As of Monday morning, the Ouya Kickstarter project had reeled in 38,285 backers who pledged $4,888,038 USD, far exceeding the original goal of $950,000. Now sitting on a potential mountain of cash (with more likely to come), the team is currently focused on the task of getting the $99 product out to market.
The latest update reports that the team is working with Nvidia to streamline the Ouya design for the Tegra 3 SoC. "We spent yesterday with Nvidia talking about our chips," the update reads. "The team is great and their support has been incredible. They're working side by side with us, and they'll help us maximize the performance of the Tegra 3 chipset we're using."
The team also mentions that they may grant developers even earlier access than previously planned. "We had a crazy idea -- if folks are interested -- we might consider a reward that would allow devs to start working from the raw circuit board at an even earlier date, allowing them to get a head start on development. And maybe we'd add one more level that gives you just the software -- no early console."
"Obviously, if you have the Android SDK, you know most of what you need to know -- we'll just need to add in a few elements specific to Ouya -- things like assets for promoting on the console and our payments API," the team adds.
Based on the Kickstarter numbers, five backers have pledged $10,000 or more. These people will have their user name and backer number engraved into the entire first production run of consoles. They'll also be invited to attend a private pre-launch dinner party which will also include an inner circle of game developers and designers.
As for the console, the team said it will be easy to root, and easy to open, as it uses standard screws. Hardware hackers can create their own peripherals, and connect via USB or Bluetooth. The actual console specs include Nvidia's quad-core Tegra 3 SoC, 1 GB of RAM, 8 GB of internal storage, HDMI output (although it needs standard video out too), 802.11 b/g/n connectivity, Bluetooth LE 4.0, and a USB 2.0 port.
"Because OUYA is based on Android, any app developer could publish their Android app to OUYA. The possibilities are limitless, and conversations with potential partners are already underway," the team states.
