OUYA Names Roy Bahat as Chairman and Staffs Leadership Roles with Industry Veterans

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 28, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Android-based game console maker and Kickstarter phenomenon OUYA today announced that digital media veteran Roy Bahat will serve as Chairman. Additionally, the company has filled out key technology roles, with EA, Trion, and Pivotal Labs alumnus Steve Chamberlin leading software engineering and Sony Pictures' Raffi Bagdasarian driving software product development.

Roy Bahat served for five years as President of IGN Entertainment, the global leader in videogames media with a monthly audience of 70 million people. Roy has served on startup boards, including Revision3, a venture-backed online video startup (acquired by Discovery), on the digital advisory council of GameStop, and was a board observer at Flixster before Warner Bros. acquired it. Roy hosts an annual invite-only leadership conference, the UnLock Gaming Summit, with IGN, Facebook, and GameStop. He is also a lecturer at UC Berkeley, where he teaches media. Roy holds a bachelors degree from Harvard and was a Rhodes Scholar.

The company tapped Steve Chamberlin, an experienced videogame development director to lead all software development. Steve comes from Trion Worlds, where he teamed with CEO Lars Buttler on development of the MMO game RIFT. Among the first people hired in Trion's California office, Steve helped the company grow from a 10-person startup to a 500-person developer/publisher. Previously at Electronic Arts, he was Lead Engineer for EA's Tiger Woods Golf franchise. Fitting well with OUYA's focus on openness, Steve also has a strong interest in DIY electronics, pursuing several homebrew computing projects. Steve holds a bachelors degree in computer science from MIT. 

Seasoned media executive Raffi Bagdasarian joins OUYA to drive software product development including platform services and user experience. Raffi recently served as Vice President, Product Development at Sony Pictures Television's Digital Networks Group, where he oversaw the publishing of media experiences to millions of engaged users on such platforms as Xbox Live, PlayStation 3, Roku, iOS, and Android. An avid gamer and technology junkie, Raffi has held creative roles at The Walt Disney Internet Group, and Universal Music Group's Universal Music Mobile group.

About OUYA
OUYA is poised to challenge the status quo of the video game console industry, releasing a beautifully designed Android-based console in March 2013 for the pocket-pleasing price of $99. OUYA borrows the best ideas from the mobile market and brings them to the living room:  it's an open system that is very developer friendly, and every game has a Free-to-Play component. The console's Kickstarter debut won fans and funders—setting records for the highest single day raise and the fastest Kickstarter project to hit a million dollars. Exceeding the original goal of $950,000 to take the console from functional prototype to final product, OUYA ultimately raised nearly $8.6 million from future customers demonstrating that gamers were ready for a new take on television gaming. For more information or to pre-order OUYA please visit www.ouya.tv

CONTACT:
Tiffany Spencer
Communications for OUYA
[email protected]

SOURCE OUYA