Wednesday, July 11th, 2012

The Android-powered, crowdfunded $99 game console – Ouya – just passed its $950K Kickstarter project goal. Considering the project page went live this morning, the Ouya reached its goal in well under its first 24 hours.

Designed by Yves Béhar and backed by several prominent game industry folks, the Ouya features a quad-core Tegra 3 processor, 8GB of built-in storage, and a wireless gamepad. It's being crafted with an eye toward developers, and the project's page notes savvy hackers can "create their own peripherals, and connect via USB or Bluetooth."

The Kickstarter remains active for another 29 days, and Ouya hopes to have the console in supporters' hands by "Q1 2013." Founder and CEO Julie Uhrman told Joystiq, "The support has been unbelievable. And that's exactly why we took it to Kickstarter ... Kickstarter has just been the most phenomenal platform – for specifically, hardware and video game companies – to bring their ideas to consumers. And if it resonates, you really get this swell of momentum and traction, and that's what we were hoping for. And it's just unbelievable, the level of support."