Ouya console goes up for official pre-orders

Ouya’s Kickstarter project has closed, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still lay claim to an early unit.

The ambitious $99 Android-powered console is now available for pre-order on its newly minted order page. The device with one controller is listed at $109. The unit with two controllers is $139, and a four-controller bundle is available for $199.

The conosle’s Kickstarter project actually managed to hit the ambitious ~$1 million target in less than 24 hours, and by the time it closed it earned more than $8 million in funding, mainly from people who just invested around $100 to get an early unit.

“People are ready for something new, and Ouya is that thing. We never expected to do this well and be this well-received. It’s just truly amazing that it’s resonated so well with gamers and developers,” said Ouya CEO Julie Uhrman upon the closure of its Kickstarter campaign.

Ouya boasts a quad-core Nvidia Tegra 3 processor, 1GB of RAM and 8GB of storage.

Those who got in on the ground floor through Kickstarter will be able to get their units in March, while those pre-ordering now will have to wait until at least April.

Streaming video game devices appear to be the big thing these days. Onlive is as popular as ever, and is poised to get a large boost when it fully integrates with Google TV.

And Sony just acquired Gaikai, the other key player in the “Netflix for video games” market.

Of course, Android isn’t exactly the biggest name in the world of gaming, so this project is very interesting in many respects. We’ll see if it can pull of what it’s trying to achieve.