new technology gadget: OUYA following mobile model: 'There will be a new OUYA every year'

Friday, February 8, 2013

OUYA following mobile model: 'There will be a new OUYA every year'

There will be a new OUYA next year, and the year after that, unlike the traditional game console model, where new hardware ships in five- to seven-year generational increments. "Our strategy is very much similar to the mobile strategy," OUYA CEO Julie Uhrman told us in an interview this afternoon, following her DICE 2013 speech. "There will be a new OUYA every year. There will be an OUYA 2 and an OUYA 3," she added. One potentially featuring the recently revealed Tegra 4, perhaps, rather than the Tegra 3 powering the first units? It sure sounds like it. "We'll take advantage of faster, better processors, take advantage of prices falling. So if we can get more than 8GB of Flash in our box, we will," she explained.

But don't fret, nervous game buyer. Uhrman assured us that "all the games will be backward compatible" going forward. When pushed on how this will work, she said, "The games will be tied to you, the gamer," (like Steam is now) rather than tying your game licenses to the hardware you purchased (like, say, Nintendo's Wii U).

The first OUYA, set to launch for Kickstarter backers this March and at retail in June, comes with a quad-core A9 Tegra 3 that's been maxed out to 1.6GHz. Uhrman pointed out that, because of OUYA's home console form factor (which plugs into a wall, rather than relying on a tiny battery), the console will be, "the best Tegra 3 device on the market." It also doesn't hurt that OUYA's working directly with the Tegra 3's manufacturer, NVIDIA. She said that NVIDIA has a group of folks dedicated solely to getting the chip driving the OUYA to run at its highest capacity ever. We'll find out what that means when we get our hands on the console later this year. Should you like to hear more from Julie Uhrman ahead of that launch, she'll be speaking at Engadget's Expand event this March. Grab your tickets right here!

Filed under: Gaming, HD, NVIDIA