Worst Ever: The OUYA Failure - Rerez 

Hey you, if ya like that shirt I'm wearing you can get one right here: rerez.creator-spring.com/listing/money-ghost-2x2-official

Ouya LIED to me as well, and stiffed me for thousands of dollars. They hired my company to photograph images that were to be used "specifically" only for Press and Social Media. We had a contract stating so, and they wanted an extremely discounted rate as these photos were NEVER supposed to be used for advertising or anything other than Press. Low and Behold, a year later I'm walking though a Target store and see an Ouya console on the shelf. I pick it up to see MY PHOTOS being used on the product packaging itself, and the advertising. SMH. Anyhow, my agent sent them the bill for the additional usage, and they refused to pay and ignored the request. We threatened a lawsuit. Julie's lawyers claimed that she had sold everything off to Razer to pay their already enormous debt, and they had no money left. When they were made aware they could be liable for up to $150,000 in copyright infringement fees...they agreed to pay half...and...we decided to take the loss as a tax write off instead. Moral of the story...beware of doing business with people who lie through their teeth.

"I tripped over my ouya the other day and skinned my knee. The most fun i've had with it since lauch" ~A Kickstarter user, 2019

To be fair, I think the “nothing special” line was supposed to mean that the console used common hardware, making it open to modding and hacking (back when that was still a selling point), but it was expressed very poorly.

I took the paper bag thing as trying to emulate Steve Jobs unveiling the first MacBook Air with a manila envelope, but utterly failing to understand how and why his delivery worked. Then again, they utterly failed to understand many, many other things.

As a dust collector, at least the Wii U has some legitimately great games.

Fun fact my friends got a backer console kit for 15 dollars from a thrift shop then modded it into an android streaming box. And they used it until one day it caught fire and melted.

A cutting-edge game system in which you can watch poorly animated rain, learn NOT to eat soap, and learn Esperanto. What a bargain!

I had a friend who was convinced the Ouya was the best console he could buy because "you can run emulators on it." Emulators, like you can easily install on the Wii which he already owned. He doesn't talk about Ouya anymore.

"Why did the financial analysts think the Ouya had a chance against the Big Three?" Context: Those same analysts at the time were saying traditional gaming is dead and mobile is the future.

Me: So, is this a video games console? Sally: Nope; it's a _television_ games console.

Good Lord! I feel like this lady was the Elizabeth Holmes of gaming… How someone fucked something up so bad is unreal. Be careful who you give your money to folks. It’s like a hiring a CEO without an interview, resume, or exp.

Was the console good? No Did everything that could go wrong go wrong? OUYA

"gamers are moving away from the televisions" It's nearly 2022 and this statement is still incredibly false.

I remember pre-ordering an Ouya. Then I cancelled the pre-order. Then they sent me two. I contacted them via email offering to send both back and they told me to keep them. And that's my story about my Ouya(s)

Honestly, the name OUYA sounds like something that a martial artist would say before they fight.

21:29 This Kato's expression accurately depicts how everyone felt about the OUYA

It's really simple why Ouya failed: - No exclusives, no killer apps - Their store moderation and "free trial" policy led to it becoming a dumping ground for mobile games

The CEO honestly comes across as someone who managed to luck out with the right connections and has no clue what tf they are doing

Ouya: "Hackers can tweak the box and make it their own!" Hackers: *creates emulators in Ouya* Ouya: *Surprised Pikachu face*

What I remember the most about the Ouya was just how incompetent the woman managing the company was. She was terrible and always sounded oblivion to the world of videogames or what gamers wanted.

Ahh, 2012 - that golden age when mobile games still showed potential for innovative game design... how far have we fallen.

The crowning achievement of the OUYA, is being the star of an Rerez video.

Maybe the OUYA was meant to complete with the Hyperscan

I still remember the woman saying "There's nothing special about this thing" and I laughed because apparently NO ONE said out loud to her, "Then why would anyone buy this?"

Also another thing that made the "freedom" and "pro consumer" thing a lie. The Ouya had DRM that made it almost impossible to get footage off of it with capture cards at the time. This was around the rise of let's plays on RU-vid. So according to Ouya you can do whatever you want to your games except record them.

Rerez takes more care of the OUYA than the creator I’m impressed

The OUYA is one of those things you buy solely out of curiosity....then you leave it at the bottom of your closet, or in a random box of junk in your house.

“Playstation has a touchpad controller” “It’s true. They could build it for that” Lmao wut?!

Sally: "hackers can hack the platform and make it their own" *people use emulators* Sally: "NO FREE DEMOS!!!!"

Ouya looked at mobile gaming and thought that would catch on everywhere else. It didn't seem to occur to them that people didn't buy their smartphone to play Angry Birds, Doodle Jump or Candy Crush on. The reason people played Angry Birds, Doodle Jump & Candy Crush was because they ran on their phone.

To give the OUYA the benefit of the doubt, at least the homebrew scene is pretty active. You could probably use the OUYA as a homebrew box

One of their many mistakes is straight out of the gate, she says everyone is moving away from the television, so we're going to take the form they're moving to despite its compromises and put it in the television. And thereby create the worst of both

Julie: *says people are moving away from the tv* Also Julie: *makes a home console that needs a tv.*

OUYA: Tauts itself as being very avant-garde Also OUYA: Has the same exact controller as all other systems

I remember forums I was on at the time being LOADED with people who would argue until they were red in the face that the Ouya was going to "destroy" the current console market. That Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo were all "terrified" of what it represented. And I don't think they ALL could have been Forbes writers... The next time I heard about it was as a punchline in a Homestar Runner cartoon years later.

Basically, Ouya has now become a perfect paperweight

In case anyone's curious about what Julie Uhrman is doing nowadays, she became the co-founder of Angel City Football Club, which is a Los Angeles-based expansion soccer team for the National Women's Soccer League. They've been announced this past July, and are expected to play sometime in 2022.

"i love video games, but more and more people are moving away from the television" Well this aged like a fine glass of milk in relation to things like the Xbox and PS5 and even the switch which yes is a portable consol but can also be docked and used on the tv

7:06 that is an early sign of unprofessionalism.

Just Rain: The Stealth Sequel to Quantic Dream’s Heavy Rain

When my grandpa got his first computer in the late 90s he bought a CD ROM called "350 great games" from the budget section somewhere. It was a bunch of freeware/shareware games and they looked exactly like most of these.

Dunkaroos... Classic reference

take a shot every time she says television… 😂

Amazing how Julie Uhrman cleaned her hands of this debacle and founded a professional women's soccer club. You just keep movin' on

To be fair, Just Rain is an actual Android app to help with sleeping, meditation, etc. Not sure why it got ported to the Ouya though lol

"Our controller has a touchpad; you're not gonna find that anywhere else." [Looks at the PS4 controller in confusion]

She finally married her beloved TV. Unfortunately, the TV abused her and the marriage felt apart. She now lives in a condo, with an VHS and a Juicero. It's a juicy and well recorded liberal trio.

34:36 - We can't sleep on the most unintentionally funny part of that tooltip: IT'S WRITTEN IN COMIC SANS.

Julie's son: Aww man.. my mom packed me a Ouya for lunch!

I actually bought an Ouya. It worked pretty well as a SNES emulator for about a week, and then it broke and I couldn't turn it on again. The SNES classic does the job much better in every way, so no loss.

ouya is just the sound they expected you to make once you realized you got fucked outta your money and time

That lady has never played a video game that wasnt on a phone. Shes completely clueless. Her calling it the television over and over makes me wonder if shes ever even seen a TV.

Ouya: "I'm not feeling to well." Rerez: "Welcome to the show."

"There's nothing special about this thing" lol. That is like the worst thing you can say about your console xD

I really like, how she looks out of the picture in those company-video-interviews like 4:29, showing everyone that this is a beginner level company not able to hire a pro video maker.

They could have atleast managed a brand name that sounded like a damn gaming console

That awkward moment where Big Rigs is more complete than the OUYA's racing game..

I do agree that emulators were a big problem with the system but I think the real reason why 73% didn't buy games was because as Julie said "this console is ment to be hacked" people were downloading APK files of the games so there wasn't a point to buy them. One of there key features shot them in the foot.

The Coconut Hut "ad" reminds me of the Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing ad parody that AVGN did.

The OUYA: All the gaming power of a smart phone, with the portability of a console!

"Our controller has a touchpad! Does the competition have one on their televisions?" "Yes" "...exactly! Buy an Ouya! It's for the television!"

"Stop wasting cash on crappy games" *makes a console full with crappy games* Seriosly, the flash games are far better than this and they are all free.

Most of the games looked so bad, they seemed to be parodies, but the horror is they were real? Unbelievable. Thank you for getting one of these so we don't have to. All good wishes!

There are bad products and there are bad concepts, and the Ouya was the perfect intersection between the two.

It's ironic how the boot-up sound for Ouya is similar to that of "Stadia"...

So I had one of these bois and was an OG backer. Here is my argument for the OUYA- In 2013 for someone just out of highschool with no money the OUYA wasn't half bad for $99. There was a good sized hacking community around it so it meant you could do things like: 1. Sideload other games onto the device and I actually played a lot of GTA San Andreas on the OUYA (It was an android based device and ran most android games ok) . 2.. There was an app that let it act as a chrome cast with the addition of Netflix and youtube apps it was a good media device. 3. USB in the rear meant using any controller/ keyboard and mouse was also supported. I also hooked up a terabyte harddrive to it and ran a local network upnp media server off of the OUYA. 4. (Edit) Also forgot the thing was great for emulators! I played a lot of NES, Snes, and N64 on mine! Some other neat features: 5. (Edit) it was also super small and portable with standard full sized HDMI out and 12v adapter. Great for just throwing in a bag and taking on the go. 6. (Edit last one I swear) I'm also going to make a quick case for the controller. Buttons were very clicky, analog triggers, a middle touchpad (which the PS4 controller was doing but the controller cost almost as much as a whole OUYA), and despite the goofy shape it was VERY comfortable with removable metal plates on the front that served as battery covers and was held in place with strong magnets which made changing batteries super easy but with enough hold it never felt like the plates would come off! Was it a good gaming console? No. Was it a very versatile piece of tech that let you modify it in ways most companies won't let you? Oh yeah. In the end I think if it had been marketed more like a raspberry pie or micro/android experimental dev computer for people looking to tinker with android then it would have been way more successful. Putting it up against consoles killed it. RIP OUYA.

Thanks for including that bonus episode of "It's Just -Bad- Rain" in the video!

I've never been so pleased to have never heard about a product before in my life. Well done.

The worst games look like someone's first Python project, but the whole thing just feels like a fever dream.

I did a presentation on the Ouya in my game design class in highschool. My teacher knew then it would be fucking awful.

I used to work at a VR game pop up at the mall. I can confirm that the management of that store was the living equivalent of the Ouya's marketing campaign.

Dude I’m glad I found your channel! Pure greatness

I would totally wanna see a port of Butt on the Switch.

She had the connections and attitude to start something, but didn't have the intelligence or foresight to understand what gamers really wanted

It basically was an Android phone without any phone features.

18:37 A simple, nontaxing concept expertly achieved A Well controlling platforming deathmatch game that could *bring* together *friends* for hours on *end* It utilized solid combat *mechanics* With a smart use of *physics* And has gone on to inspire *games* With similar designs to this *day* We got Shakespeare over here

The Ouya is something I never heard of until 2018, and it’s an interesting piece of gaming history.

One day I'll explain to my kids that in the early 2010s computer companies thought the iPad and cellphone pay to win games where going to put Microsoft and Sony out of business. I distinctly remember my sister giving me her laptop when she got a iPad because it was "now obsolete" guess what almost 10 years later I still use that laptop for surfing the web, no idea what happened to the iPad that made it "obsolete"

Doesn't this sound kind of like the story of the 3DO, on a smaller scale and minus the Kickstarter BS? Same desire to change the gaming industry's status quo, with bad PR, poor console development, poor game library, bad pricing, and an attempt to put out a successor console way too soon to try to deflect and keep the money flowing in. Of course Trip Hawkins and Panasonic out classed Julie Uhrman and the ... *vomit ... Ouya in every way possible.

I liked the device itself. I bought one when they were on clearance and used it as an emulation console for a while. It was pretty good at it, and my wife even preferred the controller to the PS3 controllers we had (didn't understand it myself). I can't speak to the rest of the Ouya experience such as the store and the games, because I didn't even bother to try them. When I discovered Retropie, I sold the Ouya on ebay for exactly what I paid for it, and used the money to buy a Raspberry Pi 3. I actually found N64 had worked better on the Ouya than on the Pi 3, but the Retropie experience was much more pleasant that navigating the Ouya OS.

Fun Fact: In Chinese English Pinyin OUYA means-sound of dogs fighting, also written 吽呀

"His name is Oogie. He kick starts my heart man." Now that was funny as hell.

Makes me think of and miss the Indie marketplace on the Xbox 360. 99% of the games were minimal effort, broken, barely functional, or low quality dual stick shooters, but it provided the kind of fun sitting around with friends while drinking and smoking and trying out games like Try not to Fart, or Pet Lucca (Lucca is a badly drawn cat) that to this day I haven't been able to replecate. I'm sure being younger and in highschool was a big part of it. I know Steam is ripe with the same garbage, but I honest to god don't know if ANY game on the 360 Indie Market sold many copies or made ANY profit. The ONLY good game was a Japanese release in semi broken English called Protect me Knight/Protect me Princess. Was up to 4 players and genuinely fun with a cute 8 bit anime artstyle.

The Star Citizen joke still being accurate is equal parts hilarious and sad 😂

Some of those games made Big Rigs look like a polished AAA masterpiece.

Steam in 2010s: "We've have no quality control on our games." OUYA: "...Hold my paper bag."

This Julie Uhrman lady should be a meme unless she already was before this video was made. The whole television and "nothing special" quotes are practically stuck my head it overshadowed the entire Ouya video

Watching this video is kinda like watching the titanic…. You knew the disaster that was coming ahead and how things would go down But still shocked and awed at it! Even if I head read this off of a fairly tale book I wouldn’t believe half the things because of how crazy and absurd it sounded with the way Julie was going on

The funniest part is that nowadays there are dozens upon dozens of OUYA bootleg gamepads for sale on aliexpress

I couldn't believe it when the CEO of the company pulled their new console and controller out of a brown paper bag.

"Just Rain: At least we're honest."

It’s funny cause 2012/2013 was essentially the death of start and select.

The parallel universe where she pulls her ham sandwich out of that paper bag would have had a better console than what we got.

I was an OUYA 'free the games' developer, the thing you didn't mention about the fund is they would only pay you after the game was done!

I remember being so psyched for this as a tech nerd and gaming fan. Was dead set on getting one, then i heard it was running on the Tegra 3 and instantly had doubts. Then as time went on i had less and less faith

The Ouya.... A console that made me appreciate my ZX Spectrum.

This woman’s presentation on that stage is like the polar opposite to the iconic “299” press event for Sony

I like to think everyone developing games for this thing decided "let's just make shitpost games for laughs lmao."

It's okay, I always keep my cutting-edge game system next to my Dunkaroos 😂😂😂😂😂😂