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Android gaming platform Ouya is down to its last life

Reports suggest debt restructure didn't fly and a powerup's needed

The low-cost Android gaming startup Ouya is on the brink of collapse and wants a buyer, fast.

According to Fortune, the company tripped a debt covenant and hopes for expressions of interest by the end of April.

Originally kick-started to the tune of US$8.6 million, the company caused buzz with its play-your-Android-games-on-TV pitch. On the content side, Ouya suffered a slow start, but now claims more than 1,000 apps and the “largest library of Android content for the TV”.

However, getting to that point has needed money and lots of it: the Fortune report notes it pulled together US$15 million in 2013 in Series A funding, followed by another raising with TriplePoint Capital, and US$10 million from Alibaba in February 2015.

Back in January, The Wall Street Journal attributed Ouya's woes to the high cost of making hardware – something that drove its strategy of trying to license the games it controls to other platforms.

Ouya has also faced competition from other hardware makers throwing their hats into the Android console ring – including low-cost superpowers like Huawei and ZTE.

Its deal with Alibaba included integrating its games with some of that company's set-top boxes, and it was also working on a similar deal with Xaomi.

Investment bank Mesa Global has been called in to handle the auction. ®

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