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Now with added backing
After the initial excitement of Android consoles, thing have gone a little quiet. Now Ouya – the most promising of the batch – has got some Chinese investment.
According to the Wall Street Journal, it's received $10 million (£6.6 million) from Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba. (If you don't know Alibaba, it's where wholesalers go to stock up on vast amounts of stock. It sells everything, and was recently valued at $231 billion.) The plan is to integrate Ouya's software and games into Alibaba's own set-top boxes. Ouya would effectively become a white label games console.
The deal is yet to come to pass, according to the Journal. Alibaba is said to have made the investment last month. Which will have been a nice Christmas present for Ouya.
Alibaba's set-top boxes aren't on sale on these shores, so it's not clear how the deal would affect us. The investment could help Ouya gain more of a presence in a market dominated by the PS4 and Xbox One.
Read more: Snail Games OBox Android console launched
There are now more than 1,000 Ouya games available but the console has struggled. Early reviews were poor, with critics complaining of shoddy build quality. We were also promised a new console every 12 months, so you could upgrade like with your smartphone. That's yet to materialise.
Amazon's Fire TV has also proved worthy competition. The set-top box doubles as a games console, with a hotline to Amazon's vast store of digital goodies.
