Hasta La Gadget!

If you’re one of the vast number of people who backed the Ouya game console when it was on Kickstarter, another bit of bad news has turned up. The company has announced that it has again delayed the launch of the Android-powered game console. The good news is the delay is only an additional three weeks, at least right now.

The original launch date was to be June 4th, and the new launch date is the 25th. Ouya CEO Julie Uhrman says that the decision was made to be able to meet the expected high demand in retail outlets. However, another reason for the delay has to do with the original design of the game controller.

Uhrman said that the buttons were sticking under the edges of the faceplate when pressed on some occasions. The fix for the problem was to make the whole for the buttons slightly larger. Ouya says that controls in production right now have larger buttons and the problem has been addressed.

Uhrman said, “We’ve had incredibly positive reactions from our retail partners, and so in order to meet their greater than expected demand, we decided to shift the launch date by a couple of weeks – three weeks – which will allow us to create more units and, basically, have more units on store shelves in June.”

[via Joystiq]

As OUYA gets ready to launch in full next month, other companies are trying to replicate the success with their own portable gaming consoles. Android app emulation service BlueStacks has announced GamePop, which is a portable Android-powered gaming console that looks to take on OUYA, as well as become the Netflix of gaming with a unique subscription plan.

The console is available to pre-order now, and you can actually get the console and controller for free throughout this month, but it’ll cost $99 if you order one after May (although the final price hasn’t been finalized yet). The console requires an $83.88-per-year subscription fee as well, which comes out to $6.99 per month. This will get you an all-you-can-play buffet of games to play on your TV without needing to pay for the games individually.

BlueStacks has already managed to get a handful of popular mobile game developers to partner up, including Glu, Halfbrick, Gameloft, Intellijoy, and Deemedya. It’s not said exactly how many games will be available at launch, as the team is still working on getting a final count, but it should give OUYA a run for its money.

Plus, the monthly subscription fee is also an interesting concept, as its essentially the Netflix for games. However, you have to pay by the year (sort of like a contract), but $6.99 per month doesn’t seem that bad at all, especially considering that you can play as many games as you want, which could be a bargain for those who are heavy gamers. As of right now, there’s no word on a ship date for the GamePop console.

[via The Next Web]

BlueStacks GamePop console takes on OUYA is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Today, gaming console and software company OUYA announced that they have closed a $15 million round led by Kleiner Perkins, and with participation from the Mayfield Fund, NVIDIA, Shasta Ventures and Occam Partners. This marks one of the largest institutional investments to go to a project that had its humble beginnings on Kickstarter.

OUYA is a company that launched back in 2012 on Kickstarter under the guiding hands of Julie Uhrman, a video game industry veteran who believes that gaming should be affordable and enjoyable for everyone. She and the team developed a $99 Android gaming console, which hooks into the TV and comes with automatic access to free-to-try games. It launched on the crowdfunding site to much fanfare, scoring $8.6 million in funding, which ends up being around 9x more than OUYA asked.

Along with the $15 million round, which brings OUYA’s total amount of funding to $23.5 million, the company will also be bringing KPCB General Partner Bing Gordon on to the board of directors. Gordon brings with him years of experience from Electronic Arts.

Here’s what he had to say about the funding:

OUYA’s open source platform creates a new world of opportunity for established and emerging independent game creators and gamers alike. There are some types of games that can only be experienced on a TV, and OUYA is squarely focused on bringing back the living room gaming experience. OUYA will allow game developers to unleash their most creative ideas and satisfy gamers craving a new kind of experience.

The OUYA hardware has proven its spot in the market with the successful Kickstarter project, followed by an institutional investment led by a firm such as KPCB. “The message is clear: people want OUYA,” said Uhrman.

But the same story rings true for software, as the company has seen over 12,000 developers sign up for the platform to build games and monetize them in any way they’d like. This is up from 8,000 developer signups in March.

And if that weren’t enough, OUYA has been picked up by major retailers like GameStop, Best Buy and Amazon, with availability originally intended to begin June 4. OUYA is pushing that back to June 25, however, announcing the delay today as a result of a desire to be able to meet initial demand.

Clearly, the affordable gaming console speaks to people. But is it enough to make OUYA profitable? In an interview with TechCrunch, Uhrman explained that OUYA essentially breaks even on the hardware from the $99 gaming console, and that all games will be free-to-try. Curious if that was sustainable, we asked Uhrman if free-to-try would always be the case with OUYA games.

“Free to try is a core tenet of OUYA,” said Uhrman. “We wanted a gaming experience for the television that’s inexpensive to get into. Developers monetize however they’d like to, which is why we have games with unlockable demos inside a fully paid version, or micro-transactions, and even a donation based game. I’m looking forward to the first episodic, subscription-based game,” she said.

According to Uhrman, the latest round from KPCB and friends will go toward further supporting game developers and development, bringing in exclusive and unique OUYA content, and meeting the demand seen from all parts of the world, including Japan, Brazil, Germany, Spain, and Italy.

The Ouya Android powered gaming console, which initially started off as a campaign on Kickstarter, is now being shipped out. The idea of this console was liked so much that the campaign raked in some $8 million in crowd sourced funding. It launched with some 481 titles and is available for a relatively nominal price tag of $99. Obviously one has to be real, the Ouya can not upstage consoles like the PS3 or Xbox 360, but it might just carve out a niche for itself.

Since Ouya is now being shipped, the fine folks at iFixit has got their hands on a unit. Their extensive teardown reveals that Ouya is actually very easy to repair, it gets a 9 out of 10 on their Repairability Meter. Only standard head screws are used to hold the unit together, and there’s no super glue or adhesive that has been used. The only moving and modular part inside this console is the fan. In fact, the SUNON MagLev HA40101V4 fan is actually an off-the-shelf part, so it can be easily replaced if it ever dies out on you. Have a look at the entire teardown in detail over at iFixit.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Wolfenstein: The New Order Is Single Player Only, World Of Warcraft Bleeds 1.3 Million Subscribers In Q1,

The Android-toting game console known as OUYA has had its first teardown appearance this week, a piece-by-piece de-construction showing that it will be a relatively easy repair job for future users. The console and gaming controller are taken apart bit-by-bit with open-source and free-to-modify aims in mind – the creators of this system appear to have stuck to their word when it comes to simple modifications.

Inside the iFixit teardown the innards promised by the manufacturers of the OUYA, including – but not limited to – the NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor with 4-PLUS-1 technology (meaning there’s 5 CPU cores, not just 4). Under the hood two Samsung 4Gb DD3 SDRAM modules sit next to one another, these two 4Gb modules together creating 1GB total.

Also inside the OUYA box is a single fan, easily removable and attached with just four standard screws and a wire. As noted by iFixit, this is good – especially since its the only moving part in the whole amalgamation of metal and plastic. The fan is, for those of you looking to stock up, a SUNON MagLev HA40101V4 DC brushless and you’ll be rolling with 12 volts at 0.8 W of power.

Perhaps oddest of all is the addition of weights to this machine. Inside the bottom of the console are five miniature metal plates added to keep the device weighed down and solid on a flat surface. Each of the five plates weighs in at 0.39 ounces, creating nearly 2 ounces of staying weight for the bottom of the box. The gaming pad coming with the OUYA is a similar bit of ease in tear down – only a few screws and you’re in!

Have a peek at SlashGear’s OUYA tag portal to see more information on this machine’s innards as well as its connections to the gaming universe at large. You’ll be able to see this device on the deck of your own TV stand later this year, if all goes as planned, and for right around a hundred bucks, too!

[via iFixit]

OUYA teardown shows near-perfect ease in repairability is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.