I bought a Fuze F1 (new chinese console)

Just starting a topic on this but i'm sure people have been recently hearing about a new chinese console that heavily borrows/steals from Xbox and Playstation. It came out a few weeks back. Well I got one while i'm here in china.

I'll post a bit more over the coming days but the bulk of the information will come next week when I get back to canada.

First impressions; it's actually well built (does't feel cheap or like crap), the packaging is top notch, the system runs on an Nvidia K1 (Shield Tablet / Project Tango / Jetson TK1 chipset ), has a decent launch library, Os is decent but lagy and not polished in some areas, has achievements/screenshots/video recording/streaming, OS offers english and chinese for language options but most games are only in chinese, and is reasonably priced for what it is.

Here are a few initial things worth reading/viewing
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/is-chinas-new-fuze-console-more-than-a-ps4-and-xbox-one-rip-off
(while the guy seems reasonable/like a gamer, they might want to consider an english pr person).

Gameplay Videos
http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTYwNzk2MDEwNA==.html?from=y1.2-1-99.3.5-1.1-1-1-4-0
http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTYwNzk0NTUyMA==.html?from=s1.8-1-1.2
http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTU5Mzc4NTE0OA==.html?from=s1.8-1-1.2

I'll get some more shots of the unit/packing material later. I also hope to see about getting some footage up on youtube when I get back.

 

So it's an android box running an Nvidia chipset.

 

So basically exactly like the other current gen consoles?

 

I would say to a greater extent. The OS is android based but they heavily built a custom UI to it all. They've also added in a lot more features one would expect from a game console that 99% of android boxes out there don't have/do.

Yeah kind of true but even to an extent those are a little more polished. Yet for a first go, it's not all that bad and is far from the awfulness of ouya.

 

There's nothing bad about it. I just wouldn't go as far as calling an android computer a console.

 

Even if it has custom UI, it's still Android. It's nothing a tablet or smartphone can't do nowadays.

 

True, but they needed some way to establish their own walled garden market platform, so they went with "this is a dedicated game console now". And in some ways it's even worse than a tablet/phone - I have one of those cheap Android settop boxes, and while it's great for Kodi, gaming on it sucks because the vast majority of games expects there to be a touch screen. Only got a gamepad? Well, fuck you. So in that regard, only offering a few preselected games that are known to work might not be a bad thing.

 

Just because something is using android as it's core over say linux, does not make it a phone/tablet.

For all intent and purpose, this is an actual console. There is no google store, there is no android UI, there are no android features in this device. This has it's own network service, it has it's own account system, it has it's own store, it has it's own yada yada that most modern game consoles have.

All games on the platform are console style games and not touch games. I'm not entirely sure you can even install stock android apks. The games are things like Dynasty Warrior 8, Assault Android Cactus, Gurumin, etc.

 

I recommend people watch these two videos
Games - http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTYwNzk2MDEwNA==.html?from=y1.2-1-99.3.5-1.1-1-1-4-0
OS - http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTYxNDAzNjU4OA==.html?from=s1.8-1-1.2 (you'll have to skip to the 48m mark unless you want to see an unboxing).

btw, i'm not really trying to convince people they should run out and buy this. Just more stop jumping in with blanket statements on a device you have not probably seen a video of it in use. Information on this system is still somewhat scarce outside china so i'm trying to give more hands on look at the device (along with an internal teardown when I get back). This is a mid range device meant for the Chinese market alone.

 

I am still very skeptical about this. Ouya already did try this and they flopped hard. I just don't see a point in having another device, when you can do exactly the same things and run same games on your tablet/smartphone, connect your Xbox controller and plug it to TV.

 

#1, most phone/tablets are actually not as powerful as the K1 chipset and it's starting to get a bit dated (specially with its' sequel the X1, yet no tablet uses the X1 for power/heat issues, just the excessively large pixel C and shield tv).
#2, It's trying to rebuild/rejuvenate the chinese console market which just had it's ban lifted a year ago (prior things were only sold through black market for the past 10+ years).
#3, It's targeting the mid range market in china. A PS4/XB1 (even a 360/ps3) is far too expensive for the average citizen.
#4, The company is actively seeking out local/chinese developers to bring their games to the platform.
#5, A large chunk of the games being seek out for the platform are not on phone/tablets. Of what is currently out, I think less then 3 are actually on android (out of 21).

You can't view this from the western market point of view.

 

O man, I was looking at this on Aliexpress.com the other day wondering what the hell it actually was. Thanks for filling us in on the details.

 

I didn't even know it was on Aliexpress. Checking now holy shit at that markup (elite is 1499Yuan or $226 USD, there isn't any shipping fee when bought from manufacturer or taobao in china).

 

I think at some point all android consoles end up being pretty much the same.

Grumpy old gamer spotted.

 

Nope.

 

I'd like to take a moment and share a fun part of why I knew about this prior
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Ash:_The_Indelible_Legend

If you remember, Keiji Inafune started a kickstarter after Mighty Number 9 for a Legends-like game (and movie from Studio 4C). At that time MN9 hadn't come out yet, so many were unwilling to back it. Well even though it flopped hard, a statement from them regarding funding said the Chinese company called Fuze would be funding it all, and that any money raised on the kickstarter would be supplemental funds for Red Ash.

At the time, those who backed the project pulled out even after putting in money, because why even make the Kickstarter if you're already funded by a company and just didn't say anything (it was found to have been that way before the kickstarter began). Many people decided to look up this company and see what was in store, to then see they were making a game console. Once that was found out everyone just stopped caring about the project.

Now we fast forward a bit, and many people have made the claim that Inafune had been waiting closer to said system's release date before Mighty Number 9 would be released, and honestly that doesn't seem like an overly outlandish claim now. When you take into account that some leaked builds of MN9 (not the beta builds for backers - which we barely got anyway) and how virtually NOTHING changed for a whole year (wince they're built around this time LAST YEAR (2015)), one can only wonder what was REALLY going on behind the scenes with them.

I'm not saying it did happen or didn't happen, but it really doesn't seem like they were being truthful about the ordeal once Fuze got involved with the funding.

Also how much does the system weigh?

 

For touch games try Tincore mapper:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tincore.and.keymapper&hl=en_GB
Takes a few minutes to get your head around (the Wiki is very helpful) but it makes almost any game playable, you can even assign buttons/sticks to set length swipes.

Does the K1 run Gamecube/Wii emulation properly yet?

 

PixelButts,
Yeah i'm pretty familiar with that whole fiasco. While Mn9 is out for other platforms, it's still not out for fuze. Inafune internally seems to have screwed up big time. It will be interesting to see how Red Ash turns out (could very well be another total train wreck, yet we might not know since they don't have to be public about it this time).

Weight is 625.5g for the base model and 1150g for the elite (including hdd).
http://www.fuzegame.com/index.html#conFigure

I haven't checked the latest builds but last one I saw Gamecube was not full speed but looked to be playable, Wii is not. X1 on the other hand I think can run both at playable speed. I'd be curious to see someone port the latest dolphin and add vulkan support for K1/X1 and see how it performs.

 

Yeah, it's quite a mess. Maybe we'll see what comes of it. Who knows, maybe it'll be the system seller

And thanks for the weight numbers.

 

Something interesting to point out. While the Elite comes with an HDD, something not covered online is that the base unit does still have a hdd bay on the bottom where you can install a laptop hdd in it. So really the only reason the elite is so tall is for the mechanical sides that drop when you put a controller on to charge (the cross strip on the elite is a wireless charge pad).

We will find out. If it does launch first on fuze, I will make sure to cover it on the site.