K, sorry for the extremely long title of the article. I was aiming for something short and sweet, but with today’s news about the Ouya, that was the only title that served justice for the article I’m about to write.
We have heard before from developers and the Ouya team themselves that the upcoming Android-powered gaming device will support pretty much any kind of USB controller on the market. This is very cool, but what about all the wireless controllers out there, some of which we probably already having laying around our living rooms?
Well, after working with a beta-testing unit, game development company Puzzl has informed Pocket-lint that the Ouya pretty much works with anything out there. They have confirmed that it can be played with the wired and wireless variants of the Xbox 360 controller, as well as the wireless gamepads made for the PS3 and Wii / Wii U.
Man, this device just keeps getting better and better.
In some other news regarding the device, Ouya has announced a deal with XBMC to make a front end for media playback on the device. Puzzl was able to test these features and provided some glowingly positive feedback: it just works. The Ouya was able to stream 720p and 1080p mkv, avi and mp4 video content without incident. Puzzl explained, “[We have] watched several movies on the dev kit” and playback was “flawless and the console is quiet.”
The Ouya will be able to stream media content over the network as it will offer ethernet and WiFi connectivity out of the box. The console will also allow users to store videos on the internal hard drive as well as play media stored on USB sticks, a feature not yet working due to lack of driver support – remember, this thing is still in development.
“It would really make for a fantastic media box – we already use it for that here,” said Puzzl’s representative. “And convenient as well, as it’s super tiny to move around to friends’ houses.”
Ouya will be arriving in March for a measily $99. Get ready to sell your media streaming boxes and gaming consoles, but keep your extra gamepads as you’ll be able to use them with this amazingly-sounding device.
Can you tell I’m excited?