At the DICE summit earlier today, the CEO of Ouya, Julie Uhrman, announced that consumers can expect a brand new version of her company's open sourced, Android-powered alternative to the traditional gaming console every single year.
Uhrman, via Engadget, stated: "There will be a new OUYA every year. There will be an OUYA 2 and an OUYA 3."
And the reason? "We'll take advantage of faster, better processors, take advantage of prices falling. So if we can get more than 8GB of Flash in our box, we will."
The strategy is to mirror how things work in the mobile space, in which customer usually upgrade their smart phones once a year. Which makes sense, given that Android phones, the flagship models at least, get better and faster hardware every 12 months.
As a result, the specs the game makers keep in mind when developing their titles also chance each month, so the Ouya is basically keeping pace. Still. anyone who had planned on getting the "Ouya 1" might be getting second thoughts. Worse yet, those that already have, might be feeling a bit burnt.
Which is which is why "all the games will be backward compatible" going forward. As for how the Ouya's eco-system will work, Uhrman explained that they will adopt a system similar to Steam; "The games will be tied to you, the gamer," and when you upgrade to a Ouya 2, everything will be there, waiting for you.
Still, many have already made comments, somewhat in jest, but somewhat seriously, that perhaps the company should release their first product before getting too far into talking about their second and third products.
