Ouya announces new chairman to focus on 'relationships, strategy, and support'

Ouya, the company behind the $99 Kickstarter-funded Android gaming console, announced three new hires today, including the appointment of Roy Bahat, former president of IGN, as chairman of the board.

Bahat joins CEO Julie Uhrman, also an IGN alumnus, who announced Bahat's position on Ouya's blog. "Roy believed in OUYA from day zero," she wrote, revealing that he was the company's first investor.

Bahat's focus will be on "relationships, strategy, and support," he told GamesBeat. “Launching a console is not just one company executing on its own. It’s an ecosystem, and a very good excuse for a bunch of others to work together. In that group, the single most important constituency is developers.”

Uhrman also revealed two additional hires. Steve Chamberlin, who "ran development for RIFT at Trion, and Tiger Woods at EA" will man Ouya's engineering helm. Raffi Bagdasarian, who worked on Crackle at Sony Pictures Television’s Digital Networks Group, will lead the software product team, which is responsible for user interface and services for Ouya developers.

Ouya's Kickstarter campaign launched in early July. It reached its $950,000 funding goal within 8 hours. At the campaign's close 30 days later, it had raised over $8.5 million. The console is scheduled to ship in March 2013.