Considering A Pandora

[Prometheus]

The currently-assembled Pandoras are the first batch.

Craig has said that they'll be saying something about pre-ordering for the second batch soon, but as far as I know, that's all that's been said so far.

 

[CokeCanNinja]

Flash, no DRM, keyboard, real gaming controls, open source, linux, and Steve Jobs doesn't get any of the money.

 

[fearofshorts]

Flash, no DRM, keyboard, real gaming controls, open source, linux, and Steve Jobs doesn't get any of the money.

Umm... flash? The Pandora can't run flash, it's closed-source.

 

[hobbyman II]

I think he means Gnash, not as finished as Flash, but it runs most flash, and afaik there is some move afoot to port Flash to ARM to support the newer ARM devices coming out, so you may get official flash support eventually.

 

[juniorm33]

Well, thank you for all your posts. Now I really want a Pandora, but I'd like some clarification on something: are the Pandoras currently being assembled of the first batch or the second batch? Sorry if this sounds stupid.

Most recent details:

You will, the first batch is sold out. Batch two is looking like August/Sept, there probably won't be much of a break in shipping between batch1 and batch2. We have started ordering the parts already, we will explain when you can order from batch2 soon.

Then batch 3 will probably follow on for Christmas.

It's all going at 1000MPH here suddenly!

 

[Sphinxter]

 

[SomeGuy99]

 

[Kulangot_AG]

Hi I was wondering if the Pandora designers considered licensing the design to third-party manufacturers after a time? Like Asus or Acer.

Here in Philippines and most other countries kids buy modded PSPs to play games for free. As an aspiring developer, I realize this defeats the whole purpose of proprietary consoles (which are essentially DRM devices). Pirated consoles only boost the profits of those installing the modchips or custom firmware (which they didn't make themselves, btw) and selling them at jacked up prices, compared to non-jailbroken devices.

And here we have a device which was designed to be jail-free!!! Even if the Pandora couldn't reach Nintendo DS level of market penetration, if it at least eclipses that of the PSP, it can show most of the world, "Hey, here's a gaming console where the firmware is supposed to be custom, where games are open-sourced and (usually) are free. Why continue to steal from developers actually trying to earn a living and instead partake of the many programs kindhearted individuals or those who just love tech are willing to share with you with no strings attached?

And the only way this can happen is if enough Pandoras are produced so that an average kid in a third world country can reasonably obtain one. That's why the news of 4,000 only print runs scares me... that's only going to keep Pandora as a niche techie-only device. But if you're a programmer of games and want an audience, you won't be content until you get that audience.

I realize it's because Pandora is still in testing phases, but when the time comes, please license out the designs so that all the manufacturers in China can flood the markets with clones, which is exactly what is needed to penetrate most of the world markets. As long as all the clones adhere to the common configurations (i.e. they can all play the same future Pandora games).

Right now I have a potential killer-app idea (I'm a game artist), and if it weren't for the current production limits I'd be buying at least 2 units of Pandora for myself and my Python programmer friend.

 

[SomeGuy99]

I'm not sure the Pandora can be produced and sold for much less than it already is, which is way more than a PSP.

 

[neko]

Part of the reason for the high cost of the pandora is the keyboard and analog controls. The whole point is to sell something higher quality to people who are willing to pay a little more. If you want to be cheap, then buy a DS + R4, or hacked PSP.

Acer is likely more interested in selling ereaders and tablets. Cheap, and not very good for gaming. There is lots and lots of cheap crap for sale everywhere. Pandora is actually something good.

And seriously, we all know that the people who want free games are going to download free games.