Pandora 2 is Modular

[Exophase]

32x was definitely a failure and came at a time when Sega could not afford to fail. It may not have been the sole factor for their eventual exit but it must have contributed, at least to the start of their gradual decline.


And Sega discontinued Genesis in 1997, I don't see how that was too early.. SNES was trouncing it in 1995 and then continued to have several standout titles in 1996 (DKC3, Kirby Superstar, MMX3, Lufia 2, Street Fighter Alpha 2). What did Sega have by that point? Vectorman 2 is the only game worth mentioning (Sonic 3D Blast was a dud). There was just no point selling it so long beyond when anyone wanted to do games for it.

 

[fusion_power]

I can imagine, Pandora 2 has the Analog Nubs on sockets so they can be easily removed. The Idea already exists for the Pandora 1 but didn't made it to the final Stage. Would make Nub changing pretty easy, I'm sure de-soldering the faulty Nubs of the early Pandoras took quite some time.

 

[Wrath Of Khan]

@Exo I read that nintendo had the 16 bit market all to themselves for a year or so as sega stopped making games for genesis and pulled out of the 16 bit market.Apparently nintendo made alot of money here that helped with the relatively fallow n64 period.

 

[Dionysus]

If your not making money on the hardware you may as well close shop. If you are the more sales the better.

No console maker I'm aware of sells their console at a profit. They're sold at a loss and a mark-up goes on the games. An example of this practice is Sony withdrawing the PS3 ability to run Linux. Scientists were buying them by the ton to make use of their GPUs and Sony were making a loss on each one as Science labs don't buy (many) videogames.

Gph? Pandora doesn't make money on games so needs to on hardware. This will make it more expensive. Therefore cutting costs in areas like unnecessary case re design would be a good idea. Once you've got a reasonably priced profitable system you then want people to buy lots so 5 years would be a good time for the software to develop on each gen before you force the consumer to upgrade. I reckon Nintendo fans are better off than Sega ones despite not having the choice of 8bit handheld sonic or 16bit handheld sonic, cd soundtrack or not depending on your sound system 32x or big cart depending on whether you just wanna play virtua fighter or virtua racer too. I'm not suggesting almost irremovable batteries with 13 clips holding the almost immovable steel back on like my ipod. Just what I think is a more viable business model leading to a successful product, bigger community and more developers (psp n64 emu) which benefits everyone.

 

[Dionysus]

copyright expired retro stuff

Patents expire after 20 years


Copyright is 70 years from author's death or 50 years from publication


Trademarks expire when the stop being used


So you mean retro stuff from the 1960s?


Trademarks from companies that went completely bust?

I mean 80's bedroom programmer cassette computers. Most of the companies went under but in a way the pandora is a spiritual successor and since we don't have our own history for special edition casings we could just pinch theirs since the trademarks are no longer used. I think a black pandora with a rainbow across the corner of the lid would look awesome. The keys are a bit close together to have it on the pad. There must be other things that could be borrowed and it'd jump out at ex spectrum hobbyists etc.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulpod/3450561888/

 

[Dionysus]

@Exo I read that nintendo had the 16 bit market all to themselves for a year or so as sega stopped making games for genesis and pulled out of the 16 bit market.Apparently nintendo made alot of money here that helped with the relatively fallow n64 period.

It was also pokemon and the gameboy that pulled Nintendo through the N64 cartridge mess up and resulting 3rd party sulk. The snes was always going to outlast the md because it was generally a more powerful system. I think if sega had gone with gamegear 2 rather than megadrive 2 they'd still be around but they failed to realise that the gamegears problem was battery consumption not power and went with the nomad instead.

 

[diligentcircle]

Gph? Pandora doesn't make money on games so needs to on hardware.

The GPH consoles and Pandora are not traditional dedicated home consoles. Those devices are limited and make a profit by using DRM or patents or some such thing to take a chunk of the profits developers for the console make. That is why they're sold at a loss. The GPH consoles and Pandora are far more like a PDA and a tiny personal computer, respectively, with game controls built in to make them more like handheld game consoles. Ergo, nothing that is true about dedicated video game consoles is necessarily true about the Pandora.

 

[Exophase]

@Exo I read that nintendo had the 16 bit market all to themselves for a year or so as sega stopped making games for genesis and pulled out of the 16 bit market.Apparently nintendo made alot of money here that helped with the relatively fallow n64 period.

Yeah, but not because Sega decided not to compete but because they could not compete. One of their big mistakes was not investing in on-cart enhancement chips (instead ridiculing Nintendo for it), outside of Virtua Racing.

 

[2bit]

You are all forgetting something here . Takes time to itch armpit .


........................................... OPT is here to provide a service to people who like the kinda thing their providing . What Sega did was to MAKE MONEY ( please read these as if they were in bold I'm on the mobile version ... ) so that they could stay afloat , and the way I understand it is Craig's company owes ED's company money due to money lost due to ch ( that's right they suck so much I'm calling them a gardening tool . please note this is not to offend them it's just satire . ) and so in that manner OPT seems to resemble a nonprofit more than anything else ( to me at least ) whether they intended to or not that's really just how it looks considering how to ship the cc ones they have to be able to sell a 1gigger . meaning they are actually selling them ( the normal 512 mb ones ) at little to no profit .

 

[LineOf7s]

There's a very big difference between being a not-for-profit and being unprofitable. Hopefully someday sooner rather than later OPT will be rolling in profit.

 

[ibisum]

I think Open Pandora has a chance to be successful, it is surviving as a 'scene' and a 'market', gradually growing, small, but nevertheless with potential, and some sort of accounted loss in the early stages is, indeed, part of the risk.


But the rewards could be great, and I mean really .. really great. If the Open nature of the Pandora console persists through 2 or 3 more, successful, hardware iterations, then there will probably, one day, be millions of us.

 

[craigix]

The modular system essentially allows us to charge you less for upgrades (no more buying a whole new system to get a Mhz increase) and keeps us at the potential cutting edge of hardware indefinitely.


We could see situations where we say 'we can get the engineering sample of that 4Ghz chip due out next year but it's $500... who wants one?' and we could make a small number of modules (say 100-200) with that ES chip for people who want it AND make a profit.


Who might want it? Smaller development studios, people who don't want to spend $5k on an official devkit, or just hardcore geeks.


There are more markets for a modular ARM mini laptop, it could potentially become a common demonstrator of new chips in general - no more need for a huge devkit at trade shows - just a Pandora2 running a new SoC.


We have a lot more thoughts about this for the future.


Interesting times... if we get there.

 

[mcobit]

Of course this would also open up different formfactors for the device itself:


If you want a tablet, put the board in a tabletshell, if you want a big laptop, put it in there, if you want the normal Pandoracase, you can have that, too.


Exciting, really.

 

[fusion_power]

And maybe finaly the removable Analog Nubs with an Snap-In socket System. No more De-Soldering when Nubs are broken. Could also lead into different styled nub(caps) for anyones taste. Same for the D-Pad, I hope it will not be glued anymore but held with an solid and common system like any other D-Pads. So the P2 could be really configurable. ^^

 

[2bit]

Good thing I have my Pandora 1 to keep myself busy during the wait .

 

[rSl]

The modular system essentially allows us to charge you less for upgrades (no more buying a whole new system to get a Mhz increase) and keeps us at the potential cutting edge of hardware indefinitely.

*Verry* cool!!!


Will get ICP2 and Pandora2 for shure!!


Best luck for the kickstarter campaign,I do my best to spread the word.

 

[craigix]

The modular system essentially allows us to charge you less for upgrades (no more buying a whole new system to get a Mhz increase) and keeps us at the potential cutting edge of hardware indefinitely.

*Verry* cool!!!


Will get ICP2 and Pandora2 for shure!!


Best luck for the kickstarter campaign,I do my best to spread the word.

Thanks. 300 backers now, fantastic!

 

[T.T.]

so what you're saying craig is that the pandora 2 may still have the same (or similar) form factor, but the insides will be modular so you don't have to scrap entire boards?

 

[ibisum]

Someone is going to make a profit in the market, Pandora2-style, that is for sure. There is room for a very expanding hardware startup market, indeed.

 

[ImmaculateChimp]

no individual modules, a million modules.....I just hope they find a way to stick a second set of shoulder buttons on there, even if it is horizontally like the nintendo classic controller or that neo geo portable thing(maybe click-able analoges as well if at all possible). That way finger contortions won't be necassary for PSX games..