Minecraft creator on Ouya: "It's basically the Steam box"

The developer community is starting to weigh in on the potential implications of Ouya, the ambitious new product that is seeking to bring a home console experience to consumers for only $99.

Joystiq took the time to sit down with multiple developers, most of them considered independent, and asked them what they thought of the new Ouya console. Developers like Markus Persson of Mojang and Edmund McMillen of Team Meat, as well as a few others, seem quite hopeful for the future.

"I am quite frankly surprised this hasn't happened earlier," said Persson. "Me and plenty of other people have tried connecting small PCs to their TVs and plugging in controllers in an attempt to get an open TV gaming experience that they can control, but there's been constant interface and infrastructure problems with that. And frankly, the only really good use of it was to run emulators."

Team Meat's McMillen added his caution to the tale, citing a few problems with how the console hopes to work with various developers. "I'd love for there to be this amazing console that lets everyone dev for it... but there already was and the lack of control turned it into a garbage dump of crap apps, rip-off games and rehashes, I mean honestly iPad and iPhone started out with serious games trying to break in but got undercut by everyone and became a dump. This aspect of the Ouya seems flawed and could be the downfall of it if it gets legs once it releases."

The main theme from developers behind The Dream Machine, Auditorium, Serious Same Double D XXL, Canabalt and Retro City Rampage is that they are all "cautiously optimistic" over the opportunity to work with the ambitious platform. Many simply believe that the system is a fantastic concept, but they fear that the platform won't actually work simply looking at what's being offered thus far.

Of course, hope remains for the device coming from smaller developers. The creator of Minecraft still feels the opportunity is present, saying that "I hope it does well. It would be amazing. It's basically the Steam Box."