How to revive your Ouya: Here are the resources I mention in the video: Ouya World: ouya.world/ Christian Weiske's server & guide: ouya.cweiske.de/ Ouya World Magazine: archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22OuyaFuture+Staff%22

As an Ouya developer who poured 2 years of my life into developing a game for this platform (called “Nub for Ouya”), I’m glad that our work hasn’t gone into an endless oblivion, and reassured that our fans can still get what they paid for 😊

As an an old developer of Ouya games it's amazing to see them working again. Hope people are still enjoying our titles.

I'm not gonna lie. When I first saw the Ouya on store shelves, the idea of a 99 dollar console running a highly moddable OS like Android was almost magical to me at the time. I didn't pull the trigger tho and I felt so bad when I learned how rough things had gone for the little guy, so it makes me so damn happy to see some people getting some use out of them.

I'm glad that there's a way around the DRM that keeps people out of their purchases. I really hate this mentality corporations have where customer purchases are dead when the company says so. People mock the Ouya hardware, but I'm sure plenty of people made purchases that they 100% should access to & shouldn't have to result to cracking to get their games.

Took a shot every time Ouya was said and now I'm that pissed I went and bought one

I bought an Ouya in 2013 and wanted to make a game for it since I had used Multimedia Fusion 2 for years and could make Ouya games with the Android exporter. What put me off in the end was frame rate issues I could'nt solve and the tons of shovelware being released for it overall. I've never thought it's a bad little console but I do wish people didn't keep throwing bad quality games onto the store.

me and a small team spent many months developing the game "chardor" im glad people can still play some of my old games :)

I feel a genuine "wow" watching this, even though previously generally unaware of the device being discussed before now.

I've still got mine in its box gathering dust (somewhere) so I'll be digging it out and getting it configured! I was gutted that this system didn't catch on but after watching this I feel I'm not alone. Many thanks, Dan. - Dave

I have like three of these in a box labeled “too many Ouyas” 😂 I might have to check this out!

Got my first OUYA as a present without knowing first what to do with it, but it quickly became a fun obsession of mine, my guilty pleasure. Made lots of videos showing the good and entertaining games and I was always thinking about how to save the library. My OUYAs all worked when the network was gone, but some games couldn't check their license anymore and the turned to trial mode... so I was very happy to be able to perform the hack. My OUYAs are all alive and well and we still enjoy the couch multiplayer games from time to time.

I knew I kept my Ouya for a reason. Never played it to be honest, but now I think it's finally time.

I was developing indie games at the time and kickstarted one of the developer tiers planning to make a game for it. When I got the dev unit (mine wasn't delayed) I was so disappointed with the controllers that I hardly played the unit and didn't bother making a game for it. I know they said they were going to improve the controllers but I was so put off that my Ouya journey ended there.

A lot of people complained about the controllers and especially the lag. I also experienced the lag, but I also figured out is was because of wireless reception. Sometimes I could only get a controller to work good within about 8 feet of the Ouya. Also the system will lag if you are downloading other games in the background.

I wanted to buy a Ouya back in the day to plug into a HD CRT TV that only displayed 480i/p and 1080i. But since the Ouya didn't support 1080i, I decided just to stick with a Xbox 360 since its scaler could output 1080i pretty good. The biggest competition this little cube had was the Raspberry Pi which could be used to learn programming on a cheap little board. In hindsight, the Ouya could be considered the precursor to the Nvidia Shield TV and those Android TV boxes coming from China.

Gaming companies: Cloud based and "always online" gaming is the future to prevent pirating Customers: - *pirate games on systems that can no longer be supported* - They just don't get it, do they? You can't have a non-physical media on a cloud somewhere and tell people it'll never go away.

I bought one of these not long after the initial release because I thought, with a little work, it could be a really great retro machine. Never got around to that, and other things came along that largely removed the need, but I also never bothered to try and sell it because I figured I'd find something to do with it sooner or later. Thanks for these resources. I may just dig the funny little thing out and give it a go.

And just like that, my ouya is working again. My youngest is now playing Minigore 2. Thank you for making a shelf decoration useful again.

My Ouya still has a side-loaded version of android release of Shadowrun (2013) on it, which sadly was pulled from the store a good few years ago. Ran pretty well from what I remember.

I bought into that and due to some damage in shipping wound up with two of them. I eventually got my money back selling the two after the company went down. It was a good idea but also it would have been more fun if just an Android computer so we could just use the Google Play store.

I made a game for OUYA. It was called IronWalker and was definitely an amateur effort but it's the nearest I'll ever get to releasing a game on a 'console' so I was pretty happy.

Oh this is awesome, I was a big supporter of the Ouya. The fact it's back to being usable again is AWESOME! I'm going to have to do all these updates.

The problem with the ouya, aside from the project looking an awful lot like a money laundering stunt, its 'ceo' being an obvious grifter and the unforgivably stupid name, was the same problem as most single board computers today (such as raspberry pi) .. as a platform for a game console, there is no practical advantage to the formfactor. It's _too_ small for its own good; its size and shape is a gimmick that neuters its performance. Even in 2013, a low powered x86 mini-itx system would run circles around any arm based products. If you're hooking it up to a gigantic TV, why does the system need to be smaller than the controller? It made absolutely no sense.

Played my OUYA tonight !! Still loving it

Great video! Never bought the Ouya as I already had my eyes set on getting the Shield Portable.

Brilliant post Dan. Always great to see a potential use and revival for an "old" lol, system

Great video, nice to see my terrible game in the magazine again. Rerez did a video slamming the console 2 months ago and you could clearly see he'd connected to the new server to download the games. No mention of the community and the latest game jams though. Just jumped on the bandwagon of "it was a massive failure". Unless you actually sit down with the console and play some of the strange and interesting titles that released you won't get anything out of your time

I bought the Ouya and extra controllers way back when and had a TON of fun in college playing casual games, especially TowerFall and BombSquad. Recently my kids have gotten old enough to learn it and were having a blast until...they uninstalled TowerFall. 😭 This guide gives me hope of getting it back, even if I've lost years of stats (and specifically my character's win ratio 😁).

Never thought I'd get to use an OUYA console until this video has perked my interest .. perhaps just like the C64, older consoles will indeed experience a 'revolution'! The OUYA box wasn't lying! :D

It’s completely ethical and right that Ouya owners can still download games and use these features. Piracy laws be damned.

"You have a relationship with the television"

I have one of the special edition Kickstarter Ouyas as well as 4 of the custom engraved covers for the remotes. It may not be the most powerful little console, but it is still neat to whip out and play all kinds of neat fun games on it still as well as reasonable emulation. Do wish it had a Tegra 4 rather than the Tegra 3, but eh.

I was a KS backer but never really used my Ouya much. Sold it 2 or 3 years ago. Decent piece of kit let down by the its ecosystem.

I remember the Ouya. Hilarious memes about that thing. In short worlds most overfunded chinese knockoff console 😂

2:29 Correction: As you can see in the video, there is only one USB port on the back of the Ouya. The other one is HDMI.

I still love this little guy. I actually have two of them. One at my house, one in my rv. It's a great little, one-stop-shop for everything media in my RV when I'm traveling, whether it's watching movies, playing games, or flipping through pics and videos I took that day while sight seeing. I also love that the community has kept it alive. There were alot of fun little indy gems out there.

The Ouya was a fantastic idea but with a delayed and underwhelming implementation. Back when android was spreading like a wildfire, it was a great idea to make an affordable device that would play android games on TV. Not that there were any good games back then but the Android ecosystem was growing. The problem was that by the time it was released, Sony had announced PS4 and public interest shifted to the new Sony console.

My biggest gripe with the console is the weak signal strength between the console and the controller. Random amount of input delay, sudden loss of connection at all and interference when using two or more controllers made it completely pointless for any form of "serious" gaming. Try 1CC-ing a shmup or have any sort of competition on there and the crappy input signal will drive you nuts. And I tried ALL the workarounds... I put it on its side, I sat no more than one feet away, I made sure no other devices were close, I soldered an extra piece of antenna to the controller circuit board, I updated its firmware, I tried both my launch controllers and the later revisions, even recieving one directly from the fellas from Ouya. Nothing made it even slightly better. A crying shame!

"its a 2013 spec tablet or phone" Ouya: 4x cortex A9, 1GB ram, usb2, 8-16GB storage 2012 Galaxy S3: 4x cortex A9, 1GB ram, usb2, 16-64GB storage (+microSD) 2013 Galaxy Note3: 4x Cortex A15, 3GB ram, usb3, 16-64GB storage (+microSD) It's a 12 month old phone at launch.

First Kickstarter I supported and got the Bonze founders version. I would call it a failure as it didn't do what it was designed to do. With that said it did much more then it was supposed to do and mine got lots of use. Today people wonder why anybody would want this with Raspberry Pi and all the Android Boxes available, back then they were not as well known as they are today. Mine was much like this video, a file server for videos and Kodi and emulators. I enjoyed it so much i picked up several when people were dumping them for $5-10 each and setup them up for people i knew, a few are still being used today. I have moved to a tiny windows server to replace it , but it was great for the 2-3 years I used it.

I admittedly found the Ouya to be a joke, but it’s pretty cool that there were people who weren’t gonna let it go to waste and found legitimate uses despite it failing it its original purpose. Stuff like this is always commendable and I’m here for it.

This fix will finally bring life back to the good old Ouya!

A shame it was so overhyped, people literally believed they'd get a $100 console that was equal to the xbox and the play station when in reality it was just an android box with some low quality controllers.

So much hype on the Ouya still remember Rich from Review Tech USA going on about it Glad it’s still got a use in 2022 and games are still available cheers Dan

Absolutely looking into this. I love my Ouya. Was a backer originally and still regularly play it.

Ace video Dan. Coincidentally I found my ouya just the other day! Time for a revival.

I mean the Shield Tv Pro was basically like the Ouya if it was actually kind of good

I have a limited edition white OUYA. I use it often and everything on it works. All of the installed software works. All of the games run. All the emulators work. It won't give you any problems about being connected to the web until you try to connect it. And honestly why are you trying to connect it when you know the server is 100% off line?

Fascinating stuff. It's also timely with the recent news about Nintendo closing the Wii U and 3DS eShops - games that could disappear forever without preservation or sideloading/emulation. In some ways the Ouya was lucky and unlucky with its timing. The recent rush of emulation boxes tends to suggest it was onto something.

Finally! A purpose for my OUYA! Thank you for bringing this to our attention. :)

I still love my OUYA - it's so much fun to just mess with emulators on it

Was cleaning up and found my Ouya in a box. Thanks for the video!

I also have an Ouya. I'll have to give this a try.

Id be as likely to attempt to start my own airline as I would to create my own games console. Just too difficult, too expensive to make work and too much well established competition. Wouldnt go near the idea.

Enjoyed the video- I hope the Ouya lives on for many years- will have to check out the online game server. :)

They have this cool thing now called the "Google Chromecast with Google tv" where I can play literally every retro Nintendo and Sega game known to existence with an 8 bit do Bluetooth controller.

i'm glad poor ouya-tan had a happy ending at least

I was one of the unlucky few that had wifi problems. Sold it shortly after because I couldn’t even download games

this video just got me playing my Ouya again! thank you so much..

I think this console gets shot of unfair flack. While it's somewhat a business failure they designed a console and made it to production. I actually think it's a nice design and it was an inspiring concept. It seems very easy to criticize the misteps of others these days. They tried something new, something different and I think that in itself is worthy of praise.

Just wanted to thank you for not showing my game in the "crappy games" section of this video. :-)

Mate your timings mint. Just got our hands on one of these 👍

I was one of the people that never got my OUYA (though I vaguely remembering that I did get my 2nd controller). It wasn't until 2 years ago when a friend and colleague was "Hey I got this, but I never use it, do you want it?" as he knew I had been purchasing old consoles that I had never got to play as a child (don't worry, I had a PC and played plenty of games). It wasn't until after we learned that the services had shutdown and that the device was essentially a brick. Still, I'm fairly certain I never threw it away. Who knows, maybe I'll dig it up and, for the first time ever, I'll press the power button of an OUYA (even though I was a backer xD)

I quite liked my Ouya. It is now a showpiece too in my room.

Just saw this and now I’m digging for my Ouya

Making the Ouya run Android is a godsend. Even though it was a failure, it’s PERFECT for a mini emulation machine.

Bomb squad:) still one of my fav multiplier games that I found on it. And its controller compatibility was just awesome.

I purchased the ouya specifically to be a very tidy and easy to use emulator box that did not require a keyboard or mouse to use at ANY time in its life. It provided this exactly as I wanted. So I consider the console a success. I don't want any junk getting in between me and the game. I just want the TV, the controller in my hand, and the game. That's it. Nothing else. The ouya did this nicely.

Thank you for making this video. I literally found this system in my closet and was about to throw it out but decided to check youtube to see if there was any use for it now. Found your video and now i'm going to keep it and use it!

This is great, worked like a charm! This vid made me brush the dust off my old OUYA. Nice to have "the store" available again! I also have many emulators on it that I run from the "Nostalgia" front-end. These factors combined, makes this a little box for hours of fun!

9:05 That's actually a micro usb jack/cable, not a mini.

I always liked my ouya and was very disappointed I could no longer play the games I bought. For sure will give this a go. But I do now have a Pi 400 and really love the spectrum oric feel of the thing, like going back in time!

Your windows must be magical because mine doesnt show up OUYA. did you instal a driver ? do you need to plug the power cable also? I tried both.

I'm a simple man. I see Zool, I upvote.

Neat. I might have to try this out since I did an "offline patch" in 2019 and this looks cool.

Excellent - thank you very much for bringing this to my attention. I had found a set of games somewhere on the web which I had downloaded for the future but this is a much better solution. I have packed up my OUYA but it's in it's original box with power supply and cables ready to go at any time. Keep up the good work on The Retro Hour. Loved the recent Christmas Quiz.

Who remembers the game stick?

Huh... Will you talk about the Ouya on the next episode of the Retro Hour Podcast? 👀 I enjoy every episode of it! Had high hopes for the Ouya too and for similar reasons you mentioned I think it's fine.

"There is nothing special about Ouya"

OOH-YEAH!!

This is really cool, well done to the people giving this box a second chance. =)

The hugely obvious thing that originally killed the Ouya was that it had no access to the Google Play Store (or Amazon Appstore I guess if you must). When it came out without that massive library of Android games that people already played on phones/tablets, I instantly knew it was doomed. Valve did exactly the same thing with their Steam Machines (limited native-only Linux library), but compounded it by only having third parties manufacture the hardware (so it was inevitably overpriced because OEMs couldn't sell them as loss leaders as they didn't get a 30% game cut like Valve did). At least the Steam Deck corrects this and that's why I've reserved one. A bit surprised that the resurrected Ouya store with free downloads of commercial games hasn't had a legal challenge about this from at least one Ouya developer. Maybe it has and they've pulled games where such objections have been raised? It's most likely to happen where the game is still a paid one and actively developed on the Google Play Store.

I was one of the original backers. I think my experience summarized some of the problems they had. Originally I payed for one console and 4 controller (one was included so +3) and yes I was worry because it took forever to get to me. Once it actually did I actually what I god was 2 console and 7 or 8 controller. I don’t know how such an error was made but if I wasn’t the only one that could make them run out of money pretty fast.

My favorite thing about the Ouya was the indie multiplayer games like Hidden in Plain Sight. Still love the two Towerfall games. Plugged it in a few days ago and the games still worked, I'll be applying the fix you mention to keep it going longer. While real gamers may complain about the console for a casual gamer like myself it was good enough, especially at the $99 price point.

Nowadays we're spoiled for choice for ARM+android devices... I got rid of my Ouya once I realized the awful controller lag was a hardware issue and not something that could be fixed with a software update. It could have been really great, though.

Makes me wish I still had my ouya

Ouya's are now more expensive than original XD

I had no idea towerfall started on the ouya. What a legendary game

68k subscribers... noice!!

Oooh, I have one of those (uh... somewhere). Thanks for bringing this to my attention!

Oh a further worth while footnote for this video. At the time Razor took over, they started work on the ForgeTV, that was supposed to be a updated Ouya with access to Google store and Cortex and such. They even gave Ouya console owners a store credit to get it at a discount. I was swayed enough to buy the device. However I quickly returned it, since any of the rooting type stuff was completely removed, and even though you had access to the Ouya store, it was highly filtered with only a handful of games accessible, and no save transfers at all from the Ouya.

Great video Dan. I have my fingers crossed you'll make some more Commodore videos, however!

Did any money go missing or was the entirety spend on the project. Great vid Dan

I loved the idea of that console and was massively disappointed by the controller and it's input lag. Not to mention the WiFi that was slow as hell.

I quite like the ouya. It's a good small little box.

Finally a reason to dust off my Ouya! Haven't powered it on once ever since I bought it when it launched.

single board android systems are badass. the Nvidia shield is probably king for android. the dlss and Netflix license is nice lol.

Great video

where's the 2nd usb2 on the back then? i see 1 and 1 mini usb ............