The Android-powered console Ouya seems to be ready for shipping on time to big supporters, with a ship date of Dec. 28.
Ouya first grabbed attention this summer with its Kickstarter campaign, raising more than $8.5 million to create an inexpensive, Android-based open-source system. Early backers of the crowdsourcing campaign will be the first ones to get their hands on a finished Ouya for a $95 price tag, but those consoles will not ship until March.
Meanwhile, the hundreds of backers who pledged $699 or more for a first-run, rooted dev system with early software development kit (SDK) access will receive their Ouya developers' consoles starting Dec. 28.
So far, the Ouya creators seem to be on track to fulfill their original commitment to ship the dev kits in December, which is always a nice surprise for a Kickstarter project. Numerous other crowdsourced projects have had trouble meeting the original commitments and timelines. The Pebble watch, for instance, is now several months late on its original ship date, and the company is still working on some production issues.
"To the hundreds of developers who backed us through Kickstarter to get their hands on our advanced dev consoles: Mark your calendars! On December 28, they'll leave the factory and should arrive within a couple of days (we've heard that Turkey and Russia might take a bit longer). Yes, we are shipping these to you on time, as promised," announced the company.
"The dev consoles are an early version of the OUYA console and controller designed for developers to test their games on OUYA. Our Kickstarter developers are the first to get a crack at 'em! We're psyched to have you on board, and we can't wait to see what pours from your brain!"
"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 advanced dev consoles you ordered are pretty special - you'll know what I mean when you open yours. They're rare drops :P," added the company.
One catch for developers, however is that at least some part of the game play must be available for free, whether it's a demo or the whole thing.
OUYA is also working on its own Ouya development kit (ODK), which game designers will be available to access. This ODK should be available on the same day as the dev console itself. Also, Ouya said it has been working on optimizing Android Jelly Bean for gameplay on a large screen.
