All this time, I've been thinking about Ouya the wrong way.

When the $99, Android-powered game console showed up on Kickstarter last year, I immediately preordered one. My thinking was that it would be interesting to see if a low-cost console that caters to indies could take on industry giants like Sony and Microsoft in the marketplace. I was thinking about Ouya as just another a platform for indie developers, or as a cheap alternative to the Xbox.

That's not what Ouya is. It's not about "focusing on that core gamer," like Sony says, or re-imagining "the living room experience" like Xbox One. It will not compete with the new consoles because it's not trying to.

The Ouya is a toy. An elegant, affordable, fun toy.

Little Cranes and Pirate Ships ——————————

Ouya is a new television game console, but one radically different from its competition. Launched as a record-breaking Kickstarter project that has recently raised millions more via venture capital funding, Ouya's plan is to go super-cheap for consumers and super-easy for developers. Anyone can create a game on Ouya and start selling it with minimal hassle, and consumers only pay a hundred bucks for the hardware. All the games are digital, and all of them have at least a free demo version (if they're not free-to-play entirely). It'll show up at retailers like Target, Amazon, Best Buy and Gamestop on June 25, but since I backed the project on Kickstarter, I got my hands on an early unit.

The Ouya's digital store is already host to dozens of apps, some of them good, lots of them less so. The thing being promoted as the flagship Ouya game is a port of the mobile version of Square Enix's Final Fantasy III, but that is probably the least interesting game on the platform. It also happens to look like steaming garbage when blown up onto a big screen TV.

The interesting games on Ouya are the weirder, more creative stuff. A few early gems include Stalagflight, an endless jumping game with a nutty multiplayer mode, and Polarity, a first-person puzzle game.

Who needs graphics when you can play basketball using a crane? Image courtesy Abraham Stolk

But my favorite game on Ouya right now is The Little Crane That Could, a puzzle simulation game ported from Android that puts you in control of a truck equipped with an extendable claw. You have to perform simple tasks—move soccer balls into a trailer, for instance—which are made incredibly, hilariously difficult thanks to the complexity of operating a realistic crane on wheels.

One early mission in The Little Crane That Could has you pulling pipe-shaped locks out of a gate so you can escape a room. After successfully tugging one of the pipes out I nonchalantly dropped it behind my vehicle. Moments later I unthinkingly backed up and ran over the pipe. The cylinder lodged in behind my back-left tire, and the whole vehicle lifted up on its side. No traction. Stuck.

The beauty of the game is its super-realistic physics system, which punishes you in comical ways when you do dumb stuff, so you get to laugh at yourself and your many failures. Luckily, this also allows you to play creatively: After a bit of wild thrashing, I discovered that I could spin my crane around, angle it downwards, and push off from the ground to awkwardly scoot away from the hateful little pipe that plagued me. A few thrusts later I was free.

I haven't laughed so hard while playing a game in a long time. It's exactly the kind of weird, inscrutable, rough-around-the-edges game that would never get an Xbox Live Arcade publishing deal, but fits perfectly on Ouya.

Ouya CEO Julie Uhrman has hinted that video apps like Hulu Plus and Netflix will be coming soon to Ouya. For now, there's a Twitch TV streaming app, which works great. It has an embarrassing, terrible menu interface, but on my 3 MB/s internet connection the video quality of the feeds I tested was super sharp. I watched some guy play Call of Duty for about 15 minutes, and the quality was so clean that it looked like I actually had Black Ops 2 running on my Ouya.

Just like in marketplaces for other Android devices, the Ouya is already host to a handful of emulators that play games from classic gaming consoles like the Commodore 64 and the Super Nintendo. In the Ouya's case, these are organized not in the "apps" section of the store, but in the "retro" game genre section. While Ouya developers cannot distribute copyrighted game ROMs, downloading the emulator software and then finding the ROMs online is trivially easy. With its low price point and comparatively fast processors, Ouya may soon become the best way to enjoy classic games on a high-definition television, once more developers pile aboard and optimize their Android emulators for it. Of course, you've got to be a pirate to do it.

Kim Swift's Airtight Games is developing Soul Fjord exclusively for the Ouya. It's due out later this year. Image courtesy Airtight Games

Controlling Ouya's Future ————————-

One game available at launch, Bomb Squad, is particularly interesting because it supports controllers from consoles other than the Ouya, including PlayStation 3's and Xbox 360's. I even played a few rounds using my iPhone as a controller.

Before this, I was unaware that the Ouya actually had the ability to connect to all these other devices. Assuming other developers follow Bomb Squad's lead and build similar function into their software, Ouya owners may be able to get by without ever splurging on those $49.99 Ouya-branded controllers at retail.

Speaking of those controllers, they've been the subject of some concern, since it's been reported that the face buttons tend to get stuck under the detachable faceplate that covers the battery compartment. It seems that Ouya's claims that the issue has been fixed are true, because I had no such problem with my unit.

In fact, the Ouya controller feels pretty great. The trigger buttons are definitely a little too mushy for my taste, but the analogue sticks are excellent and the overall ergonomics and weight of the thing feel just about right. The button layout, which reads O-U-Y-A instead of the traditional A-B-X-Y, is a little bit weird since the A is placed where the B or O button would go on pretty much any other game console, but that's hardly a big deal.

The weirdest part is the touch panel built into the top half of the center of the controller. It's way too small to function as a proper trackpad for web browsing, and I often brushed my thumb against it accidentally, bringing up the Ouya's ugly, outdated mouse navigation system in the middle of games or sections of menu that offered no support for interactivity via the touch panel.

Ouya says that the complaints that early backers like me have will be updated before the console is made available to the general public on June 25. That's a good thing, because there's a lot I would change about the Ouya's software: everything from its bland, bright-orange main menu and the way games are displayed to the confusing presentation of games in the store, where no pricing information is given.

This brings us to one of the most interesting and controversial things about the Ouya: All games have to be free to download, but can offer in-app-purchases. The makers of Ouya have done a pretty poor job of communicating how this will work, especially since they've occasionally used the phrase "free to play" to describe their approach (they've since adopted "free to try"). To some, those words connote endless FarmVille clones and the moral decay of all nations. Some particularly self-righteous game developers balk at the mere mention of the word "free" in the context of games.

In reality, Ouya's system is pretty similar to Xbox Live Arcade, which requires all games on the service to offer a free demo. The difference is that Ouya doesn't let developers charge people anything until they've already downloaded the game.

Already this is manifesting itself in some strange ways. In some games, players are given access to a timed demo version of the game before being asked to pay for the upgrade. Other games offer a set number of levels before the cut-off point hits. Stalagflight is totally free, but you can "buy pizzas" (in-game items that do nothing) to support further development of the game. (Apple, Ouya says, does not support this sort of donation-based model.)

Going forward, it's not hard to imagine that there will be ever-more complex pricing structures attached to these games. It would be in Ouya's best interest to set some sort of limits or regulations on how far things can go (can I sell Ouya players a $200 in-game item?) or, at the very least, do a better job of communicating how much a game might ask for from players. I almost always hate games that ask me to pay for "coins" or other in-game currency, so I want to know up-front if that's what I'm getting into when I hit "download."

A Wonderful Toy —————

We live in a culture that is obsessed with comparing and ranking things: the 10 best these, the 15 ugliest those. Hell, Maxim literally ranks human beings based on their physical traits.

If you absolutely have to make a list of the five most awesome, impressive game consoles available right now, Ouya would not be at the top. It lacks the pizzazz of the Xbox One or PlayStation 4. Its controller is not innovative like the Wii U's. It does not have the same raw horsepower of a PC, or the multimedia capabilities of an iPad.

But in my opinion, if you've got $99 and want to play some fun, inventive games on your TV, the Ouya is a great purchase. It's super hackable and is almost certain to attract some cool mods.

My great fear for the Ouya has been that it will become a dumping ground for ports of mobile games from big, successful publishers and established indies.

Although there are indeed a lot of ports of Android phone games on the Ouya right now, it's now obvious to me that the console will find its own niche, and will accomplish exactly what it set out to do: open up the TV for any and all creative developers to tinker with.