Ouya Performance Not Particularly Exciting 305
hypnosec writes "Results of recent benchmark tests reveal that Ouya is not up to the mark and there are over 70 other ARM devices that perform better than the gaming console. Futuremark, which is known for its benchmarks like 3DMark and PCMark, benchmarked mobile devices and the Tegra 3 powered Ouya has been ranked 73rd."
Of course, most of the those devices cost a lot more than $100 without carrier subsidies.
Re:And... and... (Score:4, Interesting)
Ouya competes with non-hyped Android sticks. I just got $50 MK808B and Neo G4 ($75) and X5 ($100, but more I/O) sticks that I'm setting up to do Skype, Internet, email... and games... for friends and family. Dual-core A9, 1GB RAM, 8GB Flash, 2x or 3xUSB, BT, Wifi, Android 4.1 (4.2 on the way), SD slot, HDMI (and SPDIF for the X5)... and the full Android PlayStore,which Ouya and GameStick don't offer.
Add a $50 gamepad (a really good one, xbox or DualShock), any old keyboard and mouse, or a Logitech K400 if you want to get fancy, and you get something that can play almost as well as the Ouya/Gamestick, and do a whole lot more thanks to the PlayStore.
There aren't a whole lot of games that support gamepads or kb+ms, and quite a few games won't run at all because of lack of touch/accelerometer/gyroscope, and the portrait mode... but there are still quite a few good games, a whole bunch of emulators... and this is a lot more than what the OuyaSticks have right now. And there's a good chance that OuyaStick games will find their way to the PlayStore, too, devs would be crazy not to port them: very little extra work, a way bigger market.
I think it all comes down to the games: if Ouya or GameStick not only catch up to the PlayStore but snag good, exclusive games, it might be worth pay as much for them as for a true Android device, in spite of Ouya/GameStick being as expensive, more limited, and having bad controllers.
And quad-cores are on the way for less than $100.
Re:800,000 Applications (Score:4, Interesting)
Big point missed: it's supposidly built to run XBMC really well. It does have multiple purposes.
Nvidia in real trouble (Score:2, Interesting)
As AMD began its project, many years ago, to fuse first-class GPU circuits within the same chip as the CPU, Nvidia was forced to respond. Nvidia contemplated building an x86 processor of its own, but quickly dropped that idea to focus on building ARM SoC parts. Nvidia had but one goal- to be the number one high-end supplier of ARM solutions.
Now, many years later, we can see just how badly Nvidia has failed. Tegra 1 was a disaster. Tegra 2 and 3 were terribly late, and only gained sales when Nvidia was forced to essentially give away the chips. Tegra 4 is even later than any previous ARM part, and is such a badly conceived device, Nvidia has been forced to nigh on cancel it in order to 'rush' to release the crippled Tegra 4i that will have a better price and power consumption at the cost of CPU and GPU performance.
Tegra 3 stinks because originally the much faster Tegra 4 was supposed to be in devices by now. Tegra 4 is the last of the ULP GPU Tegra designs from Nvidia. Tegra 5 brings desktop GPU designs to ARM- at which point Nvidia loses interest in the obsolete slow ULP GPU.
Ouya is obsolete. It is only good for running a class of games associated with weak Android hardware. The cutting edge Android games will be ports from high end iPads, and will be a bad match for the Tegra 3. There are increasing numbers of Android boxes that you can also plug into your TV and controllers. What possible point does Ouya have in this light?
If Nvidia has the money and the people, it only makes sense for Nvidia to be accelerating production of Tegra 5 at this stage. Current ARM/Android is matching the early days of the decent PC (486 -> Pentium -> Pentium Pro/Pentium 2) which was also (eventually) accompanied with the birth of the PC 3D graphics accelerator. Nvidia is currently running dead last in the ARM GPU stakes, behind Mali, Adreno, and (of course) PowerVR. Given that Adreno is an old ATI design, this is incredibly humiliating for Nvidia. In fact, Google is throwing out Nvidia with its tablet refresh later this year, and going Adreno (via Qualcomm).
It gets worse. AMD's astonishing Temash APU, with 4 Jaguar x86 cores and a brilliant GPU, will be a vastly better match for a little independent console box. While a console based on Temash would likely be 200 dollars, and run Windows rather than Android games, its improved performance (3X+ GPU, 20X+ GPU) would make for vastly better value and longevity.