Disappointed Again

[grobi]

Following the mould creation time thread closely, I get the impression that things are going astray again.

Remember beginning of 2009, when the displays where the bottleneck, then an obscure chinese holiday delayed things by a week and made the display delivery problem suddenly unimportant?

I get the terrible feeling of deja vu.

In August, the moulds finally entered their final 45 day production time, so some of us if at least me were expecting things should come together nicely in september.

Then another obscure chinese holiday entered the scene to explain why things will take longer than 45 days, at least 8 days extra. This after the mould creation time went up from 35 days because parts of the design fixing process was outsourced to the manufacturer, which sounded like a good idea.

And after the thread got used to this holiday, suddenly the moulds were no longer the problem but the boards were told to be the bottleneck anyway so the moulds don't block early delivery anyway.

Looking at as well the unofficial as well as the official pandora blog, I think there is definitely a need for updates from the insiders to stop expectations goind wild again. There might be people here that checked "I will wait for pandora forever", but the experts can easily calculate if the pandora project can be finished successfully if only these diehards stay on the bandwagen while all others might jump it if the delays are not better communicated like in the past weeks.

Regards,
grobi

 

[Bosbeetle]

why wouldnt it finish we've already seen the first mass produced PCBs, tv-out cables, heaps of software running on the pandora. Why do you think it would not finish at all. The chinese compagny is busy with the mould they gave an estimate time, that is they estimated it would that that long but it turned out a little longer. Why all the panic all of a sudden, I see it more as craig being honest.

 

[amortvigil]

what i dont understand. the first news about the mould creation finishing time was between 10 and 25th of september its now 10 days before the 25th and your already worried, better start worry from the 26th of september, its way better for your nerves

 

[gruso]

obscure chinese holiday

I don't think it's obscure if you're Chinese. 1 billion+ Chinese people fart in the general direction of Thanksgiving, Oktoberfest and Labor Day.

And after the thread got used to this holiday, suddenly the moulds were no longer the problem but the boards were told to be the bottleneck anyway so the moulds don't block early delivery anyway.

The boards aren't a new bottleneck. They were always going to be produced incrementally; they can't just belt out thousands in a day like the cases. This has been on the unofficial roadmap since it was first put up: "Small numbers will be assembled and tested at first, with the production rate ramping up each week." There has been a lot of focus on the moulds, but they're only a part of the bigger picture.

I'm not trying to shoot you down or take away your right to feel annoyed. The idea of a further 8 day delay (if it happens) makes me want to tear my hair out too. My armpit hair. This is just the nature of the road we're on.

 

[amortvigil]

Lol i dont understand... some ppl here are waiting 5 years, i myself 1... and guess what i dont care if its 1week or a half year later.... the good thing about it is that if within now and the half a year a new better smaller deveice comes out i still have those 400 bucks i spend but.... although that would'nt be kind to pandora team

 

[bzar]

I was thinking, could this kind of advancement model be applied to a game? I'm thinking about an RPG (snes-style) where you start your quest, which at first looks short (the first date set for the preorders to be delivered), but then these mandatory sidequests keep popping up, so actually finishing the original quest would take a lot longer than expected. Every time you think it's just going through this area, getting to the end boss and finishing the quest, you always need to do something else. The quest actually could start looking like a minor task just to add to the effect. Could it be possible to capture the "two months"-feeling (and later in the game, the "two weeks"-feeling) to a game like this?

EDIT: Think something in the lines of "take this sword to the king", but it takes the whole game to do so.

 

[Luftwaffles]

I was thinking, could this kind of advancement model be applied to a game? I'm thinking about an RPG (snes-style) where you start your quest, which at first looks short (the first date set for the preorders to be delivered), but then these mandatory sidequests keep popping up, so actually finishing the original quest would take a lot longer than expected. Every time you think it's just going through this area, getting to the end boss and finishing the quest, you always need to do something else. The quest actually could start looking like a minor task just to add to the effect. Could it be possible to capture the "two months"-feeling (and later in the game, the "two weeks"-feeling) to a game like this?

My one friend used to play Runescape (and convinced me to play for a week -_-)" and there was a quest like that called Recipe For Disaster, you just had to go pick up some ingredients for a chef but then some crazy shit happens and you have to do like 10 side quests and a huge final battle. I convinced him Runescape was shit, so we didn't finish the quest .

 

[WizardStan]

It's not a new bottleneck, it's just a different look at the same bottleneck.

Original plan, as I understand it, was basically
1) Get 10'000 cases
2) Get (or wait for) 400 boards
3) Assemble and ship 400 Pandoras
4) if more boards coming, go to 2

Now, new plan kinda looks like
1) Get 400 boards
2) If no cases, go to 1
3) Get 10'000 cases
4) Assemble and ship N Pandoras (let N = number of boards that arrived before cases)
5) Get (or wait for) 400 boards
6) Assemble and ship 400 Pandoras
7) if more boards coming, go to 5

Originally they couldn't do anything until the cases arrived. But even when they had the cases, they were still only going to send them out in batches of 400 (or something like that, unless I'm misremembering). The mould was the bottleneck to getting the first ones shipped, not the last.

 

[Polossatik]

If the Pandora would be made by IBM, Dell, Apple or any other 'big box' company then I would definitely be p*ssed and accuse them of serious bad communication skills, just because those have vast resources and heaps of people who are payed $$ because they are supposed to know this kind of stuff and have their contacts because they do this stuff on "daily basis". If apple launches a product and gives a sell date then you expect this to be correct (and even they fail).

There is only one problem here and that is that (some) people seam not be able to cope with the simple fact that the pandora team is not some big molog who keeps everything internally hooked up and provide (sometimes a bit to optimistic - I agree) info just as it comes along.

That combined with the fact that they don't want to put just "any" product quickly "on the market" but try to make something that is as good as possibly can be achieved can only be applaud.

I would have loved to have the pandora already months in my hands, but I actually found this whole story a wonderful thing to follow as it shows how hard stuff like this is actually to pull off (and then I'm not even mentioning the actual *design* Mweston did), trying to do it right and overcome all things you never could anticipate (like the paypal horror) while for most (or everybody - not sure?) at the same time still earning $$ in an other job to buy food.

edit: speeelign

 

[streak]

Pandora Nukem Forever, marketing slogan "Only +2 months to wait. Short period compared to the infinity"

Everybody should turn into "pandora on christmas 2009" MODE, and if team releases OP quicker , just say "gosh, it was quicker than i thought"

 

[Sphinxter]

Since the delivery of the components will never be equal there will always be exactly one bottleneck at all times. Like pissing and moaning about gravity.

 

[kaprikawn]

I understand the frustration to a certain extent, I want my Pandora asap obviously. But I can't understand statements like:

There might be people here that checked "I will wait for pandora forever", but the experts can easily calculate if the pandora project can be finished successfully if only these diehards stay on the bandwagen while all others might jump it if the delays are not better communicated like in the past weeks.

I, like most, paid for my Pandora one year ago. I've long since forgotten about the money and written it off (in terms of it having a bearing on my finances). I can't see why anyone, who's stuck around for this long, would pull out now. Unless hit with major financial hardship I doubt anyone's going to be screaming for their £200 back now.

 

[Kyo]

it's fair enough to say "I have paid for this a year ago, I want to have something for my damn money right about now", though

 

[craigix]

Michael should have the Dpads and final keymats any day now (depending on UPS).

These are the first things shipped from the moulding company, we are paying for parts to come as they are done just to show you things as they arrive.

The keymats were altered based on the feedback on the forum and people with prototype Pandora consoles.

The first 105 are going to ship in October (I can't predict when, as we may have to tweak the moulds). You will see users on this very forum post as they receive them.

Then the rest will start shipping. I know. It's 10 months late. But it's a Pandora 1.5 with dozens of bug fixes and upgraded hardware.

 

[MonkeyChops]

thanks for the update Craig, I can't believe you actually speculated on a shipment time again, you must be pretty confident. Here's hoping it doesn't lead to another foot sandwich.

 

[levi]

These are the first things shipped from the moulding company, we are paying for parts to come as they are done just to show you things as they arrive.

Oh, I didn't know that. That's cool.

 

[borgqueenx]

Michael should have the Dpads and final keymats any day now (depending on UPS).

These are the first things shipped from the moulding company, we are paying for parts to come as they are done just to show you things as they arrive.

The keymats were altered based on the feedback on the forum and people with prototype Pandora consoles.

The first 105 are going to ship in October (I can't predict when, as we may have to tweak the moulds). You will see users on this very forum post as they receive them.

Then the rest will start shipping. I know. It's 10 months late. But it's a Pandora 1.5 with dozens of bug fixes and upgraded hardware.

mmmz i just hope the other pandora's will also be shipped in october or at the beginning of november. How many could be shipped a day? i forgot...

 

[MonkeyChops]

300 a day

http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/49128-delivery-notification/page__view__findpost__p__748235

 

[Kyo]

Oh, hey craig. Will the first 105 be shipped to orders from EDs site as well? I think I may be under those 105, and I'd love to be one of those posting pictures on the forum

 

[artheus]

now i wish i had tried to order as soon as pre orders came up instead of waiting a few days cus the site was getting hammered.
I ordered on the 3rd october any ideas where i am in the queue?
hopefully i can get one before xmas or just after anyways keep up the good work