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Indie demos Ouya in UK Game store: Positive reactions, poor pre-orders
The Ouya remains a gray area in terms of profit for developers – it's still technically not available to the public, though plenty of Kickstarter backers and indies have consoles. To test out the Ouya's potential, real-world audience, UK developer James Coote took his dev kit to a local Game store and set up a demo station. After all, the Ouya is an "open" console and devs don't have to deal with any NDAs or legalese before showing it off publicly. Coote worked with Game employees to set up a demo station on an old PS3 stand, and he spent the day showing off his own game and others on the Ouya. The tiny box wasn't connected to the internet, so players had a choice of games Coote had pre-loaded. "The Ouya has also been criticised for having a laggy UI, but since there was no need to exit the game library and navigate around the rest of the UI, that particular problem didn't come up at all," Coote said. Overall, the demo was a success, Coote said – though he didn't receive the foot traffic he had anticipated and he was "quite poor" at convincing anyone to throw down £10 for an Ouya pre-order. "People responded really positively to the live demonstration, whether they were just watching myself or others play, or actively trying it out themselves," Coote said. "Also, not only being able to respond to customers' questions directly, but not being directly affiliated with Ouya, I was able to honestly address some of Ouya's shortcomings, which helped build trust and a rapport with customers." Read all about Coote's experience with the Ouya at a brick-and-mortar store, and his thoughts for the console's future, right here.
