The OUYA gaming project was successfully funded in August 2012 and started arriving in late March 2013 for those people who had supported the project at the Kickstarter level. The OUYA device was released to the public in June 2013 and was billed as a “microconsole”. That being, a relatively small, low powered gaming console. In the case of the OUYA, it’s based on a modified version of Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) running on a 1.7 GHz quad-plus-one core Nvidia Tegra 3 processor. Which has 1 GB of RAM, 8 GB (or 16 GB) of internal storage, Bluetooth and WiFi connectivity. It outputs via an HDMI port to a television in either 720p or 1080p format and being based around the Nvidia Tegra 3 processor, it has reasonable gaming prowess. The OUYA was unusual in that rooting the device explicitly does not invalidate the warranty, and anybody can develop for the platform without paying a licence fee. However, throughout the Ouya’s life, it hasn’t necessarily been the hardware that has held the microconsole back, but instead a lack of games. Plus those games available tended to be higher priced for OUYA compared with the Android equivalent.
We’re now seeing that the OUYA library has reached 1,000 games. This is an important milestone and shows that the OUYA project is very much alive and kicking. We’ve seen rumors that the OUYA project may be linked with the re-emerging Chinese gaming industry as the technology could be easily be integrated into an existing Chinese solution. Having a thousand games can only help! OUYA’s blog post on the matter, makes much of the point of the microconsole being about discovering games “without the walls of traditional publishers and distributors telling us what is fun”. The blog further goes on to name a number of the games that have made it to the unit from developers big and small.
With a thousand games in the library, there’s surely something for everybody! Do you own the OUYA microconsole and if so, how much do you use it? Does it compete with a mainstream, larger size console such as the PlayStation or XBox? How many games do you own? Let us know in the comments below and make sure to check out the fan-made appreciation video below.