Nah. Ouya got huge investments. Unless they screw it up massively, Ouya will become a reality. And to be honest, Ouya looks really solid, they already have support from many third-party studios.

Carbon Grey is beautiful. No regrets. That was $50 really well-spent.

That's one I'm sad I missed.

I saw those. I've also been bitten by a different project filing questionable legal paperwork to get a different project shut down.

It's one thing to do so when you've got some sort of evidence of infringement and quite another to do it because you've been out sold by somebody offering a better quality product for the same price.

Richard Garriot is wrong. If he created a kickstarter for Ultima X (make it replace Ultima IX), it would easily get $1.000.000.

That project is going to break a lot of hearts. They've over promised what they're likely to be able to deliver. It's probably technically possible, but people aren't going to get free games as most people consider them. And they haven't finished what is going to be the hardest aspect of the project, the app store.

Additionally, last I checked, they didn't even have a prototype or finalized designs on the controllers.

It's probably possible for them to follow through, but the likelihood is just about nil.

Considering that the controller is arguably one of the most important (the most important?) hardware elements of a gaming console, their lack of actual hard prototypes (as opposed to 3D renderings or concept art) was really distressing.

That being said (again), I don't really have a huge amount of sympathy for people who went into a KS project while not being aware of what it really meant. At best, it really is an investment; at worst, it's a gamble. If you didn't take the time to realize that, and just threw money at a project like the Ouya or the Hanfree without doing due diligence, the fault is with you just as much as it is with the developers. Caveat Emptor.

In any case, is Carbon Grey going to see a general release in comic/book stores? eBook/PDF format? The artwork looks amazing.

Glad you asked. You can find the electronic format here:
http://www.comixology.com/Carbon-Grey/comics-series/5705

Ouya will fail because everything about it is unrealistic.

Ouya raised about $8 million, which may seem to be a lot to you and me, but it is an unrealistic budget -- it is simply not enough -- to launch a new console.

$99 is not a realistic price point for a console when the cost of its Tegra 3 CUP is $25. Let say they do not have to spend anything on everything else. They will be able to manufacture only about... 85,000 units. If a console sells fewer than 150,000 units in a week, it is considered as a failure. Ouya will not even be able to produce that many units with their entire Kickstarter fund.

When the Ouya project was announced, the first thing I googled (out of curiosity) was the people behind Ouya and their experiences, resumes and track records. They have none. They have no experience in making game consoles or working with any company that makes console (i.e., Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, Sega, etc.) They do not have any experience in making any sort of hardware. They do not even have experience in developing or publishing games -- or even any sort of software. They have no business connection with game publishers and developers. They have no production experience. They have no manufacturing experience. They have no distribution experience. Those guys basically have nothing -- no business experience, no industry connection. So they are just a bunch of amateurs blowing smoke up people's arse.

They are supposed to launch Ouya early next year. March 2013. That is a very tight schedule. That is a unrealistic schedule, an unrealistic deadline, even for people who have a lot of experience in making consoles and games. Even people who have experience would need at least another year to design, produce and test the console. (Realistically, they need two.) And the Ouya guys have none, no experience or whatsoever. And they think they can deliver under such a tight, unrealistic schedule. Right now they do not even have a working prototype for Ouya.

People, you really just need a little bit of common sense to know if a business plan is realistic or not its proposed goals, scale, budget and schedule. Just look at Ouya: it overpromised, but the people doing it obviously do not have the budget, time or experience to deliver.

The thing with Kickstarter is that, when people donate to a project, they really should check the backgrounds, resumes, histories and track record of the company and people who are behind the Kickstarter project. Do those people have experience in the same or similar field? How much experience do they have? Have they successfully worked on a similar project in the past? Do they have industry connections and networks? Do they have ready access to experienced people who can work on the project? Do they already have a working prototype for the project?

The Ouya people have NONE. It's just a bunch of amatuers, who seems to me like some snake-oil salesmen and cons men, blowing smoke up people's arse, looking at Kickstarter as a get-rich-quick scheme.

Right now I am seeing a lot of Kickstarter projects that are launched by people who have NO experience or whatsoever, people who have never done an honest day of work in their lives, people who just look at Kickstarter as a way to get rich and get famous quickly without having to spend years earning valuable experience, learning the ropes and paying their due.

The biggest reason why I believe Ouya will fail is because those guys do not have any experience in doing anything remotely similar. Those guys just came out of nowhere with no experience, no track record, no connection, asking for a lot of money (but not enough to launch a console in a real world) to back their very unrealistic goal that lacks a clear direction, a realistic deadline and a working prototype.

Ouya will be an epic failure, alright. The good thing is that we'll see its failure very soon next year. Most likely there will be announcement first: that the project launch day has been delayed. That is the first sign of they're going to fail, because once the project gets delayed, they'll need more money to continue, and they ain't getting any more.

If I were to take a guess, I'd say that you'll be proven right. The idea isn't bad and I'm sure it's going to happen in the future, but the technical obstacles seem massive. Even if it succeeds, it's unlikely that many games will make use of it. If you look at the history of hardware, it shows that it's not about the quality of the hardware but about how much software you can get for it.

Whilst I also believe that the Ouya kickstarter will not be a success, and I agree with a lot of what you say, it's not true to say the people behind Ouya have no experience and are a bunch of amateurs.

If your google searches didn't come up with any experience or history for the people behind Ouya, you might want to have your google checked because it ain't working properly.

Um, you do realize you just said Garriot would make $1. :P you put . instead of , . Well to be fair you can't really have more than 1 decimal place. Though to be fair considering how much of a revolting piece of crap Ultima IX (yes I know I own it, but it's for completionists sake) was I don't think X has a very high chance at being very good either.

As for Ouya, I never did bother with the Kickstarter but I did pre-order one from their site, and yes I kept the bill. I figure either it will get released and do well, or I will cancel my pre-order. If it tanks it's only a shy over $100 I've lost. To quote Doc Brown "Well, I thought, what the hell?"

I mostly agree with you, but $99 isn't necessarily unreasonable. The main thing which makes it questionable is volume. onLive sells a similar console for $99. I'm not sure what their volume is on that or what portion of the cost they expect to recoup on subscriptions.

But, $99 is doable.

And yeah, $8m seems like a lot of money until you realize that the start up cots involved with making molds for the cases and what not are extremely expensive. That first unit coming off the line can easily cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Unless they manage to convince a lot of people to buy games on the platform, I just don't see how they're going to be able to fund the rest of the development.

And given that they seemed to be going for free games as a selling point, I'm not sure it's going to happen.

I do hope I'm wrong about it, I was wrong about onLive, but I doubt that I'm wrong here. I just can't see where their revenue is going to come from to support the infrastructure.

Actually, you may be surprised but most countries use a period to indicate decimal places.

And a lot of people know Ultima IX failed because of EA. EA pushed for a 3rd person action game - and that's what they got. People would kill for an isometric RPG with movable 3D objects.