Ouya hasn’t exactly had a smooth time of it as of late. The Kickstarter page has a lot of backers complaining that they’ve yet to receive their console. The biggest complaint, though, seems to be that the Ouya developers haven’t come forward to clearly explain what’s going on and how they’re actually handling the shipping. One report, for example, said it’ll be by backer number, despite forum members clearly showing it isn’t. Still, since this was a Kickstarter project some leeway should certainly be given as this is a company with little experience, although people’s complaints are understandable.

Originally  Ouya  stated that shipping would begin in March, and that it could take a few weeks for everyone to get a console. An update they released on April 26th revealed that they had shipped consoles to 32% of backers. The update also hoped that by a week later they would have shipped consoles to a total of 50% of their backers. So yup, progress has a been a little slow, there’s no denying that, but backers should have their consoles well before the retail launch.

Those that have received their console, though, have discovered a serious issue with the controller in which the buttons get stuck behind the faceplate, which as you can imagine is a bit of a pain in the arse.

A fix is one the way, though.  Ouya CEO Julie Uhrman told Joystiq that they’ve fixed the problem by simply increasing the size of the holes in which the buttons fit:  “I don’t know what the exact millimeter is, but we’ve increased the size just a little bit, so now the buttons don’t stick under it. We made that change very early so all the units are being produced with those larger button holes.” All controllers being shipped at the retail launch will have this change.

Mind you, the retail launch has been delayed , though explanations have been given. According to the official Ouya blog: “The demand we’re seeing from gamers and our retailers is beyond our expectations, so, to meet all this demand, we are shifting our launch date by three weeks to give us time to make more OUYAs. Our official launch date will be June 25th.” One can’t help wonder, though, if it’s also not partially because of the controller problem, a problem which should never had made it through production in the first place. The early consoles sent out are very much in a prototype stage with numerous bugs and problem, but this is still a major flaw that should have been spotted.

There’s also some obvious worry from early backers that have faulty controllers regarding whether they can expect to get a replacement or not. A representative told Joystiq: “If backers have a problem with their controller, we will work with them to resolve the issue via customer service.” Which hopefully means that yes, you’ll get a replacement.

Hopefully Ouya can get everything sorted out in time for their new retail launch date of June, 25th.