Clerks.wsz

https://skins.webamp.org/skin/8944257d5d45d6757022c5684e747ea4

I was an Ouya owner.

I loved it. To this day – 11 years after release – I will defend the Ouya and sing its praises. To me, the Ouya was not a failure. It did exactly what I wanted and more.

Most people who hate on the Ouya never owned one and simply dogpiled on the hate. They never experienced it for themselves. They’re simply retreading the same old talking points they heard from someone else.

In simple terms, here’s why the Ouya was awesome: it was a $100 Android box that played indie games, emulated old consoles, and played Netflix.

The old meme about Ouya was that there were no good games for it except TowerFall. But that’s poppycock.

The best game for the Ouya wasn’t even Towerfall. It was Super Puzzle Platformer Deluxe – which, by the way, is on my Top 5 list of greatest indie games ever. And I’ve played many of them in my life.

Here’s other great Ouya games:

• Big Action Mega Fight!
• bit Dungeon
• Love
• Neon Shadow
• Shadow Blade

To this day, I play all these games. They have a home on my Steam library. And I recommend them to everyone.

Beyond the indie games, there were the emulators. I wasn’t just able to emulate Atari 2600 and NES games. I was able to do PlayStation and N64 too. Again, not bad for something that cost me $100.

The entertainment options were wonderful. I used it for watching Netflix. I also used my Ouya for subscribing to podcasts, which was wonderful on my home theatre set-up.

Oh yeah, and because the system was Android, if there was an Anrdoid app or game that wasn’t available on the storefront, I could always side load an apk.

The closest modern device that comes close to doing what the Ouya did is the Amazon Fire TV Cube. That costs $190. Though it has games on it and lots of entertainment options, there isn’t a whole lot on the storefront for emulation.

You know what? I miss my Ouya. And I wish other people were able to experience it.