Startup pitches £64 hackable Android console
Free games for all
High-profile backers have pledged support for a $99 (£64) "built to be hacked" Android-based games console which promises all titles will be free to play and welcomes any developer to the party.
Startup Ouya has recruited Jawbone Jambox designer Yves Behar to style the console, which will connect to a TV and run free Android games.
Other notable members of the project include Ed Fries - an influential executive behind the original Xbox - who comes on board as project director, IGN's Julie Uhrman and Muffi Ghadiali, who recently worked on shipping the Amazon Kindle, The Verge reports.
Every customer who buys a box will also be given a dev kit - encouragement to chip in with their own content and get on board with the "hackable" machine.
The project appears to be merely weeks old, so it's too early to forecast how this will pan out. There's certainly no word on availability yet.
But with promises so bold and hackers so welcomed, we eagerly wait for further details. Emulators... mount up. ®
COMMENTS
" There's certainly no word on pricing and availability yet"
So the $99 price was made up?
Have I missed something?
A touch optimised OS on a device with no screen?
Why?
Re: I wish
Amen. Personally I'd prefer a closed system I pay for but can play as opposed to a "free" one where I can't. And free games? That just means I'll be watching advertisements the whole time. I'm happy to pay to avoid that.
Re: I wish
Sounds great until you try and play on a console where hacking is rife. Ask anyone playing multiplayer games on the Wii such as MW3. The lobbies are full of hackers who have cheats galore, and make the game virtually unplayable.
Great idea but......
If you're developing generic apps (e.g. Android Market) then you don't need this sort of box, and you have a payment system ready built, if you're developing specific apps (for this box) that won't run generically then you've eliminated a huge number of customers.
I might have missed something here, we already have Android media centres that have access to the market, can run emulators etc. (and cost around this price), if the only difference is "hackability" really it needs to have other features (like great hardware for graphics), after all it's price point is significantly higher than a RPi and it will need a stack of features to entice hackers.
