad 3 when it comes to power. The games that work are retro and indie style graphic treatments. Stuff like Shadowgun it seems to really struggle with. I tried Ravensword: Shadowlands which is something I'm familiar with from my ipad and it runs it decently enough I suppose.
So where it works is games on ios or mobile where a controller would always have been ideal. Super Crate Box is probably the best game on their imo because its feels good with a controller. Games like that. There isn't much on the system right now outside of a small selection of ios/android stuff. I tried a number of games and none of them are obviously what you would call killer apps. Most of them run decently with a proper 360 or ps 3 controller and they aren't terrible or anything but none of them are anything you would buy a system for. Pinball Arcade while ugly runs surprisingly well I thought. The Twitch app runs pretty well.
I sideloaded XBMC since its not an official app yet although they say its coming. It's neat and it runs some video well but it struggles with other video content well. I wasn't sure if this was a non-native issue or simply a lack of power on the Ouya's part, or just not fully optimized codec support. There didn't seem to be a rhyme or reason to it. Some HD content it handled fine and some it didn't handle well at all. I guess we'll see when it officially comes out but that would be quite disappointing if its still an issue on the official release because that's one of the main reasons I was able to reason myself to pluck down the 99 bucks.
The other reason is the emu part and that actually ended up better than I expected. The emus are right there on the front page which I found a bit surprising for some reason. I thought that stuff would be hidden or need to be side loaded also. I had heard bad things here about input lag and such but it felt relatively fine to me. I tried some snes games and some neo geo games and Mario 64 and they ran fine to me. I can't speak to how well the emus run a variety and cross selection of games but the emu stuff was the best part of using the ouya last night.
So that's pretty much it. When you use it, you definitely get the sense that this product wasn't ready. The core idea is interesting and I have a feeling if Apple did this, they would have a few killer apps that would make it feel more worthwhile along with the polish and such to make it a more ready to go experience. For me the xbmc stuff is still out to jury which is disappointing but I liked the emulator support although I need to try more of it to see how compatible things actually are. The system itself for its games isn't there but but then I didn't really expect that. I feels like a less good xbox indie marketplace so far which is not a great place to be.
For my very specific uses if the xbmc comes along and shapes up I'd be happy with the purchases along with the emulator support. For Joe Average consumer though I don't really see how this is going to attract them. It's a device made to try to jump the gun on Apple without a really clear and compelling market or apps to tap into after you get beyond the early adopters and weird people like me who just want to fuck around with a cheap android system.
