i'm pessimistic. it reminds me of a gameboy player, something that you feel you could use very often, but ultimately not get much use out of. I'd wait to see how developers react to it before picking one up.

Wait, its out or something? I thought they were still working on it.

Since the freely distributed homebrew niche is the only market that a quality-controlled commercial console won't be able to tap into, I think that Ouya's only success factor would come from being an open indie counterpart to what the Steam Box is going to be. However, I don't think that the Ouya has much of a chance becoming a top-of-mind option for developers as long as it's running on Android, since not all mobile- and tablet developers will bother to make Android ports and since Android is rarely among the primary systems to receive application platform compatibility next to Windows and OSX. 
 
I don't know what the rationale behind picking Android is, but I think that running on a mainstream Linux flavor would give it a much bigger chance of being able to draw from an existing pool of applications as well as giving developers a lower threshold for porting applications, since Linux has better porting tools, native application wrappers and cross-platform development libraries.
 
Also, I think that the design aspect is an important one, because I find that the more low-level a platform tends to be in terms of development requirements, the bigger the likelihood that the user experience is going to suffer over time as programmers start releasing unpolished system tweaks and solutions to commonly requested features, kind of like how the Open Pandora, RaspberryPi or even Linux start out as polished and rigid design experiences, but start looking worse the more you try them to get to do what you want them to do, since the only way to do it is by installing stuff that was designed by people who's primary skills aren't design-related.
 
However, it's a cool project so I hope I'm wrong. I'll probably get one for emulation.