OUYA starter guide: apps and gear you’ll want on day 1

In case you haven’t been following along lately, the OUYA Android-powered game console will be arriving in stores soon. The OUYA console raised more than $8.5 million on Kickstarter and has been extremely popular and in demand from eager gamers. Today we learned that retail stores like Best Buy, Target, and more will have them in stores for $99 starting in June. So come June what will you want and need to be ready to game? Read on to find out.

Ever since firing up the kickstarter and getting millions of dollars from backers, OUYA has been making big announcements to keep everyone excited. From obviously being powered by an NVIDIA Tegra quad-core processor and supporting all those TegraZone games, to announcing new games and partnerships. Things like Final Fantasy III for OUYA. Backers should start getting their consoles in March, followed by site pre-order customers in April, then it will arrive in stores in June.

So come day one and your OUYA console arrives, what will you need to be ready to rock? Well that all depends on the type of user you’ll be. The average consumer won’t need anything when they get their shiny new game console in the mail or from a retail Best Buy shop, as this comes with everything you need. For the $99 price you’ll get the console, a single controller, and the box includes HDMI, Ethernet, one USB 2.0, Micro USB and Bluetooth LE 4.0. This means you’ll be streaming movies to your HDTV, or enjoying a TegraZone game in minutes.

Many games will be optimized and work great with the OUYA, and many of those will be NVIDIA TegraZone apps. For everything from their camp you’ll want to check out our Tegra Hub, then make sure you download the NVIDIA TegraZone app for your OUYA if it doesn’t come pre-installed. As a reminder, the OUYA will not support the Google Play Store. Quality games like ShadowGun: Deadzone will be available on day one, and you’ll want a second controller to really enjoy some multiplayer FPS gaming. A second controller is $40 from OUYA, or will be $49 from retail stores. We suggest you get one ordered now before they’re sold out.

Now for developers things will be different. They’ll need to be ready to code, have tons of redbull ready and waiting, and get the OUYA SDK (known as the ODK) downloaded and ready to go if you haven’t already. Developers can get started at ouya.tv/devs/ and start building awesome games. Now as far as games available come launch day? That’s still up in the air. The OUYA Game JAM developer event saw 166 game prototypes in 10 days. Those won’t all make it to market, but you can expect tons of quality releases to be announced in the next few months.

For those that just want to game you’ll want to check out these 10 games announced for the March release. You’ll want to download iHeartRadio for OUYA to stream music, and don’t forget the XBMC option for video playback and everything else that comes with that media console. Speaking of games, movies, and music, the OUYA has 8GB of internal storage but we’d recommend a nice 64GB thumb drive for added storage thanks to that USB 2.0 port, or even an external hard drive.

When June finally rolls around I’d be headed to my nearest Best Buy or Target to pick up this awesome $99 gaming console because deep down it runs Android, and the options are limitless for this device. Stay tuned for more announcements and game news for the OUYA. Who’s already pre-ordered one?

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