OUYA System Update “Jackalope” – Feb 4, 2014

By James on February 4th, 2014

Hey Guys and Gals,

The New Year is here, and we’ve got another System Update coming your way.  The improvements were based on feedback and survey results that you all provided over the past several months. It’s vital that we provide you the best experience possible, and that starts by listening to your feedback. First, I’ll break down the changes in this build, then talk a bit about HDMI-CEC, and finally I’ll talk about where we are headed in the next few months.

Full Release Notes:

    Added a 5-star rating system for games to help gamers find the best quality games.

        Total rating will be shown on each game’s tile and on the game details page.

        You can rate a game from the System Menu while in-game.

        We’ll be changing the criteria for getting out of the Sandbox to incorporate the number of quality ratings.

    Based on gamer feedback, we’ve added the ability to postpone a system update. Now you don’t have to wait for the update when you’ve got a group of friends over to play Bombsquad.

        For future updates, you will get a prompt asking if you want to download the update now or later.

        If you choose to postpone the system update, you can play games but you won’t be able to access DISCOVER or update your games until you perform the update. This is to ensure the best possible experience for these features.

        We’ll give you a reminder about the system update each time you return to the Home screen because updates are important =)

    Changed functionality of O and U buttons for downloaded games. O now goes to Game Details and U will launch or update a game. This is to make buttons more consistent within DISCOVER.

    Better support for navigation with bluetooth and IR remotes – we now respect the “Enter” key in OUYA menus.

    Based on gamer feedback, added an “overscan compensation” option in the advanced settings under HDMI.

        A reminder that all games now submitted to OUYA are checked to make sure they are within the safe area. This option is mostly for people running sideloaded apps and older games.

        This option can impact the visual quality, so keep that in mind when using it.

    Fixed an issue where the downloads folder in STORAGE wasn’t appearing for some users.

    Added rank numbers to the “Trending Now” category to make it clear that these games are in O-rank order.

    Added a quick tutorial for new users to inform them how to properly bring up the System Menu.

 

If you don’t get this update right away, please go to MANAGE -> SYSTEM -> SYSTEM UPDATES.

 

A Note on CEC Support

As mentioned in some of our previous posts, we’ve been looking into HDMI-CEC support for OUYA. Unfortunately that investigation has revealed that we’ll be unable to support HDMI-CEC in the current generation of OUYA (as provisioning of the HDMI-CEC pins was never a part of our original hardware spec). For that, we apologize. But now that you’ve made it clear that this is a feature that’s important to you, we’ll make sure that HDMI-CEC support will be a default feature of our next generation of OUYA (note: this is not the recent 16GB OUYA. It will be in our next major hardware revision). And in case you’re just wondering what in tarnation HDMI-CEC is, you can read here for more info. In short: it’s a cool feature that allows you to control a bunch of HDMI connected devices using the same remote / controller.

“So, what about remote control support for current devices?” you may ask?

We are doubling down on supporting IR and Bluetooth remotes and will also be working to develop a mobile/tablet remote app for both Android and iOS. This update already has a few improvements for navigation with Bluetooth and IR remotes.

If you have specific remotes you’d like supported please chime in on the OUYAForum thread.

 

So what does the future hold?

First, a little insight into how we plan: we don’t have a big year long schedule where we try to map out how every new feature falls into every milestone. These schedules are difficult to maintain and very rigid, so you can often find yourself implementing a feature that you promised 6 months ago, even if it’s not the best feature for your product. By contrast, we tend to look in detail just a month of two in the future. We obviously have high level goals for later in the year, but our approach allows us to incorporate feedback and re-evaluate what’s best for OUYA on a weekly basis.

Our current big feature in development is an Achievements system. We’ll be reaching out to our community of developers and gamers for their feedback on our implementation so we can incorporate it into our design. Because of that, there’s no planned date for achievements yet…but know they are coming =)

We’re also focused on improving discoverability of games, bettering recommendations, and solving the Sandbox issue.

As always, bug fixing will continue to be a priority for us. We’ve seen OUYA get more solid each month, and we intend to keep that trend going.

If you have specific thoughts on next steps for OUYA, hit me up at james@ouya.tv or go post your thoughts on OUYAForum.com – where there’s a great community sharing ideas for OUYA.

For example, there’s a great thread on what you want us to accomplish in 2014. Tell us more!

http://ouyaforum.com/showthread.php?9142-2014-Goals-for-the-OUYA-Community

 

-James, Producer Dude