The OUYA is the first totally open video game console. All games are free to try, you own your OUYA without any restrictions on the device or the games. You’re even encouraged to take apart OUYA, hack it, and do anything creative you can think of with it.

… but that’s not why I’m going to buy OUYA.

I’m going to buy OUYA for one main reason – I’m getting OUYA strickly for XBMC.

All the other stuff OUYA can do is a bonus and I will definitely tinker with the SDK… But, for $99, there is no cheaper device on the market that can play 1080p HD videos smoothly in XBMC.

Raspberry PI is the only other device that could challenge the OUYA in this area, but Raspberry PI is not as powerful as OUYA and does not yet run XBMC smoothly.

OUYA has always sounded like an interesting project, but I wasn’t sold on the idea of playing Android games on my television. Android games on my TV might be fun once in a while, but it sounds more like something that will gather dust after the novelty wears off.

What has me convinced to purchase OUYA is definitely XBMC.

Watching movies and television is something I do all the time. I don’t pay for cable TV, I stream from the internet using Netflix or Hulu. When I want to watch on the television, I need to plug my laptop into the TV. It works, but it’s not the most convenient solution and it’s not using HDMI.

Once I get OUYA, I’ll have a tiny little box dedicated to playing all my media in 1080p HD.

If you’ve never tried XBMC, you should. XBMC is the best media center solution in existence. The only reason I’m buying OUYA is because it’s the cheapest way to bring XBMC to my TV.

… and if I do get bored, well I guess all those free-to-try games will be there 🙂

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