With the recent uproar over the so called ‘Kickstarter Revolution’ the video game industry has seen notable shifts in the landscape of game creation and development, this however is a focus on the inaugural crowd, funded console named OUYA.
(http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-video-game-console)
The OUYA project has had numerous bouts of controversy since its conception and has received equal amounts of praise and criticism within the gaming industry. Even with regard to long standing arguments such as ‘Consoles vs PCs’ and ‘Timing of Next Gen Consoles’, the projects figures speak for themselves;
Over 41k backers generating more that 5.3 million dollars US in funding (Approx avg of $127 per backer) with a set standard sale price of $99 US/ £63 UK/ €81 EU/ $95 AUS (Not including available console Modkits).
There has been some backlash over the OUYA’s financial figures due to comments made by the projects CEO, Julie Uhrman. Initial comments made by CEO Uhrman on the Ouya project having ‘private investors’ as a source of initial funding made current and potential backers concerned over the validity of the Kickstarter campaign. CEO Uhrman later attempted to correct misconceptions by stating;
”Let me be clear, OUYA is not seeking additional funding outside of Kickstarter. Our priority now is to continue to focus on building a great game console while engaging in our ongoing Kickstarter campaign.”
She would go on to mention that the ‘private investors’ she had previously mentioned were funds provided by those working on or personally related to the project.
Multiple other points of interest that have risen in relation to OUYA include the acquisition of an exclusive game title in ‘Human Element’ (NB; Scheduled Release 2015) and the projects hiring of a software/hardware engineer from Lab126, Amazon’s group behind well known Kindle products. And last but not least are the consoles specs and key features-
Tegra 3 QuadCore Proc. – 1gb RAM – 8gb Int. Flash Storage – Bluetooth 4.0 WiFi 802.11 b/g/n – USB 2.0/Ethernet – HDMI TV Connect Up To 1080p HD Android 4.0 – Wireless Controlling w/ Touch Pad – ‘Hackable’/Modkits
The OUYA project has scheduled a March, 2013 launched date for the console.
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