Ouya game consoles now on their way to developers
The Android-based game consoles are shipping to people eager to get their hands on the first developer editions.
Developers who ordered an Ouya game console should soon find one in front of their doors.
The folks at Oyua confirmed today that 1,200 developer consoles have been shipped and should reach eager buyers in the next few days.
Created this past year, Ouya is an attempt to bring gaming back to your TV. Designed to hook up to your television, the Ouya console plans to be home to a platform of Android-based games built by interested developers.
The console itself is the brainchild of Julie Uhrman, a video game industry veteran who wanted to lay the groundwork for an open ecosystem of games playable on your TV. Ouya truly kicked off this past July after Uhrman and her colleagues took the product to Kickstarter to raise funds from potential backers and early adopters.
The Kickstarter campaign proved a savvy move as the project raised more than $2 million in its first day. By the time fundraising had ended, Ouya had raised $8.5 million.
Ordinary folks who joined the Kickstarter campaign paid as little as $95 to get a finished Ouya, which is due to ship in April. But those eager to play with the console in its earlier stages and build games for the platform shelled out $699 to get access to the developer edition.
"As we said previously, these kits are very special," Ouya said in its blog today. "They're a one-off design - 'rare drops' for the most discerning and faithful developers whom we're looking forward to meeting in the coming months."
Unlike the Xbox or Wii, the Ouya console is a tiny cube you can easily hold in one hand. The developer console is designed to be opened, so that hardware hackers can play around with its innards.
The Ouya Dev Console package comes packed with a number of goodies, including a translucent version of the console itself, two translucent controllers with batteries, a power adapter, an HDMI cable, a micro-USB cable, and an official welcome letter.
The kit doesn't contain any actual games since it's strictly aimed at developers who want to gear up some games.
Ouya offers a Developer Portal site where Ouya game designers can download the development kit, pick up documentation, and upload their games. The folks at Ouya caution that these consoles are still a work in progress, so early testers can expect plenty of bugs. Developers are encouraged to leave their feedback at the company's forums at devs.ouya.tv.
Non-developers can pre-order a finished console and single controller for $99, with a second controller priced at $30. The order page currently lists the expected delivery date as April 2013.
In return, Ouya is promising a wide range of games for the final platform, including those from development companies already lined up. Games will come with free playable demos, so gamers can decide if they want to ante up for the full version. And since Ouya is based on Android, any game or other app already developed for Android can be played or accessed via Ouya's online store.