[pacaro]

They do have to offer a much higher level of warranty in the EU than they do in the US. While I have no idea whether the OUYA team thought of this, I suspect that it impacts the entire electronics industry.

For example, I had a laptop fail on me (years ago) due to a poorly designed motherboard, device fails at about 13 months old of course, manufacturer offers a new mb for close to the cost of a comparable low-mid end laptop. I sign up to a forum and find the thread, add my rant, buy a new laptop and forget about it. Except on the forum thread the european users are claiming that they are getting their laptops fixed free because the manufacturer is obliged to fix product flaws (which this clearly was) for three years. If that is true, then it has to be factored into the price also.

[Nursie]

That's very true, we do have a lot of rules in the UK and the EU about things being "fit for purpose" and "reasonable expectations" of how long they should last. There was some muttering recently about that being a very long time indeed (10 years?) for some appliances. And a standard 90 day electronics warranty would not fly here.

I think Apple got into trouble with this recently too, when selling Apple Care it was pointed out to them that people already had a legal right to longer/stronger warranty conditions than Apple were selling them, in some countries.

I would be interested to read a proper evaluation/analysis of the effect this has on pricing levels and profitability of hardware businesses in the EU.