Gamincs Blog

The Ouya is an upcoming video game console built upon open-source technology running on the Android mobile operating system. Julie Uhrman, a game industry veteran, founded the project. She brought in designer Yves Béhar to collaborate on the design of the project, and Muffi Ghadiali as product manager to put together the engineering team for the hardware and application framework software. The console is slated for release in March 2013.


Ouya was announced on July 3, 2012 as a new home video game console, made by a team of experts[citation needed], and led by the CEO of Boxer8, Julie Uhrman. On July 10, Ouya started a Kickstarter campaign to gauge how many people were interested in the project. Boxer8 confirmed having a working prototype with in-progress software and user interface. Boxer8 is expected to provide their own Ouya store for apps and games. The prototype runs on Android 4.0. It featured many high-end specs, and a price tag of $99 ($95 for 1000 "early birds" to the Kickstarter campaign). The Kickstarter fundraising goal was raised within 8 hours (and continues to increase as more models are made available at various funding levels). According to Kickstarter, in reaching its goal, Ouya holds the record for best first day performance of any project hosted to date. Within the first 24 hours the project attracted one backer every 5.59 seconds. Ouya became the eighth project in Kickstarter history to raise more than a million dollars, and then became the most quickly funded project on Kickstarter to reach one million dollars.
The Ouya Kickstarter page featured an introduction video, which explained various aspects of the console, showcased the process of designing of the 3" touchpad-sporting controller, and gave viewers a glimpse of the motherboard. It also presented the first looks of the console's game store, showing several games from indie developers who had supported and shown interest in Ouya. Many developers had shown interest as far back as seven months prior to the Ouya's announcement. Potential games on the new platform include Minecraft, Canabalt, and Triple Town.
On July 19, 2012, Robert Bowling, former Creative Strategist at Infinity Ward, announced in a blog post and through an update on the Ouya Kickstarter page that his newly formed studio Robotoki would be the first developer to commit to creating a game exclusively for the Ouya. The game will be an episodic prequel to Robotoki's Human Element, a post-zombie-apocalyptic game scheduled for release in 2015.


Specifications:
Nvidia Tegra 3 quad-core ARM processor
1 GB RAM
8 GB of internal flash storage
HDMI connection to the TV, with support for up to 1080p HD
Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n
Bluetooth LE 4.0
Ethernet port
One USB 2.0
Wireless controller sporting two analog sticks, d-pad, eight action buttons, a system button, and 3"[citation needed] touchpad
Android 4.0 "Ice Cream Sandwich"

Features:
The Ouya will feature an exclusive Ouya store for applications and games designed specifically for the Ouya system. Out of the box, Ouya will include the Twitch.TV application. The physical dimensions of the console are expected to be around the size of a Rubik's cube. It is expected to run on a modified version of Android 4.0 "Ice Cream Sandwich", and will be hardware moddable (with "well-documented test points") and rootable (developer models ordered during the Kickstarter campaign for $699 or $1,337 will come pre-rooted). Rooting the console will not void the warranty. The console's design will allow it to be easily opened up, requiring only a standard screwdriver. All systems can be used as development kits, allowing any Ouya owner and gamer to also be a developer, without the need for licensing fees. All games will be required to have some kind of free-to-play form.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-video-game-console