Today's update:
Update #9 · Aug. 03, 2012
Today--with five days left on Kickstarter--we have some quick updates. Consider it a one-two punch. And, I’m going to get all “stream of consciousness” on you. Why? Because we’ve been talking a lot about streaming recently. First we announced that in addition to offering downloadable games through the OUYA store, we’d be streaming hundreds of games on demand through our partnership with OnLive. And today, we’re announcing streaming radio courtesy of ClearChannel’s iHeartRadio.
Here's what iHeartRadio has to say:
We are excited to share that Clear Channel’s iHeartRadio is coming to OUYA! Now we'll be able to take the experience to a whole new level, enabling OUYA to go beyond gaming and become a full service, affordable destination for people seeking great entertainment.
iHeartRadio brings users the only “all-in-one” free digital radio experience – the best live radio stations from all over America, PLUS user-created Custom Stations, like a playlist, inspired by favorite artists and songs. And the iHeartRadio HTML 5 App is a perfect fit for OUYA because it’s built for a large screen format and provides an intuitive and engaging audio and visual experience.
Brian Lakamp, President of Clear Channel Media and Entertainment Digital also adds, “We are excited to be the first radio app on an up-and-coming platform like OUYA, and we share their enthusiasm for offering users an innovative and customized product experience. Our HTML 5 application enhances the listening experience by incorporating a rich and intuitive visual component, and is a perfect fit for OUYA.”
What does this mean for OUYA users?
On OUYA, iHeartRadio allows you to FIND: The Best of Live Radio - Listen to more than 1,000 Live Stations from coast-to-coast including pop, country, urban, rock, sports, talk and college. Browse by music genre and location then hit the scan button to move from station to station within a format. Or check out our exclusive digital-only, themed stations.
On OUYA, iHeartRadio allows you to CREATE: Custom Stations with Unprecedented Control - Simply pick a song or artist to create your own commercial-free, uninterrupted Custom Station featuring music from your favorite artists and similar ones. Choose from our catalog of over 14 million songs and 400,000 artists. And you can use iHeartRadio's exclusive Discovery Tuner to control how much variety you want in your station.
On OUYA, iHeartRadio allows you to PERSONALIZE: Take Your Favorite Stations Wherever You Go - Log in to iHeartRadio through email or Facebook to make iHeartRadio uniquely yours. Create, save and share your stations from wherever you access iHeartRadio
*** We realize that some of you reading this from outside the US are probably saying, “Well that’s great for Americans but what about the rest of us?” Please know that we are actively reaching out to international partners as well. We won’t leave you in the cold.***
As many of you know, stream of consciousness refers to a literary technique that presents the thoughts and feelings of a character as they occur. And what’s occurring to me now is that you might like to hear something game focused too.
To that end, we’ve been overwhelmed by interest from developers eager to bring their titles to OUYA. Not all of them can act quickly enough (ahhh lawyers!) for us to announce their partnerships during our Kickstarter campaign. But that’s not slowing down the folks at U4iA. That’s right, the game industry vets who brought you Guitar Hero and Call of Duty will bring us OUYA’s first confirmed first-person shooter,
Offensive Combat.
U4iA’s Founder and CEO Dusty Welch sums it up:
"Everyone here at U4iA Games is excited to bring our titles to OUYA! Given that consoles are so expensive and face an uncertain future, OUYA stands out as the perfect example of an affordable home-entertainment platform created specifically for core gamers like us. We've used our profound wisdom to create a cheeky, free-for-all shooting mash-up called Offensive Combat. Moving forward, we can't wait to bring all-new games in the Offensive Combat universe to the OUYA platform."
I don’t know about you but they had me at “cheeky, free-for-all shooting mash-up.”
With that, I’m going to wish you a happy Friday from your OUYA faithful. We’ll be working through this last weekend of our Kickstarter campaign, continuing to focus on bringing you the best gaming experience we can deliver. Some of the things I’ll be doing this weekend: thinking about the dpad design, continuing to respond to developer inquiries and prepping our new website.
And, in the spirit of James Joyce, master of the “stream of consciousness” narrative, I think I might have a Guinness as well.
- Julie