As others mentioned before: Vapourware is something that never turns up. But we're regularly shipping. So even if things are moving very slow, it's not Vapourware.
I paid 1 bitcoin for my preorder in May 2016, a full 7 years ago now. Today, that bitcoin would be worth nearly US$30,000.
Well, it's up to anyone to decide how they spend their money. The same could happen with any other currency as well (just take a look at Turkish Lira at the moment, which has a high inflation).
So if you had bought it using Turkish Lira back then, it would've been the other way round and I would've made a loss.
Besides, it could also have happened that the BItcoin crashed and would be worth nothing these days.
And even if a currency is stable: you could've invested these 330 / 400 EUR into any other projects or even use it to play the lottery and make a huge win with that.
It's up to anyone himself to decide how he spends his own money.
There is always "progress" on development, but nothing ever really gets done. ED gives us reassuring words, he is still committed, he is still working hard, but there is always some new excuse.
Unfortunately, yes. There's not that much I can do.
It's no secret that I've already admitted that this project has gone wrong in a lot of ways: Issues with the case, with the SoC, and so on.
This did all cost a lot of additional money which wasn't planned. When planning the project, I've requested quotes and estimations from various companies and added around 50k EUR on top to be on the save side.
However, with all the issues that happened, those 50k weren't nearly enough. It's probably more than 200k I've had to spend on top.
Coating the next 500 new cases alone does cost 7000 EUR. That money has to come from somewhere, so I've been using all the profits of my shop trying to fix the things and move ahead with the Pyra.
This is slow, sometimes very slow - but we're moving. The wage I pay out from my shop is the minimum I have to do by law (which something around 650 EUR per month - yep, that's all I earn from working almost fulltime for my own company).
I could've also given up fully on the project and be done with it. If everyone would request a refund then, I could've filed for bankruptcy and no one would ever receive anything back.
I could then open up a new company which only runs the shop and be happy with all the profits I make. But that's not what I want to do.
I prefer to fulfill all my liablilites instead of running and hiding.
Believe me, if I got rid of the Pyra and it's liabilties by filing for bankruptcy, I would've made a lot more money from the profits of the shop compared to the 30k increase of the bitcoin back then....
You've been given enough time, enough money, enough second chances.
That's for every customer to decide.
Money: Well, yes and no. That's why new preorders will stop and I'm already covering all additional expenses with shop profits that have nothing to do with the Pyra. That should comply to your idea. Others might think: Why should he handle that all by himself and would offer more money if it helps and if they can afford it. It's up to anyone himself to decide.
The same can be said about time: However, the voucher code you received could always be used in the shop for anything else. If you got tired of waiting, you could've used it to buy a GPD Win or any other device as well. It's not bound to the Pyra.
There are also people who requested their money back, that's not a problem.
Second Chances...? That doesn't even make sense, as a second chance would mean that we all forget about what happened (including the payments I received) and we simply try to do it again
Again: From the very beginning starting with the preorder, it has been made clear that the money you spend here could be lost forever, in case something goes horribly wrong.
It was also made clear that it could take a long time (though i admit I also thought it should be a lot faster compared to the Pandora, I certainly didn't expect all these issues to happen).
And the voucher you bought can be used for anything else in the shop in case you got tired of waiting. I don't think I could've made that more open, fair and clear.
And - unlike other failed Kickstarters or failing projects: I never thought about asking for more money from any of the Preorderers and will stick to the price I told them years ago. Even though this is now a loss for me (simply because the money these days is worth less than back then). But I won't do that. Period. Everyone is welcome to donate something if he / she wants, but I won't REQUEST anything. It's as simple as that.
If there's anything you think I could've done more fair or better, let me know.
Admit this project is dead, ED.
A project is dead when it's been given up on it.
That's not the case. I've just paid a couple of thousand EUR to hns to get AESS running. I've spend a couple of thousand EUR on the updated cases and the coating of them.
Why should I do that if the project is dead? That money could've been used to send out refunds, which would make more sense for a dead project.
We're also checking out regulary various SoCs to see if there's a possible candidate for a CPU board upgrade.
That's also something you don't do if a project is dead.
And, as people above said: We're also delivering units. This also doesn't happen with dead projects.
So yes, it's incredibly slow at the moment, so you could call it near-dead ("I'm not dead yet!"), but as long as we deliver and continue to work on it, it's certainly not dead.
And the slowness mainly comes from missing funds.
Believe me, if I had 200k EUR on hand, I would seek the nearest plastic production company in Germany (which happens to be just 5km away from me), would create a completely redesigned case (which would have a replaceable backplate as well so we could change the ports in the future, for example with USB-C) and buy tons of evaluation boards for a new CPU upgrade.
As I don't have these, all I can do is continue to deliver what we have, albeit slowly, and try to make profits to be able to work on these upgrades at some time.
But there are also still 300k EUR I have to pay back to investors (back from when I rescued the Pandora), so profit has to be spent for paying them back as well.
Let me know:
Would you prefer it if I stop working on the project, call it dead and file for bankruptcy because I can't pay back all the preorders - or if I continue to work on it, deliver units as good as possible, send out refunds if customers request it (or they use the voucher for something else) and pay back all liabilities, even though it takes a long time.
