Ce Testing

[conso]

Yep, this has been the bane of the project. If everyone involved was full time Pandora instead of full time elsewhere, Pandora could have seen a Christmas release for sure (as was planned). Unfortunately Craig's optimistic release dates couldn't plan for key people disappearing for months at a time and there wasn't anything we could do about that in a project based on volunteer work.

Thatt reads like bank-issues didn't have that much impact as it was stated in the past. Don't missunderstand me, I don't blame anyone for having a job or private live, but the pandora is damn late and I want to know what's going on.

My 3 questions from the beginning of this thread are still not officially answered:
QUOTE

Are you waiting for CE-testing before case-molds get ordered or not?
Are the changed parts of the case causing a delay or not?
Is Craig running around the garden with a finished pandora while 2 days of ups-delivery away ED is waiting for a finished pandora to send it to CE-testing to get production running?

 

[magicman5421]

I don't know the answer to 1
2: no, if you'd read any of the recent threads, it has been stated and restated that this will not cause a delay.
3: no, craig is running around the garden, taking a clamored-for video of the pandora for all the people who have been at his throat about videos and news. And instead of thanking him for it, you're still mad at him.

 

[conso]

asuming that's all correct, now what is causing the current stagnation in actual production? I don't care if craig runs around the garden with his pandora, but I want to know what we are waiting for at the moment. Is it the final case design, the parts for the CE testing ariving at ED, someone having time to order the molds or something else. I don't know and you probably don't know either.

 

[God Ginrai]

I do know the difference, i'm just not quite sure since i'm still new to this project. I know that manufacturing does cost money and parts cost money, but after selling out 4,000 Pandora's with people eager to get their hands on the second batch, I cannot imagine that they won't be on top soon after production.

How much does it cost to make a single Pandora?

It's not a matter of how much it costs to make a single Pandora. I understand where you are coming from, because normally when you make something mass-produced, you can make it cheaper than what you are selling it for. And you can. However for the first run of any product, the Pandora included, there is a lot of money that goes into Research and Development, and even securing deals with manufacturers and licensing issues.

Because of all of that extra money that they had to spend now that they won't have to spend in later manufacturing runs, due to their one-time nature, the good people at Open Pandora are having to spend more than we paid them for, and therefore they will not make a profit for the first batch. The second batch, they will be spending less money than they will be receiving, if everything goes right, and should hopefully make a profit.

-God Ginrai

 

[craigix]

OK, the Bank issue caused HUGE delays, we were unable to pay people for work planned, unable to pay for prototype boards, prototype cases, case design, etc. etc.

The Bank thing cost us at least 3 months.

In that time several people just walked away from helping us.

It has taken a lot of work to get this back on track.

Part of my talk today was about people on this forum trivialising complex issues about which they know very little, it just pisses off the team and there is no way we can put in to words how much work, stress, blood and frustration has gone in to this project - making something like this is incredibly difficult, there is certainly no conspiracy of laziness.

We can't just throw the current Pandora at the CE test (which only takes a few days), due to the huge costs involved (maybe 12,000 euro) we have to make sure it's right first time, which is something Ed is working on right now.

So since it's only a few days it does not really matter if it's done this week or next.

The case design is 99% final. Parts are already in MP.

 

[calc84maniac]

there is no way we can put in to words how much work, stress, blood and frustration has gone in to this project

"Blood" referring to your leg?

 

[gaterooze]

there is no way we can put in to words how much work, stress, blood and frustration has gone in to this project

"Blood" referring to your leg?

And the virgin sacrifices, duh.

 

[conso]

OK, the Bank issue caused HUGE delays, we were unable to pay people for work planned, unable to pay for prototype boards, prototype cases, case design, etc. etc.

The Bank thing cost us at least 3 months.

In that time several people just walked away from helping us.

It has taken a lot of work to get this back on track.

Part of my talk today was about people on this forum trivialising complex issues about which they know very little, it just pisses off the team and there is no way we can put in to words how much work, stress, blood and frustration has gone in to this project - making something like this is incredibly difficult, there is certainly no conspiracy of laziness.

We can't just throw the current Pandora at the CE test (which only takes a few days), due to the huge costs involved (maybe 12,000 euro) we have to make sure it's right first time, which is something Ed is working on right now.

So since it's only a few days it does not really matter if it's done this week or next.

The case design is 99% final. Parts are already in MP.

thx for the big clear-up post. I take this as very good news.

Not sure if I get the last line right: Does it mean some pandora parts are in mass production or is it actually referring to the case being in mass production?

 

[magicman5421]

i took it to mean that some parts of the case are already in mass production, with the remaining parts being CNC'd and sent out to someone before the ok for mass production is given.

 

[Monk]

There is an interpretation that I have not seen mentioned thus far to the reason "xyz" will not delay the project, and yet things do not move forward. Perhaps the OpenPandora project moves forward only when the team members invovled actually have time to work on it?

Yep, this has been the bane of the project. If everyone involved was full time Pandora instead of full time elsewhere, Pandora could have seen a Christmas release for sure (as was planned). Unfortunately Craig's optimistic release dates couldn't plan for key people disappearing for months at a time and there wasn't anything we could do about that in a project based on volunteer work. People have lives and we have to respect that.

Thankfully, many people are back on board during the final stretch so delays will be less, but they are still happening. It's as frustrating for me as for everyone who paid already, perhaps more! You are waiting for one or two Pandoras, I'm waiting on 4000.


Thanks for confirming that - as one of those frustrating "want to know it ALL RIGHT NOW" freaks I appreciate knowing that the assumption is correct. I've assumed it for a while, given that there's no obvious profit to be made from the first batch, but thought that perhaps it might help others to understand just how much the OpenPandora team are part of THIS COMMUNITY rather than a company JUST flogging goods on their own site and pretending to have a community website to try and extract effort from others. It's not like you're fat cats (yet!) but actually have to work for a living like any other Joe

Ta

 

[conso]

i took it to mean that some parts of the case are already in mass production, with the remaining parts being CNC'd and sent out to someone before the ok for mass production is given.

yes, that's what I understood, too. But if someone can confirm that interpretation, I'd be very happy about that.

 

[renegadechic]

i think there is a lot of assumption here that the OpenPandora team is some big profiteering company. if the second batch doesnt really happen beyond a small handful of units and the project doesnt go anywhere much further than it already has, we would pretty much be in a situation where a group of people have put a few years of their free time into giving you some cutting edge technology, for absolutely nothing.

it is easy to compare to bigger companies like sony or nintendo, but then the pandora project is actually even more extraordinary than them in some ways because they are trying to break even purely on the console. apparently the PS3 makes a net loss with every unit sold and they make it back with the extra money from games but there isnt that kind of situation with the pandora. there are no hidden ways to make profits, especially if things dont work out.

i know i have a tendancy to sound like a kiss-ass on here, and maybe i am, but we can all see that a lot of work has gone into the project and we do see it happening all the time. we also know that these people have their own lives and families and have taken risks to try and insure the project all for the potential of getting nothing but kudos back out of it.

from the start the idea of a traditional business and development model has been completely thrown out of the window. there have been plenty of mistakes and bad times but also plenty of surprises and good ones and though a lot of people only seem to give a crap about what their £200 or $330 means to them and what it will get them and when, there are a lot of people who have enough understanding to know what they were getting into and try to beef up the enthusiasm of the devs who this entire project depends upon.

i am not saying everything is perfect or ideal, but that based on the information available to me, i have had very little, to no reason to lose faith in the project or get angry at the situation. if that makes me a kiss-ass then bend the hell over cos i'm pukkered.

 

[Monk]

Part of my talk today was about people on this forum trivialising complex issues about which they know very little, it just pisses off the team and there is no way we can put in to words how much work, stress, blood and frustration has gone in to this project - making something like this is incredibly difficult, there is certainly no conspiracy of laziness.

Part of the problem, I suspect, with a community-based project where most of the community don't know the ins-and-outs of what's going on, on a daily basis. Human beings are rather curious creatures, and if we don't know somethign we will genrally, as a species, make something up to fill in the gaps. We'll try to make it as credible/reasonable as posisble, but sometimes it will be, ah, less than accurate. Forum assumptions can only, AT BEAST, be as good as the information that IS available. Which means they will generally be worse

Were I the Pandora team, I would personally take heart at a number of factors, not least the almost violent defenses from "the faithful" but also the fact that thousands of people have sent in their money on spec even though they have zero control over what happens after that point. Giving up that control is not something that comes easily to many (indeed my wife's mouth frankly dropped open when I said we would re-pre-order - it was quite comical but it shows IMHO the degree to which OpenPandora are being given HUGE levels of faith that I cannot imagine any other group being given).

Ta,

 

[MrBlais]

I don't know if this is directed at my assumption that the team was recieving a profit from this; if so, I apologize. I just figured after all the work they had done they were at least going to be compensated for their efforts. I was just wondering.

I did, however, give my money for the product plus some developmental funds recently because I believe in Craig and team's creation and I am happy to be a part of it. I'm excited to experiment with it and play my old PSOne games on it and for that I am forever thankful. I didn't want to step on any toes, I just want to see how things are coming, that's all.

 

[renegadechic]

if it means anything my comment wasnt direct at you... more general. i hope that the pandora sells a good 10,000 or so more units at least and they can really see some financial benefit from it. hell if they ramped the price up so they made £10-£20 more profit after costs, i think they would be justifying some pretty hard earned return for it all.

edit: also may i just add, your userpic is amazing!

 

[MrBlais]

Well I absolutely don't believe people deserve to work for free. I hope they exceed 10,000. The Pandora is a milestone for handhelds.

After production is done and the first batch is delivered, marketing is the next big step. If I just heard about this this past month, imagine how many other people don't know about this..

 

[calc84maniac]

Eh, I'll be happy if they sell over 9000.

 

[Vorporeal]

Aha - I see what you did there.

 

[gruso]

I bought a XIM recently (www.xim360.com). It's also a product developed by hobbyists, albeit a very different kind of project to this one. Their operation is centered around their forum community too. Their first batch of the XIM2 was only 400 units, and Engadget sent a flood of new people to the site. The existing members were obviously familiar with the dev team (three or four guys) and their work. Many of the new people seemed to think they were signing up to buy the latest thing from Mad Catz or Hori, and were suitably demanding. Sound familiar?

They had their share of mishaps and delays too. Poor buggers had the wrong exchange rates in their web store, and effectively had to break their promise to ship in the same sequence that the orders came in while they sorted it out. So the Americans got theirs, and the international customers waited. And people screamed. Anyway, short version, it all got resolved. I spoke directly with them, told them about this project of course, and found them to be fantastic guys.

The problems they had getting a batch of 400 modded Xbox pads out the door really made me think about the scale of the Pandora project, and how a team of roughly the same size is actually making it happen. So it’s an effort not to fire up when people start throwing around accusations of greed and lies. And I’ve been accused of being a fanboy for that. As they say, whatevs.

 

[God Ginrai]

it is easy to compare to bigger companies like sony or nintendo, but then the pandora project is actually even more extraordinary than them in some ways because they are trying to break even purely on the console. apparently the PS3 makes a net loss with every unit sold and they make it back with the extra money from games but there isnt that kind of situation with the pandora. there are no hidden ways to make profits, especially if things dont work out.

I support the Pandora team 100%, but I have to disagree with you on this comparison. Your comment about Sony selling the console at a loss makes it seem like it happens to all the big companies, where in fact, that's just Sony's marketing strategy. They sell their consoles at a loss so that they can reap the benefit by charging the developers massive licensing fees. They did it with the PSP, too. Nintendo (and Sega back when they sold consoles) doesn't charge as much for licensing fees, so they need to sell their consoles more at face value. Notice that Nintendo is making a massive profit off of the Wii, and has always made large profit off of their consoles. I don't really know about Microsoft, but I'm pretty sure they don't bombard the developers with heavy licensing fees.

-God Ginrai