The Ouya arrived in the mail yesterday, I was an early backer but an international one, so I was further down the shipment date list. Here are a few shots of the initial unpacking:

The packaging was tidy and simple, nothing elaborate like an Apple product. The boot process was simple and after joining my wireless network and pairing the Bluetooth joystick, then applying the first system update, the console was ready… but not fully working. After the update, things got a little flakey, the Bluetooth pairing was lost and while the device knew about the wireless network it had previously joined, it wasn’t actually connected. I discovered this bug while attempting to sign in to the Ouya network and it reported the error. To fix it, I needed to toggle wireless networking, which caused it to rejoin the network and the adventure was able to continue.

I am able to use a keyboard and mouse with the console, although the mouse doesn’t seem to work in the “Discover” panel when selecting games but the joystick works just fine. Here you can download any game you want and more than one at the same time, but it is difficult to see the progress of each game as it downloads. This would be an ideal option for the “Play” tab which remains empty until the game has completely downloaded; instead, it could show you which games are currently being installed and the progress for each. The progress bar overlay they use in the Discover panel is not a particularly good color and tends to blend in a little too well with most the thumbnails.

Every game is free to try, which is a really nice model because some titles I think I will like, end up being not what I expected and thus collect dust on my system or shelf. It’s also a much better model for tentative gamers since they can try out more games in a worry free model. Although as an added enhancment, I would like to know the price of a game ahead of time, just in case the price does not match my expectations so I don’t waste time playing a game I will never buy. Hopefully, little features like wish lists will be forthcoming in future updates.

Categories: Android, Ouya
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