The Ouya microconsole was meant to challenge the establishment, it was to become the indie darling that sneers and PlayStation and throws milkshakes at Xbox. Down with the corporation, yay to indies! Woo!
Except that never happened.
After shipping the required number of consoles to fulfil orders placed by Kickstarter backers the Ouya team quickly discovered that no one wanted an expensive Android console, partly because many people already had an expensive Android phone that played the same games. The couple of titles that were exclusive to the console at launch quickly jumped ship and became available on other platforms, so there was very little reason to buy the device.
Despite gaining millions from investors after launch, the company was in debt rather quickly and was bought by Razer, who proceeded to shut down production of the console. That was four years ago and now the final nail in the coffin has been hammered, the Ouya game store is to shut on 25th June 2019.
Anyone with credit on the store is advised to spend it before then.”Please note that your account or wallet funds are not permitted to be redeemed for use outside of the Forge TV / OUYA / MadCatz MOJO services, have no cash value and are not exchangeable for cash,” reads the FAQ.
“Funds that are deemed unclaimed property may be turned over to the applicable authority. So, we encourage you to utilize your account funds prior to the shutdown.”
Obviously any games you have downloaded to your console will still be playable… except they might not be.
Oh, and indeed, dear.
According to the FAQ some games may require a “purchase validation upon launch”, and as there won’t be any infrastructure for your console to validate the game, it won’t work. “Contact the game developer for confirmation,” is the recommendation of the FAQ.
A quick browse of the store suggest the last time a game was released for the console was September 2017.
Source Razer
