American peripheral manufacturer Razer, who recently purchased ailing Android game console manufacturer Ouya, has just run an ‘AMA’ on their forums. As well as answering a few key questions about the transition for Ouya, Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan also gave us a clearer answer about when we may see the Razer Forge in Australia.
Launched in the US on the Google Store, the Razer Forge has had an expected release date of some time in 2016 on the EB Games pre-order page. This time-frame has been confirmed by the AMA, with Razer stating:
Yes it will – however, we’re scaling back on the roll out globally until we get Cortex TV ready (i.e. in Q4) and then do a push globally once it’s rolled out.
For Ouya owners, there’s some good news, with Ouya advising they will be keeping the ‘lights on’ for the Ouya service for 12 months.
We didn’t acquire the OUYA hardware business and we don’t provide any support for it. However, out of goodwill, we’re keeping the lights on for the next 12 months or so for the software services associated with it. That much said (from what I know of the device) , as a hardware device, the OUYA HW box should still work standalone without the services to run the apps already on it.
The purchase of Ouya was most definitely a hire for the concepts and software, but the actual Ouya service has little value for Razer, who intend to release their own ‘Cortex TV’ service with games for the console. The games from Ouya will be transitioned to Google Play (for owners of other platforms like ShieldTV) as well as the Cortex TV store according to Razer who said:
we made the decision not be a bunch of assholes and keep the content for ourselves. We believe in openness (like the work we do on OSVR etc) and we wanted to get the games to be on as many platforms as possible.
If you’re looking at the Razer Forge console, you can still pre-order the console (as well as Serval controller) from EB Games for $239.95 or from Harvey Norman for a little less at $238.
As an Ouya owner, I wasn’t terribly fond of the platform interface and store, but that said, there were some great games available on the system. I can’t wait to see some of the titles transition to open Android gaming titles, or even onto the nascent Android TV platform to build up the amount of titles available.
Will you be ordering a Razer Forge?
