About six months ago, I put down my hundred bucks and was one of 63,000 people to pre-order a Ouya on Kickstarter.
It should be showing up sometime this week or next. Here’s what I want to see out of it.
Gamepad Editing Functionality
First and foremost, if the console doesn’t ship with this, the Ouya has a serious problem on its hands.
True, it’s unlikely not to feature this, especially since touchscreen controls won’t work well with the console, but stranger things have happened. PC gamers who use a gamepad know that software like XPadder is pretty much crucial to being able to tweak controls, and honestly, the custom layouts you can build can feel a lot better.
Smooth Integration With Google Play
Realistically speaking, most people who pull this thing out of its box, the first thing they’re going to do is go buy Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of the Ouya’s most popular titles at first aren’t the software the system launches with but rather games downloaded from the Google store. Myself, I’ll be curious to see how the games I’ve downloaded for the system work with the gamepad.
UPDATE: Apparently you’ll have to root this to get Google Play games to work. That… is not promising.
Upscaling
The main problem with many Android games is the fact that they’re built for tiny screens. How will the Ouya handle Android games not specifically coded for it?
Frictionless Purchasing
One big question mark will be how easy it is to buy things off the Ouya store. The Ouya operates its own storefront, something that may be smart or may be an incredibly bad idea. We won’t know until we buy something.
Anything else you want to know about? More importantly, any games you want us to test? Let us know: Once the console arrives, it’ll be put through all its paces.