OUYA Is moving Beyond the Traditional Console

In a recent interview, OUYA CEO Julia Uhrman talks about the future of OUYA now that the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 are on the market. She made a surprise statement that the platform is heading to devices other than the boxy little console. And because the company will always have a minimum set of standards, the games will work well on the OUYA console as well as other devices.

"It's the hardware plus an ecosystem," she says. "If you think about the traditional game consoles, they're custom hardware and custom chips. To get those games, you have to buy a box for hundreds of dollars. We've always wanted to open that up. We started with a $99 box, but we always wanted to create a console platform that can live on other people's devices. We just knew it was going to take us a little bit of time to get it ready."

"Now we think the software is good enough, it's ready to be embedded in other people's devices," she adds. "We actually started having some of these conversations during CES, and the takeup was so great that we're really jumping into the strategy with both feet this year."

Uhrman acknowledged that Apple and Amazon are rumored to be entering the same market, and said it wouldn't be a legitimate product category if they weren't competing. "We think that there is no better proof to our category that it's worth pursuing than Amazon deciding to go into it. We remain focused on being about games first, and changing the way console gaming works," she says.

So what about the OUYA console itself? She said there will always be an OUYA reference device, pointing to Amazon's Kindle strategy and Google's Nexus line of devices. However, she also noted that OUYA is more than just the reference device: it's an ecosystem that really can live on other devices.

"One of the focuses this year is OUYA finding ways to bring games to more people, regardless of where they play," she says.

Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.