Don't stop making GHz Pandora even if...

[Hồng Thất Công]

The number of software on Pandora Repo is huge, and 99% (just a rough and uneducated guess) of them work well on the current 1GHz Pandora.  Don't know if it is possible but if the price can be dropped down to like $250 (don't kick me, just assuming for the sake of this discussion) or less after the PYRA's release, then I think there is still a large number of users would still buy the GHz Pandora. Why?  Well, below is my 2 cents:

1. Not everyone is into emulators and games so they would just buy the GHz Pandora. 
2. Retro game lovers who don't give a damn about Dreamcast, PSP and N64 games would just buy the GHz Pandora because it runs all emulators up to PS1 pretty much perfectly (including DS).
3. Don't know the exact numbers, but many of the people here who have been using the CC units for years and for those who don't see the needs to upgrade to PYRA would gladly upgrade to the GHz since the price is so attractive.
4. Pandora is now a retro of the retro console, and so it will be more valueable and rare 100 years from now.  People who own it will be millionaire 100 years from now

Of course this is assuming if SOMEHOW the production cost of the Pandora can be reduced such that the $250 price tag won't make Ed go bankrupt.

What do you think?

 

[Granitehead]

I think that not possible, because the price for old parts actually raises when they become harder and harder to get. You would need to redesign the whole board. And even then it probably wouldn't be possible to lower the price that much (setting aside the fact that the redesignig itself is expensive).

 

[TrashyMG]

Well it's not an issue of not wanting to sell them, Some parts are getting obsolete and you can't buy them anymore.. it would be too costly to redesign for different parts..

 

[EvilDragon]

Wifi-Modules are EOL.

Nubs are EOL.

LCDs are EOL.

Other parts have not become cheaper.

So both the case and PCB would need a redesign, which would make the 1GHz more expensive in production than it already is.

 

[Null]

People who own it will be millionaire 100 years from now

 

[Hồng Thất Công]

Wifi-Modules are EOL.


Nubs are EOL.


LCDs are EOL.


Other parts have not become cheaper.


So both the case and PCB would need a redesign, which would make the 1GHz more expensive in production than it already is.

Does this mean that you're gonna throw all Pandora designs in the trash?  The Chinese is gonna picked them up and mass produce the real Chinese Pandas that are spermicide by Germans 

 

[Null]

The Chinese is gonna picked them up and mass produce the real Chinese Pandas that are spermicide by Germans

You really need to lay off the drugs.

 

[hedwards]

Wifi-Modules are EOL.


Nubs are EOL.


LCDs are EOL.


Other parts have not become cheaper.


So both the case and PCB would need a redesign, which would make the 1GHz more expensive in production than it already is.

That's not surprising,it would have been reallly nice if the production run hadn't taken so long, so that there could have been a much larger number of Pandies out in the world before the plug got pulled. Still, there are quite a few of them out there and I'm starting to put aside money for an upgrade when the new ones come along.

 

[levi]

If ED sold more cheap Ghz Pandoras while selling the Pyra that will be able, at the time, to run 90% of the available software fine, he will risk cannibalising sales of the Pyra on something that, as already explained, will have very slight profit margins even if sold at the current price.


Let the Chinese spend the money reworking the board to use more modern wifi modules, adapt the LCD interface, modify the case design to fit the new LCDs, and then try to undercut the current price. If they've any sense they'll take a more modern reference design and rework that and if they want to reuse a modified copy of the Pandora case to house it then more power to them - I'm pretty confident that the Pyra housing will be better in every respect, using the lessons learned from designing and assembling the Pandora case, and being able to work more closely with the case manufacturers this time round.