Razer quietly buys OUYA for an undisclosed sum
Razer and OUYA preferred not to comment on rumors that the former was buying the latter, but it’s happened. Mesa, a financial firm that acts as a middleman for these types of deals, has confirmed that a deal did go down for Razer to swallow up the maker of the Android game console.
OUYA’s history has been an up and down one. The company successfully completed one of the biggest Kickstarter campaigns of all time and got a product to market in reasonable time, though the console was underpowered by the time it launched and they’ve not had much success securing compelling, exclusive titles. They’d raised funding and tried their hand at making OUYA a gaming platform more than just a console, but that was much less exciting in practice than they probably realized. Looks like Kevin was right, after all.
So why did Razer buy them? We’re not sure, and we’ll probably never know. We imagine it does kill two birds with one quick stone (if this move was to help the Razer Forge Android TV product gain better positioning):
- It takes a competitor off the market so they can sell their decidedly superior product.
- They get the pick of the litter when it comes to hardware and software engineers with experience.
The fact that Razer is reluctant to confirm the deal (Mesa since took news of the acquisition off their website) suggests they are planning to sweep OUYA’s name under a dirty rug, though without official word it’s anyone’s guess. We’ll be looking to snag a comment from top brass and we’ll report back if we learn anything new.
[via Liliputing]