Ouya sprung onto peopleās radar recently with an incredibly desirable, or at the least incredibly interesting pitch. The would-be console makers offer a cheap alternative for gamers to play, and even hack and mod their way through the hardware and games potentially offered on the platform.
https://lastchance.cc/the-piracy-problem-why-ouyas-biggest-strength-may-be-i-5925510%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
Ouya canāt continue to exist off of simply Kickstarter profit, that much is obvious. And they canāt rely on selling units in the future at $99 a pop. Why not? Pitchford explains:
āThey asked for a million, so they must have planned this out. They were selling them to the people that were buying them through the Kickstarter for $99. Take a million divided by $99. Thatās 10k units. Letās imagine their margin on the hardware is $10, which I think is actually exaggerating, considering whatās actually in this thing. $10 times 10k units, thatās $100k. You can afford four guys for two months. Thatās not a business. Maybe this is just the thing to get what their business is off the ground, and theyāll say whatever they need to say to get Kickstarter to work in their favor.ā
Pitchford guesses that Ouya will take the tried and true method other consoles companies have for monetization, namely taking some sort of cut off of software sales. It seems likely that this could at least be a considered business plan for the Ouya folks in moving forward. [Update: Ouya does take a cut of the revenue made on games sold through their app store, as noted in their FAQ on their Kickstarter page.]
Playing off the hype and excitement of the new console, Ouya could be luring us into their field before delving deeper than this tip of the iceberg. Kickstarter is just the first step in a longer business plan set for the future.
But is Pitchford excited about this platform, future undisclosed monetization plans or not? Absolutely. āIf thereās a machine thatās capable, that people love using, and thereās a lot of people consuming games on it, Iām going to be really excited to create content for it. What it actually is doesnāt really matter to me. But it [the Kickstarter draw] is a really clever, interesting play.ā
