The makers of the Ouya video game console have started shipping developer kits to folks who paid $699 or more during the team’s successful Kickstarter campaign. The company plans to start shipping Ouya units to customers early in 2013, with the video game console selling for about $99 plus shipping.

ouya

SlashGear reports the first units should begin arriving this week.

The Ouya game console is a small box with an NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of storage, WiFi, Bluetooth, a USB 2.0 ports, Ethernet, and HDMI ports.

It runs Google Android software, but it’s not a phone or a tablet. Instead the Ouya console is designed to be plugged into your television so you can play games on the big screen. It also includes a wireless game controller, a game store, and more.

The developer consoles come with two controllers — but their main appeal is that they’re shipping a few months ahead of the final units, which should give game developers (or serious enthusiasts) a chance to try out the device before it’s available to the general public, and adapt games to run on the platform.

While there’s no shortage of video game consoles for the living room, the developers of the Ouya project want to lower the barriers to entry for independent game developers. Basically, if you can create a game that runs on Android, it can run on Ouya — you don’t need to go through the hassle of signing with a game publisher, packaging the title on a disc and distributing it to game stores.

On the other hand, the Ouya is expected to ship to regular customers in early 2013 with hardware that was state of the art in early 2012. While you can still write some pretty nifty games for the Tegra 3 processor, Samsung and Qualcomm are already offering mobile processors with significantly more graphics power, and NVIDIA is expected to launch a Tegra 4 chip soon.

Will the Ouya feel dated by the time it finally arrives? Then again… with a $99 price tag, does it really matter?

via SlashGear and Ouya Forum

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8 replies on “Ouya developer kits are shipping, $99 Android game console coming in 2013”

  1. I guess it’s going to come down to the exclusive games you can’t get on regular Android devices or if you don’t have any Android devices at all.

    Right now and as someone who already has an Android phone and feel that the games for Android are generally not that good, I wouldn’t buy the Ouya and rather spend the $99 elsewhere.

  2. I really wanted to get on board with this, but my tablet has been such a kickass gaming piece that I didn’t see the point.

    1. yeah if the nexus 7 had hmdi out, I would’ve bought it and a six axis and called it a day.
      I do hope the hype and 50k units in the hands of hackers, devs, and nerds moves the platform forward. Would love to see a more polished tc experience with android.

  3. so long as ouya has XBMC and an easy to use button remapping app (for non-native games) then it will be an awesome HTPC style device.

    1. Here, here. I’d get it for a cheap HTPC if it ran XBMC or even just ran ES File Explorer and MX Player at decent frame rates. It looks cool and I’d prefer it much more than a Android HDMI stick/dongle.

      Mapping a controller to a game would be great too. I HATE!!! virtual controls on a phone/tablet. They never seem to work well or are as responsive as a game pad.

      1. well xbmc is in beta for android and i recall reading ouya will support xbmc.

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