Two Questions


ravensoul10

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Dec 23, 2009
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Hiya everyone. Have two questions here. 1st I guess is....is hotmail banned from these forums? Odd question i guess but i couldn't use my email that i've used for years when i tried to register lol. I made a new yahoo email that apparently is working fine just for this. Anyways my real question is that i was wondering if there is a set price for the Pandora yet? If there isn't i was wondering what the people who did the test phase ordering had to pay for theres through that? Ive been watching a lot of the videos and reading up on it and its looking like i would probably want to wait till this goes full swing instead of shelling out for a wiz or modding a psp atm. Just curious how expensive the pandora is. I gues while im here ill add one more Q. How well are the current snes emulators doing at the fx chip games? Megaman X games and starfox and such. Know my computer STILL has trouble with that stuff but it runs everything else fine so just curious how this handheld is doing on them. Sorry for the long post but thanks in advance to anyone who replies. Later guys
 
Hi,

Funny you should ask that as I've been doing some accounting over the last few days, and for batch two the price might have to be slightly increased to $349.

There is good reason why other devices like the Pandora are so expensive - it's startlingly expensive to build these. No wonder non-contract iphones are $600+.
 
In my opinion you should keep the price lowest possible and go for quantity. You need lots of Pandoras out there to attract developers and build up a strong ecosystem that you can hand over to Pandora 2 when it's time.
 
mali said:
In my opinion you should keep the price lowest possible and go for quantity. You need lots of Pandoras out there to attract developers and build up a strong ecosystem that you can hand over to Pandora 2 when it's time.

Going for quantity is what has killed almost every other start up like this.

It's best to sell less and stay stable / keep quality. We are not relying on commercial games, so we don't need huge sales.

12,000/year would be good, 20k+ would be amazing.
 
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Going for quantity isn't killing startups. You need the proper ecosystem, that is the real challenge. Sure, there has to be enough revenue, but you shouldn't miss the sweet spot. 299€EUR is maximum in my opinion, I don't know the current exchange rate, though. If you want your app store to become a success, you need a certain flow of new customers.

Edit:
I've checked, 1€ is $1.43 right now. But keep in mind that the US is much more sensitive to higher prices. Europeans like to be ripped off ;)
 
I think the worry is that to achieve higher volumes would require outside investment (to cover for production costs) or a massive pre-order list. I imagine either situation can possibly end in disaster (ie. crunchpad).
 
AOL mail also doesn't work for some stupid reason. I had to use my MyHyrule address.
 
Yoyobuae said:
I think the worry is that to achieve higher volumes would require outside investment (to cover for production costs) or a massive pre-order list. I imagine either situation can possibly end in disaster (ie. crunchpad).
Yep, that's a reasonable concern. I think that it might be possible to start building up stock in the 3rd batch. ED said that the second batch won't be limited to 4000 units. They want to fulfill the demand by taking all orders in a certain timeframe.
 
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Three batches of 4000 units would certainly be a very good start imo :) I hope that the lead time isn't too long, though.
 
how are the lead ins for parts looking now craig? i thought they were 6 month, reckon that can reduce to 4 months and fit the 3 batches?
 
craigix said:
Going for quantity is what has killed almost every other start up like this.
Don't worry, if you get 120,000 orders orally, just make them. There's no way people would back out just because of a few delays.
acorn.png
 
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The Pandora is never going to be huge. Certainly not tens-of-millions huge. It's a niche product and most people aren't going to even understand the need for it, let alone have a need for it. It's absolutely perfect for a lot of us here, but we're hardly the mainstream. The mainstream wants to pay $50 a pop for games with fancy graphics and no gameplay, or buy a phone with no buttons because the Great Lord Turtleneck told them to. That's fine for them that wants it, but you're wasting your time trying to court that lot. Just look at the comments on Engadget or Gizmodo - About a quarter of the people say "It's exactly what I've always wanted!" and the other three quarters say "I don't get it". If someone doesn't "get it", then all the marketing in the world won't convince them to buy one.

The important thing to remember is that the Pandora doesn't need to be huge. Five hundred of the right kind of customers will do more for the platform than 50 million of the wrong kind. As long as OP can sell enough units to make back their investment (plus a little something to keep roofs over their heads), then the project is a success. There are no investors or board of directors to answer to. There is no multi-million dollar marketing budget to justify. There is no danger that, if they don't sell at least X Pandoras per quarter, that the whole project will be shut down. They've been playing the "quality over quantity" game up so far. It would be an odd move to suddenly switch strategies now.
 
Chip said:
The mainstream wants to pay $50 a pop for games with fancy graphics and no gameplay
Man, if games were that cheap I'd probably consider buying some.
 
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I have been studying marketing and economics a bit and that's just my point of view...

The pandora is a definitely in a niche market. It's a very interesting product but it's not exactly mainstream. They don't want or have the money to start producing a lot's of them.

They have to make money selling the product itself. If they can't do that they have a problem.
Openpandora won't make money from commercial game and I doubt a app store will bring significant money anytime soon.
If people are ready to pay 350$ for a Pandora then they should definitely charge them that. Honestly I can't see a 20$ or even 30$ increase of price make much difference. They will probably still be enough people interested at buying them at that price. And a small price difference can make a big difference on Openpandora profit margin.
 
zhasha said:
craigix said:
Going for quantity is what has killed almost every other start up like this.
Don't worry, if you get 120,000 orders orally, just make them. There's no way people would back out just because of a few delays.
acorn.png

Classic. If only we could embed the clip.

Actually, MicroMen should be REQUIRED watching for everyone on the forum.
 
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I think that MID/UMPC enthusiasts still play a too minor role when thinking about Pandora and its future. I came here from the Maemo community for example. There have been huge discussions over there and the interest will spike again when Pandora finally ships. Just look at the interest of other MID/UMPC centric sites like UMPCportal. Peca's survey shows, that there is interest. There might be a much broader customer base than many people think on these boards ;)
Also I don't mean to sacrifice quality for quantity. I'm talking about an open handheld vision, that's not limited to a one-hit-wonder.
 
craigix said:
Actually, MicroMen should be REQUIRED watching for everyone on the forum.
I'd not heard of this. Thanks for the reference. I'll definitely give it a watch. I take it this is the British equivalent of Pirates of Silicon Valley?
 
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