So How Do We Market This Thing?

[gruso]

I say "we"... perhaps Craig & co have some plans up ther sleeve, but obviously there's not going to be a $ony level of cash allocated to this. So for those of us who aren't devs, helping to spread the word could be a great way to contribute.

I'm only new to the forums so there might be some wheels in motion that I'm not aware of. If so, anyone care to fill me in? I've got my mind ticking over on some ideas and would like to do some brainstorming in this thread.

Go!

 

[Zarneth]

Didn't the GP2x have no marketing budget at all? And yet it still sold surprisingly decent. I think we can rely on the people here to do enough initial advertising. There's only going to be 3000 units made in the first round. And you need to give time for the software to mature enough before you have mass adoption.

 

[icurafu]

I've got a great idea!

How about we all spam as many respectable gaming celebrities as we can with poorly written fanboy propaganda?

I've got some crayons and butcher paper in my cupboard...

 

[wraggster]

The Pandora will be known all over every existing Homebrew scene and thats a massive amount of people, but also the linux community and the tech sites such as Gizmodo, Engadget and sites like Slashdot. What needs to be done is getting the mainstream Gaming Mags/sites to take notice and the build quality needs to be good, certainly much better than the original GP2X which even though they liked the open source linuxy part of it they werent impressed with the cheapo quality.

Any system that requires you to stick the screen on loses points.

The Pandora has some great features but lets hope not at the expense of playing games and emulators easily, battery life on the GP2X was crappy and i hope that its been improved for Pandora.

For me the name Pandora wasnt the best of choices because of the PSP Pandora battery and the fact that in google Pandora brings up a lot of stuff thats nothing to do with this console and google is so very important to all sites .

If the Pandora is mega popular then you will see many sites opening up to support the Pandora and competition is good for the console, a slow scene will lose interest (the dreamcast scene and yes my fault for not getting the dreamcast site sorted earlier has suffered by not having a decent english supporting site at the helm)

Sites from Spain, Germany, France, Japan etc will bring devs from those regions and infact a great idea would be to have subsites that are in those languages, remember the japanese coders are what made the PSP Scene so damn exciting early on.

Another thing that makes webmasters work harder is affiliate programs and im sure at some stage gbax/pandora site and the other pandora stockists will have them, yes some people are massively against them but they are known to work very well and encourage webmasters to be as active as posible and also will encourage those webmasters to send the news etc to the bigger tech sites, it all helps spread the word.

wife wants me so ill have to go, theres just a few of my ideas etc

 

[andyB911]

Didn't the GP2x have no marketing budget at all? And yet it still sold surprisingly decent. I think we can rely on the people here to do enough initial advertising. There's only going to be 3000 units made in the first round. And you need to give time for the software to mature enough before you have mass adoption.

No marketing from GPH but the distributors spent time and money. Mostly via PR (ie sent gp2x to gaming / techie magazines and to gaming TV shows). In addition Craig advertises in Retro Gamer magazine.

I'd imagine it will be much the same for the Pandora - with the added advantage that this time the manufacturer will be involved so every $/£/E will be more effective in the sense that Craig benefits from whoever buys the device not only if via a specific vendor.

Word of mouth / viral marketing can't be undervalued, especially as this is unlikely to be available in any/many shops to begin with (if not ever...) Whilst many on this forum will be willing to spend the cash w/o seeing one, most people will be interested in getting feedback and a nice looking demo on youtube will be useful.

Not much we can do at this stage though...

 

[icurafu]

GPH did a lot of Korean marketing. I understand they are selling well now domestically because of a sudden trend for handheld gaming in Korea. (Never existed before)

 

[BadAstronaut]

Send me a review unit. I write for some games magazines (including Retro Gamer...) and this is one of the best ways to get publicity for relatively little cost (a two page feature in a magazine would cost considerably more in advertising equivalent value than the cost price of a Pandora unit)

 

[Nilsiboy]

I actually had a nice little idea for a pandora ad a few days ago, but didn't bother to post it yet, so here it goes:

At the start, there's a Box, saying Pandora on the top, preferably with the logo on the other sides....

It opens, camera flies in and we see that all of the inside surfaces are actually showing videos. The camera pans to each of the sides, then to the bottom.

The first side says "Play", then shows some scenes from games/emus;

Second one says "Personalize", shows some picture/video/music stuff going on;

The third says "Program", shows some sort of hint at the linux architecture/ease of use of the package system (there are plans for a file archive with a .deb repository, right?)

The Last one says "Productivity" and shows web browsing, word processing, maybe some audio stuff (chibitracker?)

And, last, but not least, the bottom says "Portable", showing the whole device (the sides were only "screencasts") in a smooth rotating motion, opening the lid and maybe sliding the stylus out.

Some more details:
When I wrote "says", I meant "shows the following word in White or very light grey letters on a black background that possibly have a reflection"
In my imagination, the whole thing would be CGI and have a dark/black theme to it, seeing as the Pandora itself will be black.
I went for an alliteration with all of the terms, that's why I ended up with the slightly awkward "Personalize" and "Program"... but I still think it would work... there have been dumber ads by bigger companies (;


What's your opinion on that idea?

Mine is that it should be reasonably easy to make with a combination of blender, a screengrabber (doesn't have to be from an actual pandora, except maybe the package system and media apps, and even those should run in some sort of emu) and some sort of video editor, and, if done right, look awesome.
Well, at least I hope it will

 

[3Designer]

Perhaps some free publicity.. It might sound strange but I think getting sued by Nintendo or Sony wouldn't do bad for that mather Or perhaps bringing out a commercial ultra violent game might even get to the news in some countries.. Atleast in the Netherlands here that's hot political stuff right now..

The highest priority right now offcourse is getting people to know the device, not so much making more people like it, cause that is an issue later in the life-cycle of the device..

 

[Cervante]

now replace the xbox remote with the pandora and whammo! sales!

 

[Magic Sam]

now replace the xbox remote with the pandora and whammo! sales!

/me want her phone number
/me want to die right now and then resurrect in the shape of an xbox controller

 

[Chip]

I say "we"... perhaps Craig & co have some plans up ther sleeve, but obviously there's not going to be a $ony level of cash allocated to this. So for those of us who aren't devs, helping to spread the word could be a great way to contribute.

I'm glad you're excited, but "we" don't have anything to market at the moment. We already have enough people hyped up about a device that isn't yet for sale. No point in wrangling up more until there is something to sell them.

When Pandora does start shipping, the first batch will pretty much sell itself. It is a Linux / gaming gadget, so there will obviously be articles on Engadget, Gizmodo, Slashdot, etc. about it. All Craigix needs is to send a press release to a few other tech / linux / indie gaming sites and you can be sure it will get posted. Pandora is unique, and serves a niche that is currently unsupported. That niche reads those sites, and you can be sure they'll come here for more info. Assuming they don't get scared off by the mountains of inane drivel (seriously, can we lock the "Our new machine, pandora" thread already?), many of them will buy one.

After that, news of new software developments will sell the units. The occasional Digg article like "Full Speed PSX Emulator for Pandora Released", or "Quake 2 for Pandora now has wireless multiplayer" will catch the stragglers who wanted to wait and see if this thing is for real. Between that and simple word-of-mouth (text-of-blog?), Pretty much anybody who would want a Pandora will know about it.

So just relax and wait for the pre-order announcement. Pandora is going to sell just fine.

 

[Karel Jansens]

MOAR NIPPLE PLEEZ !!!!

K THX BY...

 

[Yrx]

Yeah, the first (or second, depending how you look at it) batch will sell itself fairly quickly. I wouldn't worry about it too soon.

As for what we can do, just show it off to your friends. If they get one, and they show it off to their friends, then we'll get a cycle going. Word of mouth spreads fast, and I get the feeling that Pandora will be a lot more impressive in person than on paper.

 

[squeakypants]

I think geeks showing them to their geek friends will be enough I've already got one of my friends as obsessed with it as I am!

 

[gruso]

Ok, all that pretty much paints the picture for me. I'll sit back and wait... it would be nice to be contributing something, but I guess fronting up the cash to buy one is the best contribution most of us can make.

Looking into the medium-term future then, hypothetically. Once the first orders have been filled, a few solid apps are available and the tech blogs are buzzing - is there a next step? As a handheld it's going to have so much power & potential, that it's going to be screaming for some AAA game titles. Traditionally that's a big money area, but does it have to be? What can be done to attract some biggish developers to Pandora? Is that even desirable?

This situation is where ads like the one nilsiboy outlined will become neccessary. No budget needed, they'd just be circulated within the industry, and virally of course.

For the record, I'm not just some excited kid. I've got a bit of background in media/PR, which is why these questions are in my head. I guess I just don't want to be another person posting wantlists and bitchfights on the forums.

If none of this warrants attention yet, fair enough. I'll pipe down now and pony up the cash later.

 

[senquack]

The next step is to stop obsessing over stupid crap and do something creative or get a hobby or something.

 

[Chip]

is there a next step? As a handheld it's going to have so much power & potential, that it's going to be screaming for some AAA game titles. Traditionally that's a big money area, but does it have to be? What can be done to attract some biggish developers to Pandora? Is that even desirable?

There isn't really a next step. At that point Pandora popularity is what it is. You won't get big name developers like EA, Activision, and Valve without huge sales figures or some sort of large monetary incentive. You won't get the huge (tens of millions) sales figures without big budget games from big name developers like EA, Activision, and Valve. "The masses" don't give a dead dog's dick about homebrew or retro gaming. It's unfortunate, but it's the truth of the matter.

As I said before, it's a niche product. That's not a bad thing. The GP2X is a niche product too, and it did just fine for itself. Don't confuse popularity with success. Pandora and the community around it can be absolutely successful, even if it never sells more than the initial 3000 units.

 

[gruso]

The next step is to stop obsessing over stupid crap and do something creative or get a hobby or something.
The community spirit is strong in this one.I'm actually trying to discuss something here that isn't trivial crap. Don't troll kthx.

[edit] Chip - yeah I see what you're saying. Thanks for saying it in a useful manner.

 

[BadAstronaut]

What can be done to attract some biggish developers to Pandora?

Simply put:

1. Have enough advertising and marketing budget to allow for a marketing campaign so effective that a desire or false need is created which compels hundreds of thousands, and preferably millions of people to buy a Pandora.

2. Get proven demographic information of the user base.

3. Show sales figures and demographics info to big game publishers. The thing is, 3 should not even have to happen. Point 1 should happen to such a degree that 2 can be skipped, and publishers start approaching the hardware developer for licensing rights.


Even simpler put: Pandora must have a market share on par with Nintendo's DS and Sony's PSP.