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OUYA is a big deal, folks — the $8 million Kickstarter project that made the Android-based gaming console a reality tell us that much. But if you didn’t believe OUYA was treading major waters before, you will now: the project has received $15 million in new funding from venture capitalists and NVIDIA. That’s quite big for a relatively new startup, but it doesn’t hurt that OUYA had the crowd-sourced backing of hundreds of thousands of people who pledged early dollars through Kickstarter.
The OUYA gaming console can’t hold a candle to today’s top gaming consoles in terms of hardware, but for the price this thing will launch for — around the low $100s — you couldn’t ask for much more. Tegra 3 is a very powerful piece of hardware in the right hands. While not all of the 12,000 developers who have registered to make games for OUYA will produce classic gems, we can’t imagine a few of the titles in the works won’t give big time games a run for their money.
We’re already seeing OUYA exclusives announced left and right, and major titles from the Google Play Store are already being ported with haste. We’ve already detailed a few of the early OUYA titles, and it’s clear to see why folks are so excited for its arrival. OUYA’s already in the hands of those who got in on the early bird Kickstarter backing train, but we probably won’t know the full extent of the console’s potential until it launches online and in retail this summer.
Well, that settles it. It just went from “project” to “company”, and will probably get at least a second version.
You’re probably right but I still think it’s going to fail in the big picture pretty quickly. In a world of high end console and computer games ouya matches nothing including media management and playback. Also when you consider there are tons of other options for casual gaming and media consumption that are fully developed and adopted including tablets, phablets and phones. Now ALSO consider there’s tons of options like Roku and google TV for primarily media consumption. What does the Ouya bring together or do better? The answer is absolutely nothing. They have to convince people they also need an ouya on top of the heaping pile of stuff they already have. The problem is the stuff they have already does EVERYTHING the ouya does and better. Big flop within a year.
Couldn’t agree more. I hope they are able to succeed but like you said–we already have devices that do everything Ouya does and they do it better. This extra 15 million does pretty much guarantee a version 2.0 however so maybe just maybe it will succeed. With that being said i think they picked the wrong year to come out–2013 is the year of next gen consoles and it will be hard to compete with those.
“What does the Ouya bring together or do better? The answer is absolutely nothing.”
Roku doesn’t run my Android apps or games. GoogleTV doesn’t run XBMC. AppleTV doesn’t play well with my external hard drive full of movies.
I use my tablet (connected to a projector) as my primary home theater device. It works, but is a huge PITA, not least because I use it for a lot of other things.
A $99 XBMC box that also plays games, and connects via an OS that already know extensively and have a ton of software for? There’s nothing else even close.
I was an early backer and still a supporter of true idea of the OUYA. I have had mine for about 3 weeks and do realize the potential of a sub 100 dollar console. It’s not perfect nor did I expect it or want it to be. What OUYA is to me is a bridge into a new generation of console gamers. I own an Xbox 360, a couple PC’s, a laptop, nexus 7, and S3. With that said, out of all of those items you can play games on, when I’m spending time with my better half she always wants to play games on her iPad or my N7. I showed her the game Bomb Squad which is currently out on the OUYA store and she instantly loved it. (Made me buy the full game). I also showed my best friend who bought me the OUYA as a birthday present what could be done with it and she also became interested in the little cube. Mind you she plays and has her own 360, but the idea of the OUYA was enough to have her pre order one for herself. I am in no way trying to up sell the product. People are going to buy whatever they want to buy, but I will say that there is, and will be a place for the OUYA. They’ve got a lot of work to do still, but obviously many others believe they can pull it off as well.
I might be interested in buying their 2nd iteration of the OUYA next year when they upgrade the CPU and RAM, and other hardware.
Good for them. Glad to see a crown-funded start-up keep going and be recognized for there work. Amazing what a few dollars from a lot of people can accomplish. Wish more of our world worked this way!