Razer buys Ouya and reveals future plans
Last month, a big part of Ouya was acquired by gaming and gadget company Razer. However, this does not merely entail getting the Ouya name nor does it mean that the infamous Kickstarter console will be used in the near future.
Razer CEO and Min-Liang Tan revealed that the purchase only included specific features of the Ouya brand. This includes the 1,500 Android TV-based games from Ouya, the app store and the company staff. Unfortunately, it did not necessarily mean a jumpstart to the Ouya console and its controller, Polygon reported.
"When this opportunity came about to bring the entire suite of content from Ouya to Android TV, it seemed like a phenomenal opportunity," said Tan to Polygon.
Despite this, however, Tan promised that Razer will not suddenly cut the support for the Ouya device. As far as schedule is concerned, Ouya users will have at least a year's worth of support for the microconsole under Razer.
Tan added in an interview with Techcrunch that the acquisition was done to further Razer's plan for Android TV as well as its own Android-based console. More than the transition of Ouya console owners to what will be a future Forge TV, Razer's goal is also to expand what Ouya's brand had originally wanted in developing games for Android.
Ouya had previously held the first-ever Android video game console via Kickstarter, which obtained more than US $8.5 million dollars in funding. This broke Kickstarter record as one of the five top projects of all time in the crowdfunding platform. It also seemed like the promising Android console, sold at US $99 (AU $135).
Unfortunately, the Ouya console could not compete with the industry's top console manufacturers, Sony and Microsoft, following its release. It struggled to find both buyers of the console and developers for the games. The company did find success in its online retail store for apps and a slew of Android games.
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