After rumours circulated almost a week ago, that $99 console maker Ouya was in acquisition talks with American computer peripheral manufacturer Razer, it appears that there were legs to those rumours, with investment bank Mesa Global today confirming that the purchase has gone through.
According to the a posting on the bank, the transaction for Ouya to purchase the company has been completed. Lilliputing captured the announcement on the banks transactions website, which has since been removed, but at this stage there are no other corroborating announcements from either Razer or Ouya.
Ouya took the fledgling self-funding campaign world by storm in 2012, when they raised over $5 million from over 40,000 backers. But three years is a long time in the console world and the now seemingly under-powered console is looking fairly dated. But Ouya has built quite a few relationships with developers over the years who have launched games compatible with the console – it’s possible that these relationships are worth something to Razer.
Razer has recently launched their own Android based set-top box in the Razer Forge – a box that will eventually arrive in Australia according to pre-orders at Harvey Norman and EB Games – which is based on Google’s Android TV platform. Looking to stand out in a console world where the experience is controlled by Google, Razer could leverage some of the Ouya developer relationships to release exclusive game content for their console – something Nvidia is currently doing with their Android TV based Shield Console.
No further confirmations on the sale are available at this stage, so we’ll have to wait for further information.
