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Uncategorized Thursday, August 9th 2012 at 8:30 am

OUYA Kickstarter Finishes at $8.59 Million, Now We Wait

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The Kickstarter for the Android-powered console OUYA has finally come to a close. With announcements like partnerships with VEVO and OnLive, the box folks might have once thought would fail seems to be doing pretty well for itself. When the curtain closed, the OUYA raked in a grand total of $8,596,475 when their original goal had been a measly $950,000. That’s a lot more money than they expected, so things will hopefully go smoothly now, but it’s important to note that they haven’t brought the console to market yet. A lot can happen between now and then.

First, Kickstarter is going to take their cut of that sweet, sweet crowdfunded cash. There’s also the unfortunate reality that not all payments will go through. Some will almost certainly be declined, because folks pledged long ago and forgot all about the date when the money would actually be collected. The email in their inbox will serve as a ghastly reminder, much like a wedding band or hideous tattoo would after a drunken escapade. After all, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

So, the OUYA team isn’t going to have as much money to play around with due to the natural hazards involved in a Kickstarter project. In addition to that, they will eventually have to provide their backers with whatever goodies that their level of pledge obtained them. There are over 46,000 backers for the $99 level tier alone. That’s a lot of units to promise when the target date is only seven months away. A lot could happen between now and then.

That isn’t to say everything’s doom and gloom. The OUYA is a fascinating project and we hope it successfully deploys exactly as it’s supposed to. People need to realize that they haven’t bought a console just yet, however. What they’ve done is helped fund a console idea. Sometimes, the end result is the same. Other times, that money gets collected and founders just off the coast of success.

(Kickstarter via Joystiq)

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  • Anonymous

    The people behind that “console” had enough clout to have basically paid for that venture on their own. They lied to people by claiming it was an “indie” venture. It’s sad that people who think they are helping their fellow common man do something positive are just being tricked into donating money into something that could have easily been privately funded.

    ” Robert Bowling, former Creative Strategist at Infinity Ward,”
    ” Square Enix announced that Final Fantasy III would be made available as a launch title for Ouya.”
    ” Namco Bandai was in discussions to bring their games to the system. The same day, Ouya also announced the Plex Media Center is also coming to the Ouya.”

    Yeah… That’s “indie”.

  • Peoplecanwastemoneywow

    8 million for this useless junk lol.

  • Anonymous

     It’s a terrible idea IMO. Why the heck do I want to play cell phone quality games on my TV. There will be a flood of crap on the market watch. They better have some good system in place and quality control so their “marketplace” doesn’t have 1000000000 games that are terrible. However if it is open source they technically can’t do that. They will learn the hard way why this is a terrible idea.

  • Annie Mus

    Cell Phone —HDMI Cable –> TV   

  • fail

     Steam has Activision, Rockstar, Betheseda, Valve (obv), just to name a few and it has a huge indie market.

  • fail

    Worst outcome: no one develops for it, we’re out $99. I feel like it’s like Steam but from a couch, it just needs people to take it seriously.

  • Anonymous

     Steam didn’t Kickstart a free 8 million dollars from the general public who by in large, probably has less money than the people involved in the Ouya project.

    They could have found private funding for the project, but instead chose to pretend they were a small company with a skeleton staff and pocket the cash of the public for free.

  • fail

    Well the people involved were (still are?) working other jobs along side this. Yeah they probably could have found private investors but really what I have seen so far is iffy at best. I don’t think they could have gotten any serious investments in it. Also remember that they really only wanted $950,000, over 8 million just goes to show how many people just want this to happen. I for one am casting my lot with them, I realized the risk when I put in my $99 dollars. I would also like to point out that Valve is a pretty big company, this is just some industry people who probably or no I should say most definitely make more money than I do but they are just people with an idea. They brought that idea to the public and it looks like the public loves it. No one can say that they didn’t think this would flop or that it seemed legit, anyone and their grandmother could just google Ouya and see all the blogs pointing out how iffy this looks.

  • Anonymous

    Well now they have 8.5 million dollars of the public’s money to run away with when the project tanks. And don’t get me wrong, I don’t think this is exclusive to this particular project… I think kickstarter is a very shady concept for just about anything.

    I just feel like this particular concept came off as extra shady. I feel as if they held off on details such as who was involved from the start.

    And I don’t fault anybody for funding something on Kickstarter. Anybody who donates to something they think is a decent cause is fine to me. I’m just of the opinion that donators may have been taken advantage of, especially in the case of the Ouya.

    It’s not like giving them 100 bucks is investing in any type of stock… It’s just 100 bucks that you’ll never see again, even if the project never comes to fruition.