Hey Facebook Friends!
Just a friendly reminder to keep your eyes on your email inbox for a shipping alert!
The first wave of shipments goes out today! :D
If you don't see anything yet, don't fret. More shipments will continue to go out from the OUYA factory over the coming weeks. Prior to the launch party that took place late last night in San Francisco there was no news, no hype, no surprises, no....well anything outside of the post above. I thought, maybe Uhrman is building anticipation and will have a surprise live stream of some wonderful presentation of the unveiling during the launch party. Moments prior to the party my phone chimed and I saw I had a kickstarter email. It read:
"So... we made a game console.
And by "we" I mean you. OUYA wouldn’t exist without you...Today, we honor you. Today we start shipping our early backers their OUYAs. And at our unveiling event this evening, the first of you will get to see OUYA in the flesh (or, metal, as it were).
Thank you...Once your OUYA arrives: get playing!.. there are already 104 published games on OUYA (all still free to try), like Final Fantasy III and some new surprises we think you’ll love: Beast Boxing Turbo, Stalagflight, Knightmare Tower, and even one called Save the Puppies. There are already a few entertainment apps, too. You can watch the TV shows and movies you already own with XBMC and Flixster, or watch games streamed through TwitchTV...."
In other words nothing new. It was a bunch a wind being blown up our skirts that was confirming that most Ouyas will not ship until the coming weeks, but there are 104 current games that absolutely nobody can play because no one has an Ouya.
Still, I kept my eyes glued to twitter in hopes of some news, but what I got was not good at all. One individual tweeted that there was lag with the controller, and another tweeted about the triggers on the controller not being up to par. In all there was no real news. Lot of tweets on how Urhman said that they were now free (referring to being free from publishers and the big 3) and some inspirational speech, blah, blah, blah, but nothing else.
Last year Ouya had the gift of hype. The hype has been dwindling in the last couple of months and yesterday was a prime opportunity to bring the hype back. Urhman should have lit up social media giving tidbits of the coming Ouya with a tease of a big announcement throughout the day. Urhman should have found a way to ship all the backer consoles out at one time on the 27th. That way at the event she could have made the announcement that the Ouya is on it's way to all the backers. She should have live streamed the event (this revolution is supposedly televised) with a presentation of the final product and a sincere heart felt live thank you to all the backers. Instead, the backers got locked out of their own launch party. All they got was an email and some post saying thank you and you might get your Ouya in a couple of weeks, because shipping is really hard and obviously difficult. (Get a UPS account or Stamps.com). Yesterday on March 28th, Urhman killed the little bit of hype that was left.
I hope the Ouya does well, I was an original backer. I dream of the day where I don't have to put up with EA ridiculous in app purchases to play the core of the game (Tiger Woods). Unfortunately, I don't think Urhman knows anything about marketing. She appears to be a great dreamer with a gift of giving speeches (Politician?) Unfortunate to us, She is living on the theory that if she builds it, then they will come. In the tech gaming field where processors are out of date on a quarterly basis, mobile phones are getting all the major android games and the big 3 are churning out the next generation consoles, you can't miss opportunities like Urhman did. If you need an example on how to NOT have a launch party or how to NOT market a product correctly in the 21st century, look no further than the renegade console that rebelled from it own supporters, the Ouya.
