Ouya Sells Out On Amazon; Frustrates Backers With Late Deliveries

Ouya, an open-source video game console, was launched to the public on Tuesday and sold out at Amazon.com Wednesday.

Ouya got its start on Kickstarter, a website on which people donate money for a cause. In the summer of 2012, 63,416 supporters raised about $8.6 million for the system. Its original goal was reached in eight hours, but funding increased as more models became available at different funding levels.

Ouya, which operates on the Google Android system, was promised to backers by March – before the public launch on June 25. Many backers, however, have complained that they haven’t received their console yet. Julie Uhrman, CEO and co-founder of Ouya, posted an apology on the Ouya Facebook page Tuesday morning. “I am pissed. Some of you have not yet received your Ouya — and, to you, I apologize,” Uhrman wrote. “I did not promise to ship to *most* of you before we hit store shelves. I promised to ship to *all* of you. I’ve been reading your comments, and we are working to solve this.”

Ken Stephens, Head of Operations for Ouya, also helped explain the situation to the console’s original backers. “As you may be aware, we manufacture OUYA in mainland China with our fulfillment partner in Hong Kong who is responsible for the individual shipments to you all,” Stephens wrote. “Over the past few months, we encountered and conquered many challenges spanning both hardware and software in order to bring the best product we could to market. We have tried to make sure that the challenges we faced did not impact our early supporters, but unfortunately we came up short.” He also explained that all the units for the backers have left Hong Kong, but are taking longer due to international shipping.

Though it is sold out on Amazon.com, Ouya – which costs $99 – is currently available at Best Buy, GameStop, and Target. Ouya has over 170 downloadable games to its name, and features streaming video and music apps. It is a 2.95-inch cube that uses a television screen as its display via HDMI connection.

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