Unlike the usual delays and push backs in the gaming world, Ouya seems to be making a mark with a timely shipment plan of its developer version of gaming consoles on Dec.28. Ouya will ship an early version of the Android-based gaming console and controller to developers who have signed up for one in its Kickstarter campaign.
"To the hundreds of developers who backed us through Kickstarter to get their hands on our advance dev consoles: Mark your calendars! On December 28, they leave the factory and should arrive within a couple of days. Yes, we are shipping these to you on time, as promised," the company announced.
One of the most highly-funded Kickstarter projects of all time, the company maintained that the dev consoles are an early version of the Ouya console and controller designed for developers to test their games on Ouya. The Kickstarter campaign proposed to create a sub-$100 Android-based video game console initially planned to raise $950,000 in 30 days. However, the console offering free-to-play titles attracted more than $1 million by the end of day one and later closed with more than $8.6 million.
The dev system is priced at $800; however, the customer version that would be available on the web is priced much low at $99. "Of course, when the final consoles ship, every Ouya will be a dev console. We told you that already. What we didn't tell you was that the advance dev consoles you ordered are pretty special - you'll know what I mean when you open yours. They're rare drops," Ouya rep Jules Kane wrote in an official blog post.
Los Angeles-based Ouya is working on its own ODK (Ouya Development Kit) that game designers will be able to access. "This involves optimizing Android Jelly Bean to play games on a big screen and spending time understanding the best ways gamers can search for and discover new games. It's still in development, but it looks great, and the advance dev consoles include a sneak peek," the blog post said.
In a Dev Console Giveaway campaign, the company said it will gift 10 dev consoles on a game development competition.