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OUYA Receives Investment from Alibaba Group

by on February 3, 2015
 

Deal Accelerates Opportunities for OUYA to Bring Platform and Library of Over 1,000 Games to China

SANTA MONICA – Feb. 3, 2015OUYA, the leading open game platform for the television, today announced it received an investment from Alibaba Group. Additionally, OUYA will partner with Alibaba to bring its library of games to Alibaba’s YunOS platform.
                              
“Markets, like China, without the baggage of the U.S. console market, could be the game console leaders in ten years. That’s where OUYA wants to be,” said Julie Uhrman, OUYA founder and CEO.

There has been tremendous interest to bring gaming to televisions in China following the Chinese government’s decision to lift its 13-year ban on game consoles. Chinese gamers’ familiarity with downloadable, free-to-play games makes the China market a natural fit for the new wave of digital game consoles – in which OUYA is the leader.

Ouya will work with Alibaba Group to bring Ouya’s wide library of games to China on Alibaba’s Tmall set top box.  Alibaba Group’s Tmall set top box runs YunOS as an operating system and  allows users to shop, watch movies and television shows and play cloud-based games, including Street Fighter 4 and Winning Eleven 2014, on their televisions.

China and other global markets are a focus for OUYA as the company extends its library of 1,000 games and developer base of nearly 40,000. Western developers are keen to bring their games abroad.

The initiative of bringing OUYA’s platform and games to other devices, known as OUYA Everywhere, launched in 2014 when OUYA launched their platform and games library on Madcatz’s M.O.J.O. Micro-Console for Android.

China Renaissance acted as financial advisor to OUYA.