That it hasn't yet released doesn't mean we don't know what we're looking at in terms of a market. 60,000 committed users is a spectacularly tiny user base.

I'd bet money (and am in fact betting my own time, which isn't entirely dissimilar) that the userbase of modern Android devices--say, from as far back as the Nexus One phone to the current Nexus 7 tablet--is so much bigger that if even one in twenty users care about games it's a more viable market.

60,000 pre-orders for a completely unknown company months before launch is not small. Usually they sell more once the thing is actually in stores, and they already have the best kind of marketing they can get, hype and people putting dollars into it before a physical product exists.

Yes, the big console makers sell that many every week, but they are not a big console maker, so they don't need lots of numbers to sustain themselves, that's what growth is for, and they are showing better indications of it then Nintendo or Sony when they first got on the market, assuming they actually deliver the product they will see more. and their price point puts them in closer competition to a PS2 or Roku.

For them, the hardware order isn't small, no. However, they're pricing it so low that they're almost certainly making very little money per-unit, so they're hoping to make money on their app store.

To make money on their app store, they need games.

Not many developers are going to write games for a platform with around 1/16th of the user base of your average front-line Android phone. (Please don't say "it's an easy port"; it's not and the Ouya people's claim that it is is fucking dishonest.)

A few companies have committed to bringing their products to the Ouya. I am interested in seeing how many of them follow through. Of those who follow through, I am interested in how many just push shovelware because doing a real port to a platform with 60,000 guaranteed users, many of which are probably going to be hacking the shit out of the thing (and making software security a non-starter), is not economically viable for most people.

I'm sure the argument goes that ouya users are "proper gamers" - which is great but it's only really worthwhile if you also can charge "proper game" fees of $10+

The scale isn't there for a freemium or $0.99 app economy.