Ouya in acquisition talks, report claims

A number of Chinese companies are in discussions over a possible acquisition of Ouya, according to reports.

Recode claims that Ouya has already held preliminary talks with multiple big players in China” – including Tencent – after the company decided that an acquisition was a more realistic goal than trying to secure further funding.

Apparently there has also been some engagement” with Google and Amazon.

The report also claims that those in talks are more interested in acquiring Ouya’s staff than the actual product itself, which Recode describes as thus far failing to find much traction”.

Ouya burst onto the scene in 2012 having raised a colossal $8.5m on Kickstarter, although even then it had already found itself surrounded by controversy by concerns over its admission that it was seeking additional funding outside of the crowdfunding site – claims it then backtracked on just a week later.

The product itself was met with a lukewarm reception, too, with quality concerns regarding not only the hardware itself but also the available software. Some devs also went on to lament the software sales from the device and in April of this year it was revealed that the system’s best-selling game Towerfall had shifted just 7,000 units on the machine. NPD, meanwhile, described the hardware sales as relatively light”.

Ouya’s Free The Games funding initiative soon found the system in hot water once again, with some developers even going as far as boycotting the system, and it has since seemingly been unable to free itself of controversy. It even managed to annoy people with one of its advertisments.

Last month it signed a Chinese distribution agreement with Xiaomi – which incidentally is another name being linked with a possible acquisition.