In the news|March 30, 2015 11:11 EDT
OUYA News 2015: Gaming Console Seeks Boost in China with Alibaba Investment
The once promising kickstarter video game console, OUYA, has turned quiet in the US after numerous poor reviews and has slipped into a new sphere in China partnering with the biggest e-commerce company, Alibaba, which invested about $10 Million in January, 2015.
The Wall Street Journal has reported that OUYA and Alibaba have agreed to plan on incorporating the console to their Chinese game system which includes the 1000 games set up for OUYA.
OUYA CEO Julie Uhrman said, "Markets, like China, without the baggage of the US console market, could be the game console leaders in ten years. That's where OUYA wants to be," from Engadget. China looks like a better option as the US is still dominated by the top three major gaming consoles under Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo.
OUYA was developed in 2012 adn wanted gaming to be connected immediately through the television. It was a promising kickstarter, crowd-funded by gamers and netizens all over the world. It was sold at $99.
It received almost $9 million crowdfund but no information has been said about how much has been really sold, according to Obsecureindie. Many of its users have been complaining about technical issues and there has not been any improvement on the console since the product release.
Meanwhile, Alibaba, China's e-commerce giant, seeks new opportunities venturing into the gaming industry by initially infusing games on their mobile shopping app called Mobile Taobao and messaging app called Laiwang messaging. This brought the partnership with OUYA to set television gaming in China where gaming was banned for 14 years until January 2014.