Our New Machine, Pandora

Should this thread die?

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Squidge said:
DaveC said:
carry over half of the flaws to the new one it will blow. The Craiginator will probably be able to emulate it by turning off most of it's features :p
But the question will be - will anyone actually want to? :)


Those that need sticky hands, perhaps primarily tropical frogs.
 
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Viking said:
craigix said:
Cushty!

I'll be needing those addresses for next week. gp2xorders@gmail.com

Lovely Jubbly.
I am telling you this guy is just selling GP2X's there is no craigx!! LIES!!! :angry:

You are right, craigx is not developing the new console, craigix is though :D

Seriously, what makes you think this isn't going to happen/is a hoax considering it is being worked on by the leading members of this community?
 
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Tobriand said:
Approximate business plan:

1) Buy components to make the machine: £x for z units

2) Rent a factory to put them together: £y for z units

3) Assume a comparable sales figure to (estimated) major body of GP2x sales (rationale being that those people turned off by the price will be compensated by new customers): ~30000

4) Sell at estimated figure of £160/unit (excluding VAT)

5) Approach investors, banks for initial investment assuming some is necessary for a figure of: £(x+y - personal financial commitment)

6) If 3) is correct (seems reasonable) overall gain is (30000 * (160-((x+y)/z))) - money paid back to bank (if applicable).

7) Gain for investors is their proportion of the initial capital of this end gain.

Obviously that's very very loose and very very obvious. It doesn't take into account the wholesale price, but apart from that, the principle seems reasonable. Crucial assumption is 3) which seems reasonable to me (although it might not to others).

In addition there would be marketing costs, but those only really apply to attracting the audience outside of this community (since it's free to stick a news item on the front page along with reviews of the system - releases of software essentially would act as viral marketing without any investment at all). Bear in mind that people like Craigix and Evildragon have already done the brunt of non-Korean marketing for the Western audience of the GP2x. They know how much that cost them, so they can make a reasonable inference to a similar figure for a future handheld.

Beyond that, which can of course be worked out with some commonsense, what should we expect to be told? I mean, come on, you don't ask about the business plan of any other venture unless you're actually planning on investing in it, do you? Do Sony/Nintendo/Microsoft disclose their perfectly itemised business plans? Does the company which owns Slashdot? Does Google? No, of course not! It's unfair to expect it.

I'm quite certain Craigix has one, because he's been in business for some time - assuming GBAx has been running since the early days of GBA cartridge writers, for at least 7 years, and possibly longer. QED he knows how business works. It just happens that this is a slightly different business to the pure retail one!
Well, to be exact my point was : I wondered why the community did not discuss more the business case behind craigix's project. Of course I don't expect craigix to disclose his business plan, it would be stupid of him to do such a thing (already said that). But, since people here keep discussing every little detail of this hypothetical (for the moment being) device, I just find strange that no one ever talks about business, rather than just focus on technical implementation details :blink: But this is maybe just me, because I am quite interested by this kind of topic (business viability of such a project) especially considering project is in its early stage.

For example, I would find interesting to discuss Tobriand's business plan proposal :
- point 1 (buy components) seems easy, but do we have an idea of how much all components will cost ? It seems to me that the price of the chip (omap) was discussed, but what about the screen, the case, and so on ?
- point 2 (rent a factory) seems a high cost factor. Does anyone have any idea of how much it costs to rent a factory ?
- point 3 seems reasonable, meaning (at least at the beginning) quite a low sale factor (30000 potential buyers is not very high !)
- some other points to take into account for wholesale price :
+ delivery costs
+ delivery delays (may have a strong impact if one component is not available at the right time)

To conclude, none of this may be my business, but still I would find it interesting to have some infos even if it's just some guesses since, as you pointed out, craigix won't disclose his real business plan ;)

[EDIT] And, if we had such a discussion, at the end it may help craigix and co to realize that this project is doomed to financial failure, thus making them cancel it ;)
 
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Deed said:
*snip*
[EDIT] And, if we had such a discussion, at the end it may help craigix and co to realize that this project is doomed to financial failure, thus making them cancel it ;)
Well that's just the point. Why should they realize it is doomed just because you say so? Maybe it's not doomed, maybe they have sponsors, maybe craigix is an integer guy who knows what he is doing and you don't? He has been in business for a while, has got good connections as far as I know in the videogame business and he's got some things up his sleeve that we all don't know about. I say, stop assuming it is going to fail just because you haven't seen it happen yet. It's not even started yet. Everyone can give development of a new device a shot and even the big ones can fail (think of the gizmondo). Gamepark has developed a little fella called the gp32 and noone ever heard of them. They did not have a lot of funds, they did not even have connections outside of asia and now we have got the second handheld out and even a successor with touchpad after the company split up. Also they managed to accumulate quite a huge fanbase without even having commercial advertising around here. Why shouldn't craigix be able to do it. He is not just some guy with a clever idea... he is infact a business man and I would believe selling gp2x consoles is not his major business.
 
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xnopasaranx said:
Deed said:
*snip*
[EDIT] And, if we had such a discussion, at the end it may help craigix and co to realize that this project is doomed to financial failure, thus making them cancel it ;)
Well that's just the point. Why should they realize it is doomed just because you say so? Maybe it's not doomed, maybe they have sponsors, maybe craigix is an integer guy who knows what he is doing and you don't?
*snip*

You misinterpreted me. This last sentence was for kidding, I did not affirm this project was doomed and won't do. I do not have, at the moment, any concrete elements to estimate chances of financial success or failure of this project. Which is exactly my point.

Now, if you ask my opinion, I'll tell you that at this right moment I think this project is very risky and that there is a strong risk for craigix to loose money at the end. But if I can be proved wrong, I'll be happy (after all, I am also a potential buyer :p )
 
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Ever thought that certain aspects of the project may be discussed on other boards to this one, ones more private maybe?
 
Hi there, my first post here. :)
It's a very promising handheld, can't whait to get my hands on it. :)

Also, this is a 235+ pages thread, so please forgive me if i couldn't read all of it. But i've tried, i've read the first 70+ post and the last 5-7 pages. Also i saw the wiki page...So if some of my questions had been answered, pls forgive me. :rolleyes:

1: Can DOS games be emulated? With touch screen support (for games that used mouse on the pc)?

2. Can DS games be emulated with touch screen enabled?

3. So, if i get this right, any SEGA console (except for Dreamcast maybe?) can be emulated?

4. When we will see some actual shots of this handheld?

5. Will it be black color (please God, please be it black)? :p

Thank you in advance.
 
UK manufacturing of electronic devices is a no-no - it just costs too much. However, for an initial batch of prototypes there are companies out there which will take a PCB layout, parts list etc and build them up for a resonable price.

Once you have your prototypes sorted - send the design to somewhere abroad which will build in bulk for next to nothing assuming there's large enough quantities.

You could get to the prototype stage of a device like this from as little as a few grand if you don't have to employ anyone to help develop it. I'd imagine case production would be one of the more expensive bits.

The hard part is raising enough funds to get the device mass produced - and then hope you can sell them!
 
Squidge said:
Ever thought that certain aspects of the project may be discussed on other boards to this one, ones more private maybe?
You mean, it is like some sort of secret society, you have to be a member to have the real and accurate information ?
Just kidding ;) But your answer seems pretty harsh, especially considered how it was emphasized it was a community driven project, and so on ... Also, the fact that the serious aspects of this projet are being discussed on other private boards doesn't prevent us to try to discuss these same aspects in these public boards, right ?
 
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Dead Ghost said:
1: Can DOS games be emulated? With touch screen support (for games that used mouse on the pc)?

2. Can DS games be emulated with touch screen enabled?

3. So, if i get this right, any SEGA console (except for Dreamcast maybe?) can be emulated?

4. When we will see some actual shots of this handheld?

5. Will it be black color (please God, please be it black)? :p

1) Yes.

2) Unknown. Some people says that it is possible, but I think the screen is too small for displaying the two DS screens.

3) Gamegear, Megadrive and Master System can be emulated without any problem. I don't think Saturn is possible at playable fps.

4) On next few days.

5) Unknown, but I hope so.
 
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Viking said:
craigix said:
Cushty!

I'll be needing those addresses for next week. gp2xorders@gmail.com

Lovely Jubbly.
I am telling you this guy is just selling GP2X's there is no craigx!! LIES!!! :angry:

This doesn't even make sense. 'This guy' craigix is just selling GP2Xs, yet he doesn't exist. Even if this new console isn't going to happen, it's pretty much impossible to dispute the existence of craigix.
 
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WORMSXP said:
2) Unknown. Some people says that it is possible, but I think the screen is too small for displaying the two DS screens.
In terms of both resolution and screen real estate a real DS is matched, although you can't arrange them with nice integer scaling for both screens there are positions that would probably work okay for it.

WORMSXP said:
3) Gamegear, Megadrive and Master System can be emulated without any problem. I don't think Saturn is possible at playable fps.
Maybe it's possible, maybe it isn't. Performance of a PC emulator is not enough to go by alone. If it is possible there's a very good chance we'll never know because a Saturn emulator is a lot of work, but conventional wisdom regarding the type of chips involved does not immediately rule it out. A port of Yabause wouldn't run very well though.
 
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xnopasaranx said:
He is not just some guy with a clever idea... he is infact a business man and I would believe selling gp2x consoles is not his major business.
Or, if it is, then it's clearly rather a good business, since it must provide enough to live on!
 
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Tobriand said:
xnopasaranx said:
He is not just some guy with a clever idea... he is infact a business man and I would believe selling gp2x consoles is not his major business.
Or, if it is, then it's clearly rather a good business, since it must provide enough to live on!


It's not like anyone knows what craig does or what resources he has, all people know is that he's a retailer, he could be anything else at the same time.
 
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I also read about hte craiginator the first time and have not mastered the whole thread ( i tried ), so I have short question - what the main difference between this handheld and say Nokia N810?
 
Thx for the answers.

But what about the keyboard? It's just for PDA uses (office, net browsing, etc)? Or does it help in some emulated games (maybe dos games?)?

Oh, and how will PSX compatibility be, compared to the PSP? Or GBA compatibility, compared to PSP? As far as i know, PSP emulates GBA and PSX games very good, but there are still some games that don't work properly on it. Not to mention that is a pain in the ass to make them work in the first place...:(
 
k0in said:
I also read about hte craiginator the first time and have not mastered the whole thread ( i tried ), so I have short question - what the main difference between this handheld and say Nokia N810?
Design oriented towards gaming
 
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Dead Ghost said:
But what about the keyboard? It's just for PDA uses (office, net browsing, etc)? Or does it help in some emulated games (maybe dos games?)?
That's up to the developers of the emulators to decide. The keyboard will definitely be used for the internet, no doubt be used in a console, no question about a text editor, or a chat program, but as for emulators, no one knows.
 
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Exophase said:
It's not like anyone knows what craig does or what resources he has, all people know is that he's a retailer, he could be anything else at the same time.
Here are my guesses. ;)

superman.jpg


050617_batman_vmed_5p.widec.jpg
 
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Deed said:
Just kidding ;) But your answer seems pretty harsh, especially considered how it was emphasized it was a community driven project, and so on ... Also, the fact that the serious aspects of this projet are being discussed on other private boards doesn't prevent us to try to discuss these same aspects in these public boards, right ?
You can talk about it as freely as you like, but certain aspects of the device are under NDA due to requests from some suppliers/etc, so discussion about these obviously can't happen on a public board can it?
 
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