Ouya boss responds to Towerfall PS4 sales success.

Ouya CEO Julie Uhrman has responded to former Ouya exclusive Towerfall’s comparatively enormous success on PlayStation 4, calling it validation of the microconsole’s approach.


towerfall_ascension
“21% of Towerfall’s total revenue comes from Ouya, which is pretty impressive when you consider the legacy and size of the Steam and Playstation communities,” Uhrman said in a statement, putting a logical positive spin on the news.

“Plus, OUYA helped put Towerfall and Matt on the map. His story signals that Ouya works: we are finding the next great developers and making them household names, while rewarding their great games with real money in their pocket.”

Towerfall came to PC and PS4 in an updated form called Towerfall: Ascension. It has gone on to earn $500,000 in sales, the majority of which were derived from the PS4 release.

Ouya is a crowdfunded Android-based microconsole that differentiates by insisting that all games offer a free-to-play mode or demo. It has had mixed success and now seems to be evolving; the free-to-play thing is on the way out, and it’s coming to other hardware.

How the PS4 might crush the Xbox One once and for all!

In terms of which next-generation video game console gamers think is better, the “console war” we hear about so often is somewhat trivial. In terms of sales, however, the competition between Sony’s PlayStation 4 and Microsoft’s Xbox One shows us where the money is flowing and where it might continue to flow as time moves on. And right now, more than five months into this console generation, the competition isn’t even close.

Sony announced in mid-April that PS4 console sales to end users had topped 7 million units. The company also said more than 20.5 million copies of PlayStation 4 games had been sold at the time. Meanwhile, Microsoft’s last announcement stated that Xbox One shipments to distribution partners had surpassed 5 million units. It is unclear how many of those consoles have been purchased by end users.

Both video game consoles are incredibly successful right now, but there’s clearly no question that the PS4 has taken a big early lead in this generation. And according to noted video game industry analyst Michael Patcher of Wedbush Securities, that lead could turn into a full-blown trouncing if Sony makes one move in particular.

“If there is a $349 PS4 on the market, Microsoft has a real problem,” Patcher told GamingBolt while discussing the various directions the industry might head next year. If Sony does cut the current PS4′s price or offer a cheaper $349 model — which Patcher thinks will be the case sometime in 2015 — the Xbox One will be crushed unless Microsoft offers a cheaper version of its new console that does not include a bundled Kinect.

“[Microsoft is] gonna have to do something, and they’ll have to do it really quickly,” Patcher said. “I think that in 2015, you might see a $349 PS4, and an uncoupled Xbox One, and if you see both of those for $349, the consumer wins, and they will both sell very well. Microsoft is not looking to lose this cycle.”

TowerFall sold better on PS4 than PC, Ouya version trails behind

Indie hit TowerFall has sold better on PlayStation 4 than on PC or Ouya, the latter of which accounted for about 7,000 sales, reports Eurogamer.

TowerFall is a multiplayer-focused archery game originally released on Ouya last June. It is often cited as being among the Android microconsole's best games. Despite that accolade, it has only sold roughly 5,000 additional units since developer Matt Thorson announced sales figures last July.

In March, the game was released with additional content as TowerFall: Ascension on the PS4 and PC. In total, the three versions have grossed $500,000 in sales, Thorson told Eurogamer, with the PS4 version being the strongest seller of the three.

Despite there being a much smaller install base--the PS4 has sold 7 million units worldwide as of earlier this month, compared with at least tens of millions of computers capable of running TowerFall--Thorson doesn't seem surprised with the way things have gone. "I think it's just a console game, ya know?" he said.

"People have controllers--it's not confusing to get the controllers like it is for PC--and people have it in their living rooms already. I think a lot of people still sit down with their friends when they play their consoles, whereas they don't do that on PC. Even if it's a single-player game."

Thorson also points to Sony's strong promotion of the game as playing a role in its performance on the console. He has previously talked about how proactive the company was in trying to bring TowerFall to the platform.

As for Ouya, Thorson said, "Being the best game on Ouya isn't a huge deal, but it is nice. It still sells on there." Considering the $15 price of the game, Thorson's estimate of 7,000 sales on Ouya would suggest it accounted for just over $100,000 of the game's gross sales.

For more on TowerFall, check out GameSpot's positive review of Ascension.

Chris Pereira is a freelance writer for GameSpot, and you can follow him on Twitter @TheSmokingManX