Ouya is the newest gaming system brought to you by crowd funding. The company was aiming to raise $950,000 and found itself with over $8 million in donations through Kickstarter.
Ouya was created by using code from the Android operating system and standard computer technology that is easily replaced and upgraded. Android code is open sourced, meaning it’s available for anyone to use as long as they say they made the changes to it.
The company has made deals with Indie companies all over the world, some of which are the creators of Dusty Revenge – a game where the main character is a rabbit seeking revenge – Chucklefish – the gaming company that created Starbound – and many others.
They are promoting Indie gaming companies and want to make deals with lesser-known individual companies. By giving different kinds of companies a chance at being recognized and having their games gain more recognition, they are also appealing to a wider crowd of gamers, according to a BBC article.
“OUYA definitely opens up a lot of possibilities,” said K.J. Poh in an email interview. Poh is a creative director on Dusty Revenge and other games. “I think a lot of developers dream of working on consoles because they grew up playing consoles games, and this is their chance.”
Poh cautions that, “While OUYA is a Kickstarter wonderboy with more than $8 million raised, it has only 60k plus backers, meaning 60k plus users. It’s really not a lot. When Wii U sells in hundreds of thousand in its first few weeks, it’s considered disappointing.”
This could mean that even though smaller gaming developers are getting their chance to be on a console, it still doesn’t mean overnight success for their games or Ouya.
Ouya does have deals with larger companies such as Square Enix and NAMCO Bandai. Ouya managed to acquire Final Fantasy – a series that has been going on for decades now and was developed by Square Enix. Both are relatively large companies in the gaming world and have gained international recognition for their games.
Ouya is similar to Steam. Players can download any game available on the system to play at any time and it’s stored there. There’s no need to go out and buy the original game in order to make it work. The games will also be cheaper than it is to buy on other systems such as Xbox.
Also given the operating system, the company has talked about making apps on any tablet available to download on Ouya.
The system is easy to take apart and is easily upgraded and enhanced by the user. In fact, the company encourages people to hack into its systems since it’s so easy to take apart and buy the technology they would need to make their systems better.
“Hardware hackers can create their own peripherals, and connect via USB or Bluetooth,” it said on their Kickstarter page. “You want our hardware design? Let us know. We might just give it to you.”
Ouya may stand the chance against other consoles, given its outreach to other gaming companies, but it will all come down to whether or not the users enjoy it.
