Once upon a time, when Android gaming was still on the rise and a group of dreamers envisioned to bring that rise in popularity for mobile games to the living room, excitement and hype were high. The future was full of possibilities and hope, and some time later OUYA was born, one of the first Android-powered micro consoles allowing people to play Android games, among other games specially developed for the OUYA platform, while connected to the big screen with a controller instead of tapping and swiping on the touchscreen of a mobile device. OUYA had an extremely successful kickstarter campaign which allowed it to make it to market, but once it launched it just didn’t last. For whatever the reasons, people just weren’t as enthralled with OUYA as a gaming platform.
This eventually led to OUYA reportedly beginning a search for a buyer, with at one point rumors floating that they were in talks with Xiaomi for a partnership which would see OUYA bring their software for the gaming platform to Xiaomi’s line of smart televisions complete with access to OUYA’s full library of available games. OUYA even received $10 million in funding from Chinese e-commerce website Alibaba. Now, the latest rumors point to Razer, the manufacturer of popular video game peripherals ranging from PC and Console gaming accessories to headphones and other gaming accessories for mobile devices, as being in talks with OUYA to be a potential buyer for expanding their reach into mobile gaming. Many people may be asking why? Why would a company with such popularity and an obviously booming success in the gaming industry seek to buy out a platform which enjoyed little more than a year of success before it started seeing trouble?
It might not seem immediately apparent, but despite the hurdles OUYA had in front of them for quite some time now, OUYA had insane amounts of potential. It was one of the most successful kickstarters to ever grace the funding platform, and it paved the way for other companies to jump into the space which at the time was pretty much untouched. Now, major players like Razer and NVIDIA have launched their own settop box devices powered by Android TV, (the Razer Forge and NVIDIA SHIELD) which not only offer Android gaming experiences meant and designed to be enjoyed on a TV screen, much like OUYA, but streaming game opportunities as well. There has so far been no confirmation from either OUYA or Razer as to the legitimacy of the acquisition, but should Razer actually be considering, the answer as to why is that they likely see plenty of potential in what OUYA’s technology would have to offer them. Could this mean a new console device born from the marriage of Razer and OUYA technology sometime in the future? Who knows, but Razer could certainly help OUYA’s situation.