First Xiaomi, now Alibaba: Ouya takes another step into China with $10M deal

Alibaba has invested US$10 million in California-based game company Ouya, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Ouya originally created an open-source, Android-compatible game console that struggled to sell after a high-profile Kickstarter campaign in 2012. Ultimately, the company pivoted from hardware into primarily selling its library of games on streaming video devices.

The deal with Alibaba looks to work along the same lines, as the two companies plan to add Ouya’s games to set-top boxes and smart TVs sporting its Yun OS. Yun OS, which is Android-based, already has a handful of games available.

Ouya struck a similar deal with phone maker Xiaomi last year to get its games onto Xiaomi’s set-top boxes and TVs. Ouya claims to have 40,000 developers and 900 games on its platform. The terms of that deal were not disclosed.

This isn’t Alibaba’s first foray into games. It partnered with game publishing startup Yodo1 to create a social gaming platform called KTplay last year. It cooperated with Chinese home electronics firm Xiao Bawang to make a game console called G20, which comes loaded with Yun OS and sports Wiimote-like controllers. UCWeb, which Alibaba wholly acquired last year, just recently launched a gamepad designed to be used with Android devices. And don’t forget about its US$120 million investment into US-based Kabam.

China’s 13-year-long ban on the sale of game consoles was lifted just over a year ago. Since then, Microsoft has started selling the Xbox One on the mainland and the Playstation 4 is expected soon. Several other locally-produced streaming devices running on Android are also promoting their gaming capabilities to the Chinese market.

See: Alibaba getting into game consoles is a terrible, terrible idea