OUYA, the hackable game console that has Android fanboys reeling, announced on Friday that the Kickstarter-funded project has joined forces with a major content partner, OnLive.
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In an update on OUYA's Kickstarter page, which has raised $5.5 million with 12 days left in the campaign, OnLive revealed to some 43,000 backers that its cloud gaming service would be coming to OUYA when the console launches next year, "making hundreds of top-tier, console-class games available on demand on OUYA."
This update answers one of the biggest questions about the console: what about the games? The company had previously announced smaller-scale partnerships with developers; on July 19, Robert Bowling pledged to bring prequel games to his recently announced zombie survivor game Human Element exclusively to the OUYA.
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While Bowling (the man behind the Call of Duty series) was a big name score for the platform, OnLive takes things to the next level. This means that whether or not developers take to the platform from the get-go, OnLive will offer gamers a bevy of content immediately at the launch.
As if this news wasn't enough, OUYA also released four photos of the console, controller and interface for your ogling pleasure -- check them out below. Designers are still ironing out the final details, particularly on the controller: "We're still deciding on the buttons. For now, we've stuck with the colored circles as placeholders. But don't fret, we won't leave out colorblind gamers." It was important to the company to reveal that the controller could be easily held in either hand.
Both OnLive and OUYA have focused developments on game accessibility. As OnLive wrote in the announcement, "Like OUYA, we came to gaming with a new vision for making top-quality gaming accessible to more people, and we continue to look for ways to expand on that vision." Through this partnership, OUYA owners will be able to carry on games from their OUYA consoles to the PCs, Macs, tablets and phones, so they'll never have to leave a game behind.
Another OnLive perk: free instant demos of up to 30 minutes of playtime will be available for nearly every game in the OnLive library, be it for indie titles like Ravaged or major blockbusters hot of the assembly line, like the upcoming Darksiders® II. If you're enjoying a demo, you'll be able to purchase the game and pick the game back up from where the demo left off.
Several backers voiced their interest in the partnership from early on; it's a positive sign for the company that they were able to act on that feedback.
Have you backed OUYA? If not, does the OnLive partnership make you want to throw some cash into their pot of gold? Let us know in the comments.
OnLive Interface
As one backer, Marios Santos Ramos wrote, "Having a dedicated and open console and being able to log into your OnLive account would make this machine a dream in the living room."
Click here to view this gallery.
This story originally published on Mashable here.