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With many Xbox fans upgrading to the higher-powered Xbox One this passing holiday, many 360s around the world found themselves kicked swiftly to the curb. With all those extra 360 controllers laying around, we suppose it was only a matter of time before someone put them to better use.
Using a little ingenuity and whole lot of creativity, OUYABoards member Eucrow decided to take on the ambitious DIY project of converting his Android-powered micro-console into a portable handheld. Alright, so it’s not exactly pocketable, but this is still a work in progress. Definitely not for the faint of heart, you can see how Eucrow hacked up the 360 controller, slapping an LCD display in between.
Underneath the display we find some of the guts of the OUYA, with the end result looking like something similar to the Wii U gamepad and Frankenstein’s monster. Eucrow mentions he’ll now work on tidying things up, eventually crafting some sort of case to keep everything hidden inside.
Fun mods like this never cease to amaze us. We suppose the OUYA’s low price point makes it the perfect device for tinkering, and although we’ve seen custom cases in the past, this takes modding to a-whole-nother-level.
[OUYABoards | via XboxOneDaily]
Wouldn’t a regular-size handheld mod be more suitable to OUYA’s size?
@benkapferer:disqus Definitely agree. This is my mod and I’m currently working on making it much smaller. I don’t have a blog/website yet but I’ve got a fb page devoted to my work: https://www.facebook.com/SpecializationIsOverrated
As an nvidia shield owner I’m kinda confused about the need for this. that being said, the part of me that mods and hacks everything is impressed.
I don’t want to be “that guy” — I love my OUYA — but wouldn’t you just be better off with a MOGA controller and a phone or tablet? Granted, if you find a reasonable means to condense and polish it, I think it’d be pretty nice. Bonus points if you find a quick means of detaching the OUYA board for use on a TV.
No no, I get it. A Moga would be easier. Ultimately i’m going for something closer to the form factor of a Shield though i’d rather have the screen centered between the controller grips rather than flip up style, so its always going to be a little long.
Leaning more towards Wii U gamepad style than 3DS style?
Kind of. Or somewhere between the WiiU gamepad and a Psvita with one of those grip packs attached.
Not bad as long as it is comfortable for long play sessions. If you can turn the OUYA board into a easily-removed cartridge I think it would be pretty sexy. Then you can easily pull it out to connect it to a TV. You could even make a docking station for the cartridge-to-TV connection.
Yeah, basically. I want to keep the grips as close to existing as possible so that it’s still comfortable to hold. I’ve actually got a cartridge version sketched out but that’s down the road.
Step 1 is making it smaller and getting the right batteries so that it runs for a few hours straight. Once everything is running, i’ll go back and work on the detachable idea, or working out some sort of pass through, so that it can hook up to a screen directly.
I think it would be cool to build it into a Nintendo cartridge and connect the OUYA via a hollowed console (just for fun, it would end up pretty bulky unnecessarily, of course). I also like your passthrough idea, though it would mean running a long, thick HDMI cable from your TV to the “tablet” (unless you use a wireless HDMI transmitter, which is clearly not as good).
Do you have a blog or site to chronicle your progress? I think this is a fun project, I’d like to see how it progresses!
I don’t have a website/blog but I do have a facebook page for the stuff I’m working on. I post there whenever I hit a milestone of some sort and I also post regularly on Instagram. https://www.facebook.com/SpecializationIsOverrated , my instagram screen-name is also specializationisoverrated (all one word)
Cool, I’ll find you there then.
Btw, just a thought but you may wanna try this..
I would love to see a software hack to slow existing phone and tablets access the ouya discover shop. I’ve sideloaded some ouya stuff into my phone with mixed results, though.
@pr0xidian Mostly doing it for the fun of it.
By the way what screen is that?
Its a screen pulled from an old eepc knockoff, so 8.9″. I don’t have the model number but they’re pretty easy to find on ebay. Resolution isn’t all that great for the size but its what I happened to have in storage.
So 1024×600 or so for resolution I take it?
Yep. Like I said, not the best res. Though it actually ended up better looking than I expected.
you know– a handheld sized Ouya might not be a bad idea. As long as it has the same controls
I’m currently hacking up the controller that came with the OUYA; turns out the 360 controller doesn’t work in all OUYA games. It does however work just fine for navigating the OS.
It’s called an android phone or tablet.
That’s also a lot more expensive, and not as much fun.
Not really. Considering that most people already have a phone or a tablet and they are loads of fun.
That assumes that everyone has one already. That’s like saying consoles are meaningless since “most people have gaming-quality PCs already”. That does not apply to everyone, and to those who DON’T have one, it’s good to know what options there are to save money and suit their needs.
Incorrect. Most people DO have a smartphone. Most people do NOT have a gaming PC. Your analogy is wrong.
Depends on who those people are. Granted, most adults will have a smartphone, I’m not arguing that. Though significantly less people get a tablet as an additional accessory. For gaming, many people prefer a larger screen than that of a phone. I think what MadFerret9 was going for was the idea of a tablet-sized, all-in-one OUYA console. I, personally, would love an OUYA tablet with good specs and built-in controls (I obviously expect a typical tablet price for it but it would be a good direction to take the OUYA system in the future). If it could connect to the next OUYA console wirelessly for Wii U-like gameplay, I think it would be pretty freakin’ awesome.
Most gaming I’ve seen had been on phones with kids getting tablets or their parents’ old phones. I posted earlier that ouya should release their online shop on phones and tablets via software.
I really like the idea but then OUYA and software developers will need to tailor their apps/games to suit different hardware configurations, so I doubt it will happen.
P.S. Happy New Year :)
This is really cool, “needed” or not. I don’t think anyone here is trying to be revolutionary and change the world, more than just tinker and see what they can do. Which is far more than I could! Nice job man!
This would be cool, just have to add a few more batteries, The OUYA is essentially a cheaper first gen Nexus 7 overclocked from 1.2 to 1.7 Ghz so it uses more juice.