Ouya

Who remembers the Ouya?

It was an interesting idea in open source gaming. But failed miserably in it's attempt to disrupt the games industry.

"The Ouya was a home console that attempted to compete against the Wii U, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. It used an Android-based system and used an online store. On release, it cost $99.

The console was discontinued on July 27, 2015, and all Ouya support was shut down on June 25th, 2019, six years after its launch." ~ Crappy Games Wiki

It was supposed to be a platform for indie games to showcase themselves on the big screens in our homes. But what it amounted to was a mobile gaming platform for the home screen, that simply didn't live up to it's ideas, and it ended up being yet another home for shovelware on a google play store style shop front.

The shop front looks very similar to what you'd expect from services like Netflix, Disney +, and Prime Video. However the games often shown were either mobile ports of greater games, mobile remasters of retro titles, or small games more suited to mobile interfaces than a controller setup. 

You'd be forgiven for thinking this project was a good idea, and in all honesty it was only thanks to my own lack of funds that prevented me from wasting my money backing this project. 

Everything was sold on the idea of it being high quality on a budget. Sadly the inverse ended up being true. The system itself while not wallet busting, was around $100 for the base edition, The controller felt like a cheap piece of plastic that had little to no substance to it. The core box itself also felt insubstantial leading to backers questioning where their money was spent on the system.

For even more reasons and a great summary of why the Ouya ultimately failed to deliver on it's promises please check out this great Reddit post that summarises everything pretty well. 

List of reasons why the Ouya Failed.

Th Ouya can now rest among the Virtal Boy, Dreamcast, N-Gage, Bandai Pipin, and the Gizmondo in the graveyard of failed consoles.