27% of Ouya owners have purchased games

Ouya CEO Julie Uhrman has revealed that more than a quarter of gamers that bought the Android console have also purchased games.

The crowd-funded device was launched in June and has been positioned as a free-to-play platform, but Uhrman was keen to highlight how many users are paying for content.

In an interview with The Verge, she reported that 27 per cent of Ouya owners have paid for a game. And 13 of the Top 20 highest grossing games have seen around eight per cent of players upgrading to the paid version.

"I think there are a lot of social and mobile app developers that would kill for an eight per cent attach rate on a platform that’s 30 days old," Uhrman said.

"These numbers will grow as more gamers pick up consoles and as we attact more developers, and I believe that by the end of the year, we’ll see a few developers telling us they’ve made more than a million dollars on Ouya."

Ouya hasn’t revealed how many units of its console it has shifted. But Uhrman’s examples for some of the device’s highest grossing games suggest total sales can only be in the low thousands.

She claims that TowerFall has made the most revenue. It sells for $14.99 and has made $21,000 – that works out at 1,400 sales (assuming none of that revenue is from microtransactions).

Meanwhile, Hidden in Plain Sight has sold 1,900 copies on Ouya and generated $4,381 for its developers.

"To say developers can’t make money on Ouya – I take offense to that," Uhrman added.

"I’m sure the creators of TowerFall and Hidden in Plain Sight would take offense to that. The console has only been out for a month, and developers have only had access to the hardware for about six months.

We really like what we see so far, and so do developers and gamers."