We’ve seen a few of [Downing]’s portabalized console builds before, but this one is his first build in over two years. That’s a lot of time, and since then he’s picked up a lot of great fabrication techniques, making this one of the best looking portables we’ve ever seen. It’s a repackaging of an Ouya, but we won’t hold that against him, it’s still an amazing piece of work.
In the build log, [Downing] started off this build by using a 3D printed enclosure, carefully milled, filled, and painted to become one of the best one-off console repackagings we’ve ever seen. The speaker and button cutouts were milled out, and an amazing backlit Ouya logo completes the front.
Stuffing the Ouya controller inside a case with a screen, battery, and the console itself presented a challenge: there is no wired Ouya controller. Everything is over Bluetooth. Luckily, the Bluetooth module inside each controller can be desoldered, and slapped on a small breakout board that’s stuffed in the case.
It’s a great build, and in [Downing]’s defense, the Ouya is kinda a cool idea. An idea much better suited to a handheld device, anyway. Videos below.
oh for petes sake, would people just cut it with the snark against Ouya already? every site or critic can’t seem to resist taking a jab at it now.
yeah it may not be that good for gaming, but there’s still tons of use for it. and while I’ll admit the repackaging is well done, the whole idea behind the ouya using mobile hardware but wall power, in so far as I understand it, was so it could utilize the full capability OF that hardware, and not EAT batteries and still beg for more. so this kinda feels like missing the point. everyone stops at the words “Mobile hardware” and android and goes “Ohh! should be portable”. just feels like a misstep to me XP but then thats just my opinion
I hear the Ford Focus may not be good for driving too.
It’s because EVERY SINGLE promise they made they did not deliver or they removed later.
Not every promise. Its a cheap, functional for its size, versitle android device. It may not be perfect yes, but it doesn’t need to be for people to feel satisfied with it. For me, its the best 1080p media box for my TV. The root problem is the hype engines went wild. So it not have been everything expected, but that’s why you shouldn’t hold high expectations about things. You’ll usually end up disappointed.
I think, now that dirt cheap, ridiculously powerful ARM chips (now with relatively powerful GPUs) and GB of RAM are available, a lot of people have seen a very useful looking thing and tried to find a use to fit it to. The higher-end ones are overpowered for many simple set-top boxes, for cable or other TV. Tablets is one area they’ve taken well to.
I’m surprised the budding dirt-cheap Android-running laptop replacement hasn’t done better yet, they were looking like a Next Big Thing a few months ago. A full laptop for your grandmother to use Facebook on, as well as plenty of other home users who just want Facebook, Flash games, and the web. Taking away all the inherited PC expense and needlessly complicated bits can surely save a fortune.
It’s surprising the Android TV boxes, the Chromecast and the Chinese ones before it haven’t done too well, but people don’t want to give up their TV anymore to use a computer, that all stopped when we started buying PCs over Commodores and Ataris.
Somebody needs to heavily market cheap sub-$100 laptops for stuff like that. Sub-$50 would be in the range of impulse buying. No OS nonsense and bugs like Windows to worry about. They should dominate the home market, instead of watered-down versions of the corporate stuff that’s given the world decades of nightmares. People need a laptop aimed at the home that they can believe will work reliably and do what they need it to, with no buts or exceptions.
Anyway, back to the subject… the Ouya’s another example of a company seeing these fast and powerful chips, which seem to have appeared like miracles over the last few years, and trying to find a use for them. Home gaming consoles weren’t the answer apparently, although if they’d tied in with Facebook it might’ve gone differently.
Apart from tablets, the other big use is those Chinese handheld consoles that mostly run emulators of the old systems. Cheap technology + rampant piracy, China’s greatest strengths! How do they manage to sell these consoles for around $60 when people ilke Open Pandora can’t get their device below $600?
Coming at it from the other side, mobile hardware can’t easily be scaled up. A 5W chip cannot easily be made to take 130W with a linear increase in performance, so these mobile hardware based devices are rather lacking compared to even a games console… although a quad A15 can beat an atom 330 these days so we’re getting somewhere.
That said, my issue with the ouya is just that they tried to do the console long system life so optimisation can kick in, but with hardware that’s still improving in leaps and bounds, heck 4 years ago we were using single core A8 devices so imagine having to keep one of those running shiny games for another 3 years and you see the problem. If they released updated models regularly that would help, but break the console model.
Try to make your point in a more concise manner next time. Also, http://www.towson.edu/ows/capitalization_rules.htm
I’d really be interested in seeing how he managed the filling and sanding / finish process for the 3d printed case. Does anyone know what you use for filler that bonds with PLA?
(or ABS)
bondo?
The mod is great, but I wish he’d just as carefully adjust the audio levels in his video…
Sorry, but my phone’s mic was covered by my hacked together tri-pod mount and I didn’t realize that until after everything was recorded. I tried to up it, but I’m not a video editor.
Downing,
This is awesome! I actually just purchased my Ouya from Target today (they are only $70 this week). I’d love to know if you would be willing to either make or let me know where I could get the case made. I do not have a CNC machine, makerbot or other methods. Any chance you would share the vectors and other instructions so that we could all have these cases made if we wanted?
The only problem with that is the case was never designed for the OUYA, so therefore a ton of hand modifications had to be made to make it work. This was a case I’d designed for The Cross Plane and was just an extra one I had laying around that I wanted to do something with. Using these Stl and dxf files would really not help much, plus it was designed to use custom triggers which have to be 3D Printed. I may very well decided to work on a CAD library one day and have them posted to my site, but right now I just don’t have the time for that kind of thing.
“It’s a repackaging of an Ouya, but we won’t hold that against him…”
What is the deal with all the Ouya hate everywhere? I’ve had mine since August, and play it ALL the time. It has some great games, some hidden gems, and awesome emulator support. I use it more than I use my Xbox, that’s for sure.
And you know what else is great about it? It’s an OPEN PLATFORM. You can put ANYTHING YOU WANT ON IT and give it away for free or charge for it. Why is the open source/invention community so dead set on it’s failure? I just saw they’re on sale at Target for $70, so I’m buying a second one.
Please don’t go out of your editorial way to shit on something that a fair number of people love. I love Hackaday, even though I don’t love everything about it, and I don’t shit on it.
Please…a little forethought, that’s all.
I should have said: It’s on sale for $70 at Target…or for the price of a single Playstation or Xbox controller + $20!!!!
How can you complain about that???
@Ben Foote
People make fun of it because of the contrast in content and tone between the hype, especially the early claims made by the creators during the kickstarter days, and what actually hit the market. Yeah, some people go overboard to the point where I wonder if they feel threatened (or if an ouya burned down their mom and raped their house) but that doesn’t make it less funny.
Sidenote: logically, whether or how many people love something has absolutely no bearing on whether a thing deserves to be shit on. Lots of people love ice cream. Lots of people love the systematic forced relocation of racial/cultural minorities. The reasoning is fallacious.
And frankly, the request for special consideration based on ~*game console preference*~ is pretty distasteful. I’d be more sympathetic if your complaint was the slight on the Ouya’s creators, but I find it disturbing when people incorporate preferences for or against some commercial product into their personal identity. It’s like they’ve turned a mass-produced lump of metal and plastic into some kind of religious totem or fetish. You might call it….commodity fetishism.
God, why is it that I keep finding myself using terms like that on Hackaday? I don’t talk like that elsewhere. This site is turning me into a frothing leftist. :C
love my ouya and love this mod. and I agree not sure why everyone seems to hate the ouya so much. for the price and what it is able to do it is an amazing little box.
I linked this to a friend and he sent back “looks like a Wii U controller.”
That’s right, it does.
Nicely done, though it seems pointless because who wants an Ouya?
Yes, I grabbed one from the Kickstarter days and was greatly dissappointed. Was a hassle just to update it on power-on. Never touched the thing since.
Very nice, I would like to know the reference of that 7″ screen.
That is a nice build.
Read the details on the forum.
Ty for sharing.
Oookay… A postable PS2? Count me in. A PS3 laptop? Hell yeah! A handheld Android gaming device… wait doesn’t *everybody* have one of those already? And even one with a controller is not that hard to find. Archos gamepad for one. Impressive build, but I fail to see why he set out to create it in the first place.