Hasta La Gadget!

Didn’t get a chance to back the ambitious OUYA Android game console to lock in your pre-order? Considering how much press the thing has gotten, you don’t have much excuse for missing that particular window, but never fear — OUYA intends to sell the $99 pint-sized gaming gadget through retail partners like Amazon, Gamestop, and Best Buy starting on June 4.

The folks at Engadget obtained the full press release, which goes on to note that Android gamers in the U.K. and Canada would be able to pick up an OUYA that same day. Of course by then most (if not all) of the people who shelled out money when the project was in its early stages will have already received their devices. The Verge points out that OUYA began passing shipping notifications to its users earlier today.

While the hardware inches ever closer to its mass-market release, there’s still a question of content to contend with. OUYA hasn’t provided much insight on how many game submissions it’s received since it began accepting them a few weeks back, though quite a few developers have already thrown their weight behind the little console that could.

Of course, there’s a tendency for some gamers to cling to proven hits from years gone by, which is why it comes as no surprise to see some developers taking up the task of making the OUYA a first-rate emulation device. It was revealed earlier this week that NES, SNES, and Nintendo 64 emulators would be available in OUYA’s storefront at launch. And emulator developer Robert Broglia confirmed yesterday that he plans to bring his existing Android emulators for consoles like the TurboGrafx-16 and Sega Saturn (!) to the OUYA before too long.

The OUYA’s journey from kooky idea to full-fledged product has been a long one, and it’s not over yet. Getting the device onto store shelves is certainly a milestone for the young company, but the true test lays in how run-of-the-mill consumers will react to it. Granted, its price point may give it a leg up on more prominent rivals like the Xbox 360, Wii U, or PlayStation 3, but we’ll soon see if the gamers of the world wind up warming to it.

OUYA gaming consoles may already be set to launch starting tomorrow, but that isn’t stopping the company from adding more features. OUYA and MakerBot have announced a partnership that will see the release of the 3D design files for the console’s case. The template and the specs for the OUYA’s case has been made readily available, which means that anyone with a MakerBot 3D printer will be able to make their own case for the gaming console.

You can download what they’re calling the ” “OUYA MakerBot 3D Printing Development Kit” from MakerBot’s Thingiverse website, and then get started with crafting your very own OUYA shell. This dev kit will allow anyone to print cases, and users can add their own patterns and colors to the cases, making them unique and giving them a little personality.

The custom OUYA cases can be printed using PLA plastic on the MakerBot Replicator 2 Desktop 3D Printer, or if you’re a more experience 3D-printing enthusiast, you can use the more-robust ABS plastic on a MakerBot Replicator 2X Experimental 3D Printer. To say the least, this takes open source to a completely new level.

While the OUYA will begin shipping tomorrow, only Kickstarter backers will receive their units. The general public will be able to grab their own OUYA console starting in June, and units will be available at various retail stores, as well as on Amazon and OUYA’s website for $99, which isn’t a bad price considering what the little box can do.

OUYA partners with MakerBot to bring DIY 3D-printed cases to gamers is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
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It was yesterday when we brought you word that the Ouya console which runs on the Android operating system is able to support emulators of older classic consoles, too, Well, this $99 console can be said to be the console that could, where apart from running Android games on your spanking new HDTV, it also has enough firepower underneath the hood to run as a classic computer. In fact, developer Paul Lamb has been sweating his brains out to port the open source Frodo C64 emulator so that it will play nice on the Ouya, and if you would prefer to translate that to simple English, it means you will treat the Ouya console the same way as that of a Commodore 64 computer.

Of course, with the Ouya possessing naturally better hardware compared to the original C64, it should be able to run the emulator without running into performance issues, assuming that the port is successful, of course. In fact, Lamb is also responsible for porting the Mupen64 Nintendo 64 emulator to run on the Ouya. Would this cause the Ouya’s price to make it worth its weight in gold?

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Battlefield 4 Arrives On PC This Fall, Nintendo 3DS System Update Brings New Enhancements,

The OUYA Android-based gaming console is getting ready for its debut: the stated beginning shipping date for Kickstarter backers is March 28. At launch, it sill isn’t clear exactly how many software titles the console will offer, but a new report suggests that at the very least, early backers will have emulators to play with on the small, inexpensive console.

OUYA forum admin and owner Ed Krassenstein said in a post on his site that EMUya, a NES emulator, has been submitted to OUYA for review and should definitely be available at launch, and a couple of SNES emulation options are confirmed, including the SuperGNES and the Mupen64Plus Nintendo 64 emulators. The Mupen64Plus project is also said to be available at launch, with the developer behind it posting that it has already been approved by OUYA for inclusion in the official store.

Emulators on OUYA aren’t new in and of themselves. Back in January, footage surfaced of the developer kits of the console running Nintendo 64 games, as well as SNES titles. Emulation support appears to even be sanctioned at the top: the N64 emulator’s inclusion in the actual OUYA store proper means users shouldn’t even have to sideload the titles themselves to get access. We’ve reached out to OUYA to see if it has an official stance on emulation and its acceptability on the OUYA platform, and will update if they respond.

Whether or not it gets the “official” nod, emulators coming to OUYA is a good thing for the upstart. A lot of the apprehension around the console’s upcoming launch centers around how much content it will be able to offer at launch, and the quality of that content. OUYA has been making a point of announcing as many software partners as possible, but it still isn’t exactly clear what the launch lineup will look like when it first becomes widely available for consumers.

Emulators mean that at least early adopters will have a rich selection of software to choose from, even if that content isn’t exactly “legal” to use. But emulators are freely available for virtually every platform out there, including Android smartphones and media center PCs. OUYA might succeed by finally making the tech truly plug-and-play, by integrating it into a set-top device designed to be used from a couch with a gamepad. The appeal will still be limited, but it might be enough to keep user attention as OUYA ramps up for its big splashy retail and wide consumer market launch later on this year.

The Android-powered OUYA game console is set to ship to its many, many Kickstarter backers later this month, and we’ve got the company’s CEO Julie Uhrman live on-stage from our Expand event this weekend talking about just that. Will we finally find out that the console and its Kickstarter campaign were all just a sneaky ploy by Cobra Commander to destroy the world’s children? Doubtful, but you never know! The only way to find out is to tune in — our livestream’s right here — but we’ll also be liveblogging Uhrman’s conversation with Engadget EIC Tim Stevens, which you’ve found. The talk kicks off at 4:45PM ET / 1:45PM PT.

Filed under: Gaming, HD

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