Razer shutters OUYA indie gaming platform and Forge TV

The once successful Kickstarter wasn’t able to convince enough gamers to play its console, and Razer’s own ambitions couldn’t save it either.

OUYA Game Controller
The OUYA game controller

OUYA described itself as a new kind of video game console. They promoted their new gaming platform on Kickstarter in 2012 and ended up raising over $8.5 million. The hope was that enough gamers would be drawn towards Indie games and away from the major consoles like Sony PlayStation and Microsoft Xbox. Despite the early success of OUYA, it struggled to gain long-term interest with gamers.

In 2015, Razer acquired OUYA in the hope it could integrate its games into its Android-based console, Forge TV. Four years later, Razer’s attempt to compete in the streaming TV and Indie game market fell victim to major players like Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Google Chromecast, and Roku.

The only answer that Razer gave for why Forge TV and OUYA were shutting down was a non-answer answer.

The Forge TV, OUYA, and MadCatz MOJO game stores are no longer being supported, and therefore will be shut down.

There’s still hope for an Indie gaming console to compete against the top gaming platforms. Atari is betting on the power of nostalgia with a modern version of their Atari 2600 called Atari VCS. It will play classic Atari games along with new Indie games, and will be available sometime in 2019.

Atari VCS
The new Atari VCS gaming console.