Ouya Kickstarter Closes With $8,596,475 Pledged

Ouya's Kickstarter funding campaign closed earlier this morning, with the project successfully having received $8,596,475 worth of funding from 63,416 backers.

The open source console's quest for funding launched back on July 10 with a funding goal of $950,000. Within seven hours it smashed through this target to have the most successful Kickstarter launch day ever.

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It took us seven months to raise a little bit of investment from generous friends and family, and we raised the rest on Kickstarter in seven hours. We are just floored.

Speaking to IGN at the time, Ouya founder and CEO Julie Urhman said, "It took us seven months to raise a little bit of investment from generous friends and family, and we raised the rest on Kickstarter in seven hours. We are just floored.

"The next 29 days are about raising the bar: how much can we change things?  We're going to hang on tight for the ride!"

While the Kickstarter may be over, a number of developments in the last two weeks suggests that Ouya's wild ride isn't over yet. We told you last week that Square Enix became the first major published to support the console by releasing Final Fantasy III as a launch title, while also promising to provide more content in the future.

Then we found out that cloud gaming service OnLive would be available on Ouya from launch, alongside Vevo content, the XBMC media player and digital radio service TuneIn. Yesterday, Namco Bandai revealed it is in "active discussions" to become the second major publisher to support the console, which would bring Pac-Man, Galaga, Ridge Racer, and Tekken to the new platform.

Ouya is expected to release in March 2013, so expect even more news and partnerships to materialise before then; just yesterday we discovered the console will support four controllers.

The first Ouya exclusive title, a prequel to Robert Bowling’s Human Element, is currently in development.

Luke Karmali is IGN's UK Editorial Assistant. You too can revel in mediocrity by following him on IGN and on Twitter.

Source : ign[dot]com