Ouya “ready to be embedded in other people’s devices”

By Brenna Hillier

Ouya will soon be available as a software suite on other company’s devices, CEO Julie Uhrman has said.

“One thing you’ll start to see is Ouya on other people’s devices,” Uhrman told A List Daily.

According to the executive, Ouya intends to nominate a “minimum set of standards” to ensure devices that host Ouya run games as well as the Ouya hardware itself, which makes it sound similar to Sony’s PlayStation Mobile platform.

Although Ouya began as a hardware-specific company, Uhrman said the move to “hardware plus an ecosystem” is inline with its original philosophy of making games more accessible than through expensive traditional console business models.

“We’ve always wanted to open that up. We started with a $99 box, but we always wanted to create a console platform that can live on other people’s devices. We just knew it was going to take us a little bit of time to get it ready,” she said.

“Now we think the software is good enough, it’s ready to be embedded in other people’s devices. We actually started having some of these conversations during CES, and the takeup was so great that we’re really jumping into the strategy with both feet this year.”

What this means for you at home is that you’ll no longer actually need an Ouya to access Ouya’s service, which differentiates itself from competing Android game webstores by insisting on all games having a demo or free-to-play option.

However, Ouya hasn’t given up on hardware entirely, with Uhrman likening it to other successful hardware-agnostic platforms.

“We will always have an Ouya reference device. Think of it similar to the Kindle strategy, or Google’s Android itself,” she said.

“Ouya is more than just that reference device, it’s an ecosystem that really can live on other people’s devices. One of the focuses this year is Ouya finding ways to bring games to more people, regardless of where they play.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Uhrman said that Ouya’s install base continues to grow and to hit its internal targets, and that of the 675games available on its platform “about one fifth” are exclusives.

“Developers are finding real success. No, they’re not making millions of dollars yet, but they’re finding their audience and they’re starting to build real credibility and they’re starting to build a real brand and a reputation. We see that because some of our developers are coming back for a second time,” she said.

Thanks, Polygon.