Razer announced on Monday that it has acquired the software assets of OUYA, the Android console that hit the retail chain in June 2013 after an amazingly successful Kickstarter campaign that churned out $8.6 million. Former OUYA CEO Julie Uhrman also confirmed the acquisition on Twitter, saying that she’s now pursuing her next project.
.@Razer Can't wait to see what you do. Take care of my incredible team and community...I know you will.
— Julie Uhrman (@juhrman) July 27, 2015
According to Razer, the company has acquired OUYA’s developer relations personnel and the technical team. Both departments now serve Razer under its software arm. The company also plans to re-launch the OUYA store as Cortex for Android TV, the store that serves up games and other content for Razer’s Forge TV set-top-box.
So what does this mean for current OUYA console owners? The company said on Monday that it will provide OUYA owners with “deep discounts” on OUYA hardware. There will also be “a spate of freebies, giveaways, and promotions” on newly purchased Forge consoles. Even more, these customers will be able to bring their accounts, controllers and games over to the Forge console.
“In the near future, Razer will be providing existing OUYA users with a clear path of migration to the more advanced Forge TV micro-console and Serval controller bundle,” the press release stated. “While Razer is not retaining interest in OUYA hardware or related other assets, it does plan to publish Android TV content and Android-based TV console games under the OUYA moniker as a separate interest.”
As the Kickstarter project illustrated, the OUYA console showed promise. It was the first of many Android consoles, but its biggest flaw was that it didn’t allow customers to bring their games over from Google Play. Instead, the company relied on a catalog of games developed exclusively for the OUYA. While this was great for indie game developers, the move likely turned away many potential customers.
Introduced in January during CES 2015, Razer started taking pre-orders for its Forge TV set-top-box back in April 2015. The device will come packed with Qualcomm’s quad-core Snapdragon 805 clocked at 2.5 GHz and the Adreno 420 GPU. Other ingredients include 16 GB of internal storage, 2 GB of RAM, Gigabit Ethernet, dual-band Wireless AC and Bluetooth 4.1 connectivity, USB 3.0 ports and HDMI 1.4 output.
The big selling point with Forge TV is that it allows PC gamers to stream their favorite games from a PC to the set-top-box. The device is also based on Android TV, meaning customers will have access to all of their Android games: there’s no re-purchasing titles going on here.
“Razer has a long-term vision for Android TV and Android-based TV consoles, such as the Xiaomi Mi Box and Alibaba Tmall Box, to which OUYA already publishes,” says Razer Co-Founder and CEO Min-Liang Tan. “OUYA’s work with game developers, both triple A and indies, went a long way in bringing Android games to the living room and Razer intends to further that work. This acquisition is envisaged to usher more developers and content to the Android TV platform.”
Razer stated in its press release that the acquisition closed on June 12, 2015. Financial details were not provided.
From maximumpc
from http://bit.ly/1JLrI7o
