Ouya has launched its $99 game console for fans who pre-ordered the Android console for the masses. The company has begun shipping final game consoles to tens of thousands of people who supported the company’s $8 million Kickstarter project, which was the largest crowdfunding effort ever on Kickstarter.
On Thursday, Julie Uhrman, chief executive of Ouya, and industrial designer Yves Behar of Fuseproject, threw a big party for the launch of the “love letter to gamers.” The tiny console has a Tegra 3 processor and the party was well populated by GDC attendees, developers, and fans alike. The event was held near the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.
“The idea was so simple that people called us crazy,” Uhrman said in a speech before the crowd. “We wanted to build a game console where every single game developer could put their game on the television.”
Uhrman said that Ouya has 100 working games, many of them ported from Android apps. The system ships to retail stores on June 4. It will be available on Best Buy, Amazon, Target, and Gamestop. See the video below.
[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/62928974 w=500&h=281]
Ouya launches at the GDC from VentureBeat on Vimeo.