Even the most zealous of Ouya advocates would have to admit the likelihood of the microconsole flying off the shop shelves on day one was always remote.

Indeed, according to US sales tracker NPD, predictions that the device would get off to a slow start have proven to be correct. But it's not sales figures – or the lack of them – that has generated negative headlines for Ouya of late.

Rather, it's how those at the top of the business have been dealing with the stream of developers who have made the jump to the device, small userbase or not.

Up steps Tadhg Kelly. Having served as a game consultant, designer and, more recently, a TechCrunch columnist, Kelly has been charged with managing Ouya's relationships with developers it has agreements with, as well as being the platform's "free-to-play guy."

Much of the repair work, then, will fall under Kelly's remit, meaning he was the perfect go-to guy for insight on where Ouya stands now, and why the microconsole still has a bright future.

Pocket Gamer: After initially dubbing 2013 "The Year of the Microconsole," do you think that those devices picked up as much momentum as you first anticipated?

Tadhg Kelly: I do. My point with my original post was to signal a sea change that had started to happen, a fundamental re-shifting as it were.

I didn't expect microconsoles to go from a standing start to market domination in the course of 12 months though, especially not in a year when a new console generation was likely to grab the lion's share of press coverage and fan interest.

In a further talk called The Microconsole Generation that I gave at Casual Connect I expanded upon my initial ideas.

I talked about a future player who'd been playing games for a few years on social and mobile devices and liked the idea of playing games on TV. But she didn't want to have to spend a ton to get there, nor join the hardware cult that big consoles tend to engender.

The analogy I keep coming back to is that the microconsole is to the console as the Flip camera is to the prosumer camera, or the netbook was - and now tablet is - to the PC.

There's great appeal to a wide variety of customers in the small unobtrusive device that lets them do something new without significant cost, especially if that device is simpler to understand and less imposing than bigger versions. I think that message is evolving, but continuing to spread.

If you had to pitch the Ouya to a developer who hadn't even considered the device as a platform before, how would you draw them in and make them as passionate about the device as you are?

For Ouya specifically the draw for me boils down to two things - free expression and better exposure. Free expression is an increasingly important issue in the gaming art form, as it should be.

There are many talented designers out there slaving away on commentary games, art games, personal games, games that are about issues, games that are reflective, games that are satirical. Yet when they start to try to find a venue to release their work, they find it surprisingly difficult.

Apple tends to shy away from allowing fringe content because it treats games differently to other kinds of media. Android allows it, but finding games on Android is pretty daunting. Certainly all of the big console makers tend to be less than receptive.

Apple loves a Journey because it's beautiful and tells a great marketing story. It's less wild about featuring a dys4ia though.

This means that fringe developers are often pushed back into PC and - if they can muster the crowd's support - maybe Steam. Don't get me wrong. I love PC gaming, but the future of the PC is increasingly in doubt.

Furthermore gaming on PC has the same cost barrier that gaming on console has, which means that free-expression works tend only to be seen by an in-crowd. There's not much opportunity for the less committed gamer to discover Gone Home - at the moment - unless they're already bought in deep.

And so I see Ouya filling that gap. There's a strong internal drive led by Julie for the console to be all about freeing games and game makers, to let them just do what they want to do on TV.

There's no earthly reason why game makers shouldn't be able to do that other than the pre-existing reticence of current platform holders, but Ouya says "Here you have a home."

It seems that the danger with microconsoles is that they can quickly become novelties. Just how hard will it be for microconsoles such as the Ouya to see prolonged, sustained success?

One of the big differences between how I see Ouya and other microconsoles vs PS4 or Xbox One is their ability to iterate on the hardware at roughly the same speed as you see with phones.

With big consoles you tend to see this initial charge and rush of enthusiasm by game makers as they're figuring out what the new platforms do. You see big pushes by publishers to be in on the new scene, to try and establish dominant positions early so that they can settle in and franchise for the long haul.

But then you see a big slowdown. You see PC gamers start to crow about how their rigs are better than consoles once again. You see laments for backwards compatibility and questions over why back catalogue games are very expensive. You see stories that are more to do with peripheral launches. You see eight year refresh cycles.

That's why the console industry tends to be all or nothing. If you get it right - PS2, Xbox 360, Wii - then you're really set for at least a half decade of great business and profit. If you get it wrong then endless hurt is your friend. You're stuck because nobody wants to have to shell out 500 quid a year for a new machine.

Whereas if your platform is one that's inexpensive, operates on a common operating system and entirely organised around being digital, it changes traditional constraints dramatically.

As with phones, you have multiple attempts at getting it right, ways to keep telling your story over and over, and a customer base that doesn't find the idea of regular upgrades to be such a big deal. 100 bucks every year or two and a long line of continuance for the games you bought? Which cost you $5? That's how.

The big three, and perhaps Sony in particular, have wised up to the fact that they need to keep their hardware open to indie developers. Do you think the fact that it's becoming easier to get indie games onto those devices will have a negative impact on microconsoles?

There's an interesting history with indies and consoles that I think is important to remember.

When Microsoft was pushing the Xbox 360 - in the pre-Kinect days - it was very popular with indie developers. At the time when Indie Game: The Movie was being shot, for example, all the shots that you see of the games in the movie are on Xbox.

Yet, ironically, by the time that the film came out Microsoft had significantly changed direction. It had moved more toward Kinect, AAA games and media ambitions in an attempt to broaden out the appeal of the console, but the net effect was that their pivot left a lot of indies out in the cold.

I see no reason to suspect that history won't repeat itself. There's an inherent tension in the big console business between the demands of blockbuster entertainment and the interests of the indie fan. Call of Duty needs to dominate to sell millions of copies, but it does so at the expense of the indie finding her long-tail audience.

The primary business model of big consoles still revolves around selling super-expensive hardware at cost or below-cost prices in order to get you to buy expensive games. It's hard for indies to maintain attention in that landscape.

With microconsoles and, especially Ouya given its focus, the economics are different and so the priorities are different.

Ouya can afford to be the long-term home of indie console gaming because it's not dependent on the blockbuster to survive, and so the medium and long term prospects for indies are much better. Which, if you think about it, is not a boast that other consoles can make. They may want to be open, but they can't really do it.

My guess is what will happen is that about a dozen or so developers manage to become great successes on PS4, similar to what happened with Xbox 360, but that many of the follow-on developers who'd like to do similarly find that conditions are not as great as they seemed.

Sony will have an instinct to keep promoting the games of Jonathan Blow or my friend Mike Bithell because those guys have considerable positive marketing value to the platform. But for the many smaller guys who come after them, life will probably not be so rosy.

With PS Vita TV being recently announced, and an similar Apple device surely on the way, how do you foresee this type of competition, the sort with huge brand backing, impacting the Ouya?

I love the idea of the PS Vita TV on a personal level, but I don't see it as a strong competitor to microconsoles. I'm not sure that many of the Vita games will readily translate to TV, given that they're designed for a very different form factor.

I also wonder whether the product sends mixed messages to the market, to the customer who wants to know if it's the "real" PlayStation or not.

What I do think is very interesting about PS Vita TV is how much it validates the idea of the microconsole. I mean why do it unless you expect there to be some sort of disruption to your premium business from below, you know? What's to be gained, other than to say that you have a response in some abstract corporate strategy way?

With Apple, while I think an Apple TV with games might be an awesome validation of the microconsole idea, I doubt Apple is going to do that any time soon. I suspect what it'll actually do is focus on making AirPlay better, to stream apps from pre-existing touch devices and maybe produce some interesting gaming hookups as a result.

Yet I also think that that approach will only ever get so far because streaming from devices to TVs is not something that most users find comfortable. They prefer the simplicity of switch-on-and- play rather than switch-on-set-to-stream-and-play.

But maybe I'm wrong and Apple is getting ready to pounce. Even if it does I think the validation effect will far outweigh the negative effect.

As everyone is apparently willing to try their hand in the microconsole market, how exactly does the Ouya stand out from other devices, such as Gamestick?

Well, the straightforward answers are market focus, controller design, publishing policies, community, quality of back-end service and of course games. Users care about what systems seem to promise, how cool or uncool they seem to be, customer service and product design.

Mostly I think all of those advantages could be described "identity". Ouya has an identity in the marketplace and the press, and gets talked about. There have been some mistakes along the way, but the sense of identity is undeniable.

That's what makes it stand out and brings a community together.

You mention in the recent Ouya blog that you've had a "peek behind the curtain," and that you're now more excited than ever about the future of the device. So, I have to ask, what exciting things are waiting around the corner for the Ouya?

Oh, lots. Alas none that I can talk about today.

Thanks to Tadhg for his time.