There’s plenty of speculation about how good Nintendo’s impending WiiU may or may not be. There’s also lots of talk about what a new Xbox or PlayStation might look like, even though those haven’t been announced yet. But the hottest new upcoming game machine right now is the Ouya and we know a little bit about it because it’s on Kickstarter. What’s unique about Ouya is that it would be open platform, anyone will be able to build games for it. This is different from Xbox or the others in that game makers wouldn’t have to get permission first and pay all sorts of fees.
Instead, every Ouya will be its own development kit so developers won’t need to purchase a license or an additional software development kit. And it will be open to developers, hackers and hobbyists of all stripes.
“The console market is pushing developers away,” say Ouya’s creators on their Kickstarter page. “We’ve seen a brain drain: some of the best, most creative gamemakers are focused on mobile and social games because those platforms are more developer-friendly.”
Oh, and how are they doing raising money for this? The goal was $950,000 in 30 days. As I type this, on the 4th day of the posting, Ouya is approaching $4 million.
I think we’re also starting to see a bit of a rich-get-richer trend on Kickstarter. Ouya makes headlines because it raises so much money, which in turn makes it more money.
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