But there’s a pretty big silver lining
Ouya hasn’t been on the market all that long, but those developing games on the Android-powered platform are already weighing in with their experiences. The general consensus is that Ouya isn’t generating a ton of revenue for most developers, but that might not be necessarily terrible given the nature of the console.
According to figures obtained by IGN, most Ouya games have seen sales that have translated to somewhere between $500 and $6,000 in revenue. TowerFall, by far the console’s biggest hit, has sold 2,000 copies at $15 each, which works out to about $21,000 after Ouya takes its cut. Even though the bulk of this data looks dismal, it’s only based off of one month of availability.
Despite the seemingly low money-making potential, a lot of Android developers appear content with the results. This is because it looks to be ridiculously easy to port games over to Ouya, especially if it was originally designed with a controller in mind. Many claim that it only takes one developer a few days to have the Ouya version of its game ready. That means that almost any sales tacked-on from the new console are worth the time of smaller companies.
This is a crucial period for Ouya, as the experiences of the early-adopter developers will certainly influence the decisions of those that are interested in moving their games to the platform in the future. If things remain consistent, it looks as if Ouya won’t be a console that’s worth the time of the likes of EA and Activision, but could be enticing to a lot of the smaller guys in the Android market.
Ouya Developers Reveal Modest Sales [IGN]