Yup. Today. Meaning this thing ceases to be a wispy project existing only on your monitor, and becomes a real console. One that'll soon be jostling with all kinds of products for attention and money.
Above, you can see an unboxing of the device, giving the world its first real good look at an actual Ouya. Boy, it's tiny.
It might not have been as saucy as a collection of sexy images, but it still makes for a tale of Christmas heartbreak: according to a report on Fox, a boy from Talladega woke up on December 25 to find a Nintendo 3DS box waiting for him. Only there was no 3DS inside.
Instead, it was... a box full of rocks. Wrapped in tissue paper. While you might think it's a Craigslist scam, it's not; instead, the boy's mother bought it from Walmart, where it seems this is a thing, with scammers buying goods, taking them out, stuffing the boxes with heavy substitutes then returning them, busy/lazy staff not even bothering to check the contents of the goods.
All's well that ends well, though, as once local Walmart staff were informed the boy was quickly given a real 3DS to play with.
I've lost count of the actual number of times Aliens have been pitted against someone in a comic. It's surely enough that it doesn't matter any more, and we can just throw them in the ring against anyone. I mean, if they can fight Batman and Robocop, then surely Master Chief—who fights in space for a living—is on the cards.
Next year, collectible company First4Figures—who basically do nothing else but specialise in video game statues—will be paying tribute to a Dreamcast icon, Shenmue's Ryo Hazuki.
While it doesn't look like it comes with a forklift, it does have his trademark jacket and band-aid.
No word on price or specific release date just yet.
We've joked about its refusal to die before, but today, finally, the console begins its march into the history books. Having sold over 150 million units since its release in 2000, the PlayStation 2 has today ceased shipping to Japanese retailers, meaning once remaining stock is gone, it's gone.
The console was first released in Japan on March 4, 2000, and in those twelve years has become—by a longshot—the biggest-selling home video game console of all time.
Oh boy, don't get me started on the Nintendo 64 controller. I hated it. Hated the weird layout, hated the fact the analog stick would always get loose.
These days, Nintendo wisely offers alternatives to their "wacky" controllers in the form of Classic and Pro pads for the Wii and Wii U respectively, but we were shit out of luck with the N64.
Oh, except for Alex Clark, who decided the hell with it, and made an N64 Pro Controller anyway. Reshaping the original casing, bringing in a second stick and moving the buttons around, he's got something that not only looks like something Nintendo might have released, but which will work on an actual N64 and play games just fine.
Snobs will try and bring up Herzog Zwei, but really, the RTS genre as we know it starts with Westwood's classic Dune II, which, while playing a little rough around the edges these days, still looks amazing.
Being so old, though, many of you might not have played it. Not to worry. Here's a version of the game running in HTML 5, meaning it'll spin along quite nicely right in your browser. You can even play some multiplayer if you're feeling up to it.
Its inspiration/competitor DayZ is an exercise in tension and mood. The WarZ, on the other hand, is an exercise in boredom and broken code.
Making things worse, my first five games all ended in some way or another with other players killing me, and I suspect at least two of those, given the range and immediacy of my death, were the result of cheating.
Now, normally, I'd find this practice abhorrent. In a game that works, cheats subvert the rules and undermine most regular player's experience.
But The WarZ isn't a game that works. To call it an alpha would be to give it too much credit, so shonky is the world and its inhabitants, and if you stick to the rules, there's very little to do except hold down the W key and develop a lingering sense of regret.
So cheating in The WarZ might just be the only way, at least at the moment, to have some fun with the game. Which might explain why cheating is already so popular with such a new title.
A community has exploded around the idea, with many major cheating sites offering a range of cracks, hacks and trainers to let people tailor their WarZ experience.
The speed with which they've been able to offer these programs, usually for a price, suggests The WarZ's protection measures against such activity aren't exactly top-shelf. But the scale with which they've been picked up also suggests many customers who have paid for the game are now paying a little more to see if they can salvage some enjoyment from the title.
Some of these cheats are straight-up cheats. Access to better weapons, instant headshots, etc. But others reveal an interesting side-effect of The WarZ's broken launch: a form of community improvement. Below is a tweet I saw earlier today from ArtificialAiming, one of the biggest cheat sites on the internet.
New WarZ feature!- No Fall Damage!Never die again due to shitty steep hills or SuperJump!Enjoy!... fb.me/BzbJCyVs
In the game, that's an actual problem. And here's a fix, not from the developer, or a mod, but from cheaters. Other sites are offering similar programs, offering ways around other things people have issue with, like The WarZ's excessive (and even more boring) night cycle.
It doesn't atone for the fact most other cheats undermine other people's experience with the game, or that sites like AA are profiting off such behaviour, but it is a strange and wonderful thing to see regardless.
It shows Mrs. Kuzma revealing that, to go with the system, two games have been hired for the kids to play. One is Goldeneye. Brandon is pleased.
The interview's good reading, as it shows what the pair are up to these days. Brandon is making skate videos and works for online streetwear retailer Karmaloop, while Rachel lives in Florida where she's a photographer.
When you look back on all that's happened in the gaming world—games released, scandals unveiled and surprises unleashed—it's been a long, long year. Let's take a look back at what that year has been like for Kotaku.
Pretty soon after I was hired here at Kotaku, I started doing weekly round-ups of our best content. So now I'm going to round up our best work from over the entire year, including the gorgeous pixel artwork you see above that Michael Myers made for us. Hopefully I didn't exclude anything.
When you look back on all that's happened in the gaming world—games released, scandals unveiled and surprises unleashed—it's been a long, long year. Let's take a look back at what that year has been like for Kotaku.
