OUYA: The (First) Android Console. Oh Yeah.

Yesterday a Kickstarter campaign was launched for a new gaming console called OUYA.An hour ago they passed $3.1M pledged, and bet by the time I finish writing this post they'll hit $3.3M. It's still got 28 more days to go, and where else are you going to get a $99 gaming console? Seriously. What's up with this thing?OUYA is going to be an Android based console. Which means, basically, apps on your TV. Or, really, an App Storeon your TV.The idea is fairly solid. Android is a platform that developers are already familiar with and popular games will surely be ported immediately to test the Cash Climate in a new market. The company has said that all the games must have some sort of freeness to them. Whether that's just totally free, just a trial version,or pay for premium content, or, like, you know, the last boss is absolutely invincible unless you drop a hundo on that dude. I'd want to create the best game ever but make it so the character actually hasto eat and you can only get e-food with real $$$. I'd make so much money. I feel no shame in simply copy/pasting the tech specs: Specifications: Tegra3quad-core processor 1GB RAM 8GB of internal flash storage HDMI connection to the TV, with support for up to 1080p HD WiFi 802.11 b/g/n Bluetooth LE 4.0 USB 2.0 (one) Wireless controller with standard controls (two analog sticks, d-pad, eight action buttons, a system button), a touchpad Android 4.0 It needs to be noted that the coolest thing here is how open these OUYA guys are to hackers. The box, designed by Yves Behar of fuseproject, will have standard screws so that anybody can jump in there, and rooting the thing doesn't void the warranty. It's an open invitation for developers and hardware hobbyists alike to open up on this thing. As of this moment (3:55pm on Day 2 of this Kickstarter drive) there will be 23,859 OUYA consoles shipping out in March 2013. That's pretty impressive. It sort of came out of nowhere but with the recent success of Double Fine, Wastland 2, and Shadowrun (so stoked!!) Returns, and now OUYA, Kickstarter and Gaming are like these soulmates and who the heck knew? This should be the model for everything. Instead of pitching to producers, who get all their info on the consumer from focus groups and failed marketing campaigns, developers can pitch directly to us. We know what consumer want because that's eff-king us. Of course, now we have to wait to see if these guys can back it up and deliver products that we actually want as much as we imaginedwe wanted them. That's going to be a high high hurdle, dudes. But if this works out it could really do good things for the future of creator/consumer dialogue. Are you going to grab an OUYA while they're just $99? What do you think? Follow Carib Guerra on Twitter @44carib