Ouya’s hardware engineer Muffi Ghadiali discusses the inner workings of
Ouya’s hardware and addresses criticisms of its off-the-shelf components in this exclusive interview.
As a $99 Android-based games console with an entire library of
free-to-play games, Ouya certainly does things differently. This
free-thinking is partly a response to the changing needs of the games
industry but it also comes from an unusual production team not typically
associated with the traditional games business, including hardware
engineer
Muffi Ghadiali whose previous work includes product management
at
Hewlett-Packard and Amazon’s
Kindle team. Here, Ghadiali discusses
the inner workings of Ouya and responds to criticisms surrounding its
off-the-shelf components.
I think you will find this interview interesting. Enjoy the reading!
$99 is such a competitive price for Ouya. How have you managed to keep production costs down?
We are confident in our
price point and know that this can be done.
We’re using standard industry hardware. Anyone could look up the bill of
materials based on the components we’ve announced and do their own
calculations about the price. This approach is just one example of how
Ouya has challenged the thinking that has guided the console industry
until now. Consoles don’t require a custom chipset and expensive
development tools anymore. Technology has improved and it’s more
available and powerful than ever before. Because we bypassed the custom
chipset, we don’t need to pass additional costs onto consumers. I think
Julie [Uhrman] has said it before: What is
innovative here isn’t the
technology. It’s the
business model and the relationship we have with
developers. Our tech is standard, but it’s wrapped in a
beautiful
package designed by Yves Behar, and the
controller is really
cool.
Why did you decide to use the Tegra 3 chip and what do you say to people who think the chip will start to show its age by 2013?
It’s no surprise that people read through our plans and talk about
how they would do it differently or could do it better by doing X, Y or
Z. But we are confident in our ability to provide a
great gaming
experience based on the specs we’ve outlined. Many of the people who
question this decision are thinking in mobile terms and forget that Ouya
doesn’t have a battery or a screen, so we don’t have to balance power
for battery life.
We are actively working with
NVidia to
maximize the
power of the
Tegra 3. With Tegra 3 we can offer provide
performance
without significantly driving up costs. By integrating a current product
rather than a future product we have an advantage in that we know
exactly how it performs, and can get developers working on Ouya as soon
as possible.
Can
you go into more detail about how you’ll be maximizing the chip’s power with NVidia?
The Tegra 3 has been traditionally optimized for mobility and battery
life. Since Ouya is a console that’s always connected to a power supply,
that’s not a concern for us. We can increase graphics performance, and
gamers will experience higher fidelity graphics and smoother
performance.
What can you tell us about the developer environment on Ouya?
Ouya will use industry
standard development tools,
based on what
exists for Android. By using an established standard, we are immediately
accessible to the millions of developers familiar with Android today.
Over time, we’ll add more.
Porting games from Android will obviously be simple but what can you
do to help
developers port from other systems like PC and iOS?
We will provide
porting guidelines for developers interested in
adapting existing games to Ouya. That said,
we don’t intend for Ouya to
be mostly for ports. We expect that developers will create
new types of
gameplay built on Android to capitalize on the TV, and to exploit the
unique features of our controller. We’ve already had literally hundreds
of developers email us offering to develop exclusive content for Ouya,
there simply isn’t another console like it.
Since going live on Kickstarter you’ve obviously received an
abundance of feedback.
Has any of this feedback led you to alter the
design of the console or change any of your
plans?
Yes. It’s unique that future customers can weigh in on a product in
development, and Ouya is especially lucky because our backers are
largely comprised of both gamers and game makers. It’s an informed
audience with really insightful feedback. We don’t take their comments
for granted. We are always looking at feedback and making decisions
based on where we are in the product development cycle. Some examples of
areas where we took feedback: Ethernet (we added a port); Design of the
d-pad; Button markings (to address color blind gamers).
Can you go into more detail about how you intend, if at all, to protect Ouya from piracy
and hackers?
Ouya will be just
as secure as any other
Android-
powered device. In
fact, because all the paid content will require
authentication with
Ouya’s servers, we will have an added layer of security. Hacking and
openness are about getting what you want to do with the hardware.
We
embrace hackers because we expect that they will push the limits of the
hardware beyond what we’ve imagined. Rooting the device won’t give you
any more access to the games themselves.
Source : gamestm.co.uk
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