Even more to see here (now)

[docbroke]

Yes Pyra is definitely expensive when we compare it directly with almost any device. But there is a reason for that, Pyra is produced in very small quantities, and even after few years it may sell in few thousands, compare it with nintendo switch it has sold >35 Million units and still selling. Now think about development cost of Pyra it will be divided among few of us, while Nintendo has no need to worry about development cost, it already has plenty of money and just the name of Nintendo makes sure that console will sale few Millions.
I must say that it takes good deal of courage in producing this type of niche device.

 

[levi]

I know, it's offtopic, but can anybody say something about the preorder numbers? Are there more preorders than at the same time with the pandora?

Preorder numbers for the Pandora were never public the way they are with the Pyra when it was released. But I think we ended up at a few thousand Pandora by ED's estimations, and we're a way off that at this point with the Pyra, but who knows how it'll go once it's actually released.

 

[matzesu]

Sadly the German Board is a bit deat at the Moment, only Ingoreis, me and some spambots are posting things basically (and some other Peaple, but not that much)
I remember when it was much more frequent, EvilDragon wrote his Newsposts himself in the German Boards, later one of us dit the Translations (like me, even if my English was pretty poor at this time)

Whit the Pyra, the whole official Newsposts are on Pyra-Handheld.com/boards, so the German Openhandhelds Board isn’t that interesting..

I hope this will change when the Pyra is out and Questions from German users will come, (i will have lots of questions)

 

[Serenity]

I hope this will change when the Pyra is out and Questions from German users will come, (i will have lots of questions)

Depends on how much units are sold in Germany.

Yes Pyra is definitely expensive when we compare it directly with almost any device. But there is a reason for that, Pyra is produced in very small quantities, and even after few years it may sell in few thousands, compare it with nintendo switch it has sold >35 Million units and still selling. Now think about development cost of Pyra it will be divided among few of us, while Nintendo has no need to worry about development cost, it already has plenty of money and just the name of Nintendo makes sure that console will sale few Millions.
I must say that it takes good deal of courage in producing this type of niche device.

Of course, I understand that. Also, Nintendo is earning a lot of money with his exclusive games.

The Nvidia Shield wasn't sold so much, also doesn't have so much exclusive games.
But the quality of it is really amazing! It's one of the best handheld, I ever had. I am pretty disappointed, that it was never released in Europe and the production stops.
I only don't like it, that there were not any possibility to change the operation system.
Sadly, I never own one of them. My former company, where I worked, ordered one of them from the US and I worked with it.

So I can only hope, that the pyra will be very succesfully. I really hope that, so maybe the price will decrease.
Otherwise I wait for the the next Dingoo oder GP2x Wiz.

 

[levi]

I wouldn't expect a rapid price drop at least. The Pyra development has cost a lot, and needed other sales on the dragonbox shop to support it, ED and his investors at least deserve some payback for that before they can consider making it cheaper.

 

[WizardStan]

Is that really cheaper? At the moment, the NVIDIA Shield Handheld has s 1.9 GHz GHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A15 and was released 2013. Price was 299$. That was 6 years ago.

As others have mentioned, it's not really fair to judge the Pyra against the Shield or Switch; you need to compare it to other indie handhelds, like the GPD Win (although I'd argue that at this point GPD doesn't feel "indie" anymore, they've got an impressive manufacturing system)
But that's besides the point. matzesu wasn't talking about comparing the current prices anyway, he meant over the long run. The Pyra has been designed with a modular CPU board. That means you buy the base unit now for large price, and future designs will keep that same base unit and just replace the CPU board: instantly more CPU and RAM for a fraction of the price. So you might pay $400 now for a different handheld, and $400 again in a few years for the successor, and $400 again in another few years for that successor; meanwhile with the Pyra, you spend $800 for the current unit, then $150 in a few years for an upgraded CPU board, then $150 again in another few years and boom, you've saved $100 overall.
Or so the hypothesis goes. We'll see how that actually plays out. ED's gotta sell enough units to justify making a sequel first.

 

[λ the β-Redex Reducer]

Indie devices almost always have low specs for high prices. But they often compensate by being libre both in software and hardware. Being libre is good because it helps with:
• Parts replacement
• Customisation
• Modding
• Education
• Security auditing (E.g. for privacy)
• Making the seller of the device look sympathetic

 

[Serenity]

Indie devices almost always have low specs for high prices.

The new RetroStone 2 shows, that that is definitely not true:

129€ für a device with maybe low specs (so the cpu and ram is low) but also a low price and good looking software.
There is also a thread about it, where someone share his experiences with the Retrostone 1: https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/threads/retrostone.82660/page-3

Can you name another device, which is really expensive and an indie device?
The OS seems to be a very good alternative for the pandora (or the pyra), but with the "CPU changes", i don't know, if it will work.
[doublepost=1566758434,1566750548][/doublepost]

Preorder numbers for the Pandora were never public the way they are with the Pyra when it was released. But I think we ended up at a few thousand Pandora by ED's estimations, and we're a way off that at this point with the Pyra, but who knows how it'll go once it's actually released.

how many pre-orders are for the pyra? Is that also a secret?
I think, it's not called "OpenPyra" like "OpenPandora", isn't it?

 

[Mese96]

Pyra preorders:
http://p.rdw.se/pyra-preorder.html

 

[λ the β-Redex Reducer]

The new RetroStone 2 shows, that that is definitely not true:

No, it does not. Because I said "almost" you'd need a lot more data than one counter example to disprove what I said. Having said that I do not have that data either so I guess I could be wrong too.

Can you name another device, which is really expensive and an indie device?

I was mostly thinking of the Librem 5, Pyra, Neo900 (which is vaporware unfortunately), and Neo Freerunner when I said that.

 

[levi]

how many pre-orders are for the pyra? Is that also a secret?
I think, it's not called "OpenPyra" like "OpenPandora", isn't it?

Yes, but that's just a name, and one that's optional at best anyway. The Pyra doesn't have closed source nubs that are impossible to debug, plus we already have the schematics for a v5 pyra, and I guess we're only missing the layout files to make that a truly open device, plus like the Pandora it's source code is based on Linux, so only a few binary blobs are short of it being fully open source.

There were a little over 1000 preorders last time I ran the weekly preorder stats thread (I had to stop doing that with the recent shop redesign which killed all of the tools I had been using, but it kind of felt like the right time anyway). Lightkey on the IRC presents weekly stats every Saturday at 11ish and they're still a little over 1000.

 

[Grench]

Anyone else find it amusing that we have a new batch of overly negative insertions into news threads at a point where physical Pyras are being assembled? Yes, these are mid to advanced prototype stage units. They are physical proof that the project is proceeding. This is cause for celebrating the project. It is advancing.

To the negative posters above - if you don't want the Pyra to happen or feel that the project is an affront to you in some way, simply don't buy one. There is no need to haunt the project threads this way. Does going into these forums to sling negativity boost your egos or something?

 

[elvissteinjr]

Is everybody lacking long-term memory regarding the Pandora story now? This is just from top of my head, so there may be inaccuracy in these, but the initial pre-order numbers for the Pandora were about 4000 and overall 7000-ish units before they stopped being made iirc. These numbers were far from secret, but I really don't feel like digging the sources out. May be off a little as said, but something around these numbers.

I've been helping out at Gamescom for the past 5 years. The Pyra is happening. It will not be the greatest device ever made, nor will it have the fanciest build quality (if one thing, it will be sturdy tho). But it's real and getting better with every revision.
Better cases and CPU boards are a real possibility for the future, but the base device has to be released first. The shop is doing well and is already financing parts of the development, so the project won't go under.

 

[levi]

Pyra preorders:
http://p.rdw.se/pyra-preorder.html

See that white space at the right of the graph? That's a spin-off of the tools I used to use weekly, and it stopped working after the shop update. But yeah, as far as I know nothing significant's happened since then, so it's a pretty good number still.
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Is everybody lacking long-term memory regarding the Pandora story now? This is just from top of my head, so there may be inaccuracy in these, but the initial pre-order numbers for the Pandora were about 4000 and overall 7000-ish units before they stopped being made iirc. These numbers were far from secret, but I really don't feel like digging the sources out. May be off a little as said, but something around these numbers.

I had forgotten that, yes. But then I remembered who gave us those numbers.

I've been helping out at Gamescom for the past 5 years. The Pyra is happening. It will not be the greatest device ever made, nor will it have the fanciest build quality (if one thing, it will be sturdy tho). But it's real and getting better with every revision.

Yep, and it will have one of the best communities to support it.

 

[λ the β-Redex Reducer]

Anyone else find it amusing that we have a new batch of overly negative insertions into news threads at a point where physical Pyras are being assembled?

I guess it is a bit fun to get some variety in attitude. But for me it does not matter much anyway, the reason why I pre-ordered the Pyra all still hold so I am not going to cancel my pre-order just because the Pyra is a bit late.

 

[Serenity]

I was mostly thinking of the Librem 5, Pyra, Neo900 (which is vaporware unfortunately), and Neo Freerunner when I said that.

So the list is besides Pyra/Pandora only Librem 5 and Neo Freerunner.
Let me name some others:

• Jolla Smartphone / Tablet (both not expensive)
• GPD XD
• GP2x F100/F200, Wiz
• Vector Smartwatch
• RetroStone/Raspiboy

It's difficult to say, what is "indie". Purism is also a company with a revenue of 1 Million $.
So I wouldn't agree, that good indie devices has to be expensive.

 

[ClockworkCoder]

So I wouldn't agree, that good indie devices has to be expensive.

I think that depends on what they're doing. The more niche it is, then the higher the likely development cost, but also the less competition there may be. There are many "indie" mods, upgrades and hardware for retro computers that cost a lot of money, but they are only available from a few limited resources and so are well worth the price to those that want them. On the other hand, devices that offer things like like pocket (retro) gaming is ten-a-penny, so they either have more resources available to pool from, and/or are squeezed in price by tighter competition.

People will be happy to pay a premium on devices like the Pyra because they offer aspects / features that you cannot buy anywhere else.

 

[λ the β-Redex Reducer]

So the list is besides Pyra/Pandora only Librem 5 and Neo Freerunner.
Let me name some others:

• Jolla Smartphone / Tablet (both not expensive)
• GPD XD
• GP2x F100/F200, Wiz
• Vector Smartwatch
• RetroStone/Raspiboy

It's difficult to say, what is "indie". Purism is also a company with a revenue of 1 Million $.
So I wouldn't agree, that good indie devices has to be expensive.

I did not said nor imply that they have to be expensive. Though to be fair, there are more cheap indie devices than I thought. And some of those are pretty libre too. And you did not even mention the PinePhone which is another cheap indie device.

But I still think that due to smaller batches indie devices tend to be more expensive than devices of large companies when specs are accounted for.

 

[Serenity]

And you did not even mention the PinePhone which is another cheap indie device.

because I don't know it :-D Thanks for the info!

But I still think that due to smaller batches indie devices tend to be more expensive than devices of large companies when specs are accounted for.

Maybe... It always depends on what hardware you want. The RetroStone 2 has also only approx. 1000 preorders and he found a way to build it up cheap.
He also mentioned it in the kickstarter campaign, that it will be shipped from ShenZhen in China, where it will be produced.
ED is producing the case in Greece, the board in Oberhaching (Germany). That makes it also expensive.

BTW: My orginal Gameboy Color, which still works, is also made in China.

 

[Grench]

Feature to function, I would call the Retrostone more expensive than the Pyra.