Ouya -- the open platform, Android-based, crowd-funded game machine -- is now on sale.
The screaming-hot Kickstarter campaign designed to get Ouya off the ground ended with a whopping $8.5 million in funding from more than 63,000 backers (that's well more than the $950,000 its creators hoped to raise).
But if you didn't happen to secure an Ouya by donating $99 to that Kickstarter campaign, the company behind the Rubik's Cube-sized gadget has now opened up pre-orders, offering the device for the low-low price of $109.
That $109 will get U.S. gamers an Ouya as well as one controller. Overseas players will have to fork out $119 -- to pay for shipping.
The Los Angeles-based company behind Ouya (a machine designed to make it affordable for developers to get their games up on a TV screen) has been able to line up a pretty impressive slate of partners to give the gadget a boost when it launches.
OnLive will be bringing streaming, AAA games to Ouya at launch. Square Enix will bring "Final Fantasy III" to the machine. It will also have an exclusive game: "Human Element" from Robotoki. And Namco Bandai announced it is in talks with Ouya to deliver its games as well.
Meanwhile, the Ouya platform will work with open-source media players XBMC and Plex, its creators announced this week.
Ouya's $109 price tag is certainly affordable compared to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 -- which have starting prices of $199 and $249 respectively. Those machines, however, are far more powerful than the Ouya.
So when does Ouya arrive? Those who nabbed one through the Kickstarter campaign should expect to get theirs in March 2013. And if you pre-order one, the expected delivery date is April 2013.
The question is: Will you spend your hard-earned cash on this upstart game machine?
Winda Benedetti writes about video games for NBC News. You can follow her tweets about games and other things on Twitter here @WindaBenedetti and you can follow her on Google+. Meanwhile, be sure to check out the IN-GAME FACEBOOK PAGE to discuss the day's gaming news and reviews.
