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(Image source: Ouya)
BY MALLORY PERRYMAN ANCHOR CARISSA LOETHEN
A new console wants to bring the mobile gaming market to your TV.
It’s called Ouya — an Android-based, hacker-friendly, relatively cheap new system that’s getting
its backing — from gamers.
“We have a prototype and it works. We’ll have all the game genres you love: shooters,
platformers, sports and RPG’s, games from major game publishers and Indies too. We’ll
have a full store of games, all free to play.”
Ouya’s developers are hoping that video on crowd-funding site Kickstarter will inspire
backers to pour nearly a million dollars into the system.
A blogger for Business Insider says — while tech titans all compete for control of the
the living room — underdog Ouya could get in the game by appealing to the customizing-crowd.
“By embracing the hacker community, OUYA is making a strong, alternative play... And
with good developers come good apps and good hardware — and a better end-user experience.”
A blogger for PC World suggests — at 99 bucks, this could be the game console for
the 99 percent. And in this case — a modest price tag doesn’t mean lackluster specs.
“...the OUYA will come with a quad-core Tegra 3 processor, 1GB of memory, 8GB of internal
flash storage, an HDMI connection... Wi-Fi, Bluetooth ... USB 2.0 and a wireless controller
that has been described as the ‘the Stradivarius of controllers.’ Whew!”
Anyone can develop games for Ouya — the only requirement is that a game has to be
free-to-play or have a free trial version. The startup says its platform follows the
mobile App Store model — which a blogger for Wired says is a good idea, but...
“...it’s also possible that Apple or another major player is preparing a product that will
grab all of the mindshare that Ouya is hoping to gather.. It’s quite likely that something
like Ouya will soon enough be ubiquitous in our living rooms. Whether or not it’ll be
Ouya is anyone’s guess.”
Ouya expects to ship out its first batch of consoles in March 2013 — that’s if it
meets its fundraising goal on Kickstarter by August 9th.