The Ouya Dared To Imagine An Independent Game Console

gamespot.com:

The Ouya is celebrating its 10-year anniversary today, June 25, 2023. Below, we look at its legacy as a system that endeavored to crack into a market with an atypical approach.

Like many failed console projects, the Ouya was both ahead of and behind the times. Released 10 years ago today, the Ouya was an independently developed console, funded, in part, by a massive Kickstarter campaign. Questions, criticisms, and concerns abounded, but there was also excitement at the possibility space such a console would create. What could an independent-focused console and development community create?

The Ouya was a $99 micro-console, built with Android architecture. The pitch was in the low-price point and the fact that every console shipped was also a dev kit. Anyone with some technical knowhow could begin developing games for the platform. The console promised to have accessible developer tools, a library of exclusive indies, and to bridge the mobile and console worlds.

Before it was even out, academic Ian Bogost argued that the appeal of the Ouya is not in the literal box, but in «the entertainment value of expressing your support for such a hypothetical console… the pleasure of participating in hypothetical disruption is sufficient.» Indeed when the Ouya released, the reception was lukewarm. The console flailed, was acquired by Razer, and died a slow death. Much of the eulogizing around the Ouya is about how it failed, moving from one of the most-funded Kickstarter campaigns ever to being frequently forgotten--and overshadowed by future, larger Kickstarter projects. In some sense, Bogost was right. The Ouya collapsed because its purpose had already been served before the point of sale.

Even watching the original Kickstarter