The Ouya is a console that you bought based on its promise and what it says about gaming. Its the equivalent of buying all natural produce from a farmers market instead of whatever Wal-Mart sells. The truth is that the Ouya is a pain in the butt, the likes of which we havent seen since The Rock made good on his promise to turn the WWE world title sideways, shine it up real nice, and stick it up... well you know the rest. Getting to love your Ouya, and enjoy it, is a journey. It makes a terrible first impression, requiring a credit card to be input before you even get to the main screen. Eventually, you learn its complicated file system, come to terms with free being a rather... 'nebulous' term, and contend with all manner of limitations like how the console refuses to work properly with 720p televisions, and controller-pairing oftentimes requires an animal sacrifice. But at some point you come to appreciate the little console that couldn't quite get over the hump. With a proper amount of patience the Ouya becomes a haven tucked behind your television that you bring out when you want to play a retro game on one of the countless emulators, turn your TV into a media server, or want to feel like a hacker and mess with various settings and install all manner of wild and crazy android software via its side-loading ability. It's clear the only person who would buy one of these is someone with an intense passion for gaming to the point where they don't even care if something is a proper consumer product. The pitfalls are numerous and often the ratio of getting things to work and time spent playing those things is really, really, out of whack. But the device grows on you like a fungus to the point where you can't help but think fondly of it, or tell your friends (who won't care) all the crazy things you can do on it that they'll never try.
