Earlier this week several Ouya developers publicly revealed how much money they had made from certain titles released on the new Android-powered console. Based entirely on what was announced, the results for the system’s first 30 days on sale were pretty dismal. Most developers reporting revenue ranging from a couple hundred dollars up to a few thousand, with the console’s top selling game, TowerFall, hitting $21,000 in revenue at $14.99 per download.
Speaking to The Verge, Ouya CEO Julie Uhrman put a positive spin on the early results, calling them better than expected.
“Monetization on Ouya is so far better than we expected. It takes time to build what traditional consoles have had decades to build. But really, I think it’s too early to draw such broad sweeping statements about how a platform is going to perform.”
Uhrman noted that 27% of Ouya users purchased a game over the last month, which she called “significant for a free-to-play console.” Additionally, she pointed out that 13 of the top 20 grossing games on the system have an average of 8% of owners upgrading from the free to paid versions of the games, which is apparently something that “a lot of social and mobile app developers that would kill for” on a 30-day-old console.
Despite the positive Ouya spin, the fact that 73% of owners have failed to make even a single purchase on the console is troubling. It is far too soon to throw in the towel on the system, but these numbers are not going to do much to bring additional developers to the platform.
