When the folks behind the Ouya console decided that they were going to do E3 in a parking lot near the Los Angeles Convention Centre, you knew they were going to be ruffling a few feather with the establishment. Well, the Ouya got the attention they desired from their setup but not from the gaming press and fans but from the Los Angeles Police Department.

Yesterday afternoon, the LAPD were called to shut down the Ouya’s parking lot display and they allege that it was the ESA who put the LAPD up to it.

For those of you who don’t already know, the Entertainment Software Association (AKA the ESA) owns and operates E3. For whatever reason, the Ouya was not going to be on the  show floor at E3 so they decided to set up shop in a parking lot across the street from E3.

This started a back and forth war over the Ouya’s exposure including the ESA renting out nearby spaces to block the view of the Ouya display from the LA Convention Center and the Ouya folks retaliating by renting spaces to display banners to direct people to their setup.

The battle between the ESA and Ouya went to the next level when the cops were called to shut down the Ouya but went away with nothing happening because the Ouya folks had all the proper permits to run their display.

The kicker is that Julie Uhrman, founder of the Ouya console, told IGN that it was the ESA who called the LAPD to shut them down.

I don’t know why the ESA would feel threatened by a $100 console that nobody was talking about until the police showed up. The damage that early reviews of the console did was probably enough to bury the Kickstarted Android-based console. Maybe Ouya is going to spin this into an us vs. them thing for marketing purposes. It would be much better than their current “Hey! We’re a cheap console!” marketing strategy.

Source: IGN

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