The Ouya Will Have Limited Features at Launch

Reports are coming in that the Ouya, the crowdfunded Android gaming console, may not have all the features that its audience is expecting at launch. According to a report from The Verge, several staple features of an online ready system including online chat, friends lists, and achievements, will not be integrated into the Ouya until sometime after its launch.

Ouya company founder Julie Urhman originally broke the news, stating that they would be “locking content behind servers” at the console’s launch. Originally, this was mistaken as a confirmation that the console wouldn’t support online multiplayer at launch, but this was later denied by the Ouya team itself. The console will support multiplayer, although not in any universal way. Software developers will simply need to build in the game’s online functionality in whatever way they see fit.

In other news, the Ouya might become something more than a simple one hundred dollar console sometime in the future. Following in Valve and Steam Big Picture Mode’s footsteps, the Ouya might one day become a television standard. “At the end of the day, I'd like Ouya to be on every single television, every single tablet, from every single OEM you can think of,” said Urhman. “I would love for it to be built into a television.”

The Ouya is breaking ground on a number of firsts for the indie scene. It’s the first crowdfunded console, the first Android console, and it’s one of the first indie consoles in general. Hopefully, it will be everything that its backers wanted it to be. If the Ouya does end up disappointing all those who crowdfunded it, it would be a massive blow to crowdfunding and indie console development everywhere. Here wishing the Ouya all the best in its launch.