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A “confidential” memo from Ouya CEO Julie Uhrman has leaked to Fortune explaining how dire the situation really is for the company that Kickstarter built. It seems that the investors want their money, and they want it now. “Given our debtholder’s timeline,” Uhrman writes, “the process will be quick.” In fact, she wants interested buyers lined up by the end of this month. If all of this is true, we should expect to see major details surface in the coming weeks.

Back in September of last year, we discussed the possibility of an Ouya buyout after sales continued to flatline. At the time,*Recode was reporting that Ouya was shopping itself around to potential buyers in China and the US. Until this most recent report, we hadn’t heard much about it since then. Now that investors are looking for their cash on the double, the situation seems even worse than it was before.



While there was loads of hype surrounding the $8.6 million Kickstarter campaign, our very own Joel Hruska referred to the project as “doomed” before the funding was even completed. Since then, the console company has raised well over $25 million in addition to the initial Kickstarter money. Unfortunately for Uhrman and her team, those debts need to be paid back now. Unless there is some kind of miracle, this is the end of the road for the Ouya.

While some buyers might be interested in grabbing the team and core tech, what value does the Ouya brand name bring to anything? The stink of failure is strong, and wise companies shouldn’t want anything to do with the moniker. Amazon is investing heavily in its Android-based set-top box, and rumor has it that Apple is readying a brand new Apple TV with a third-party SDK. Some underpowered off-brand Android microconsole can’t compete at that level — let alone compete against the Xbox One and PS4.

Of course, last year’s Ouya-Xiaomi partnership shines a light on what Ouya could become. Perhaps the Ouya team could shift to exclusively offering low-cost Android games on smart TVs. Maybe there’s money to be made in the pay-per-play hotel room gaming market. Whatever the case, the Ouya we all have come to know and begrudgingly accept doesn’t have much of a future at this point. After all, we could just spend a little more, and get a real PC instead of some aging Frankenstein’s monster.


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