Gamedout001
Still Fresh
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if thats it doesnt seem like enough
Wait The Initial Release Is Only 3000 Units
- Thread starter Gamedout001
- Start date
fishybawb
Hired Geek
What are you basing that assumption on? Do you have 3000 friends who all want one or something?
Gamedout001
Still Fresh
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i am not basing it anything that was my opinion.fishybawb said:
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Magic Sam
Forever Homebrew
Hi,bmxx132 said:
3000 is not that bad for a niche product, considering the size of this community. I think they will disappear quick enough though
Bye, Magic Sam
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Gruntfuggly
Mostly Harmless
I'll be well impressed if they sell 3000. But lets hope so...
JakeK
Active Member
Craig said that if there is enough demand for it they will make more.
Null
Snug
[opinion]
Because of all the interest shown in the Pandora so far I can definitely see it selling more than 3000 units.
[/opinion]
Because of all the interest shown in the Pandora so far I can definitely see it selling more than 3000 units.
[/opinion]
Gamedout001
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that what I was thinking
gruso
thunderbox
This isn't Sony. They can't just punch out a million Pandoras on the first run.
They can't just punch out a million Pandoras on the first run.
ledow
Member
First, the Pandora, like the GP2x and the GP32 before it, are not "mass-market" items. Nintendo might be able to sell several million units in a few weeks, Pandora won't. How many people do you personally know in real life that have even heard of the Pandora (other than through you)? How many members are there on this forum, or every gamepark-based forum? What percentage are likely to buy from the "first batch" (I know I wouldn't, until someone has posted a real review of how good it is and a few thousand people have tested them) or even at all?
Secondly, there's absolutely no sense in producing more than you know you can sell. The only way to know what sells tends to be "make some and see if you can sell them". So, making anything more than 3000 units and you'd be risking going bankrupt before you've sold a unit, or getting stuck with thousands of unsold (but with manufacturing paid for) consoles.
Third, investors tend to like to see how something succeeds, not sustain it indefinitely. So the 3000 is also a "taster" to make sure it can sell and make money before you get into needing serious money to ramp up production. Plus, you can pick up on quality control issues, make design changes etc.
Fourth, if these items are being mass-produced, you'd probably find that in units less than 3000 the manufacturers won't even entertain the idea and in units much more than that you can't afford to do it on the basis of "expected sales". They want to be able to build production lines, train staff, etc. to build thousands at a time, not ones and twos.
Fifth, there is *nothing* to stop the designers ordering more units from the manufacturers (probably in batches of thousands, and probably a bit cheaper than the first batch) once they have been made once and sold enough. The money from the first batch pays for the second batch to be made, the money from the second batch pays for the third and so on. Each step you make profit.
Sixth, say there IS a problem with the manufacturing. You just ordered 3000 consoles that are somehow faulty. Maybe you can fix them with a 1p resistor and a bit of soldering but better to find out on the initial 3000 than 10,000 or 50,000.
This is before you even get into availability of components (e.g. LCD screens), capability of the manufacturers (what if they can't make more than 1000 a month because of other jobs etc.?), packaging, shipping, talking to retailers, distributing samples to reviewers, distributing samples to developers and the million and one other things that have to be paid for.
Think about it. Say there's a significant markup on the Pandora, so each one costs only £100 to produce and sells for £300 - that's £300,000 for manufacturing the initial batch of 3000 before you've sold anything, before you've paid anybody, before you've packaged, shipped to a distributor, distributed them to retailers, before you even know that it works when it's been mass-produced... that's a lot of money.
The owners will make it back in the future *IF* Pandora sells, and some more. But say it's a sell-out and they get £300 per unit... that's £900,000 income - out of which you'd need to be paying AT LEAST another £300,000 to manufacture ANOTHER 3000, plus a significant amount of the boring overheads. And more likely, you'd be looking at trying to produce 5000-7000 of them the second time around, so your spare cash is in a constant cycle of "we made money, we have to spend it to make some more". And if you mess up the cycle (by mis-predicting demand), you can easily come out without any money at all and an awful lot of unsellable stock on your hands.
It's a risky business, which is why investors are usually very rich and can afford to take the chance. On the whole, you *usually* come out a winner. But if you're playing with someone else's money (i.e. an investor has said they'll pay for you to produce thousands of handheld consoles on the basis that he gets 50% of the profit), then you can't just blow all of it on a mass production run. You have to tread carefully and make money at each step, even if it's just enough to pay the bills and produce some more products.
Disclaimer: I know nothing about mass production of handheld computer consoles.
Secondly, there's absolutely no sense in producing more than you know you can sell. The only way to know what sells tends to be "make some and see if you can sell them". So, making anything more than 3000 units and you'd be risking going bankrupt before you've sold a unit, or getting stuck with thousands of unsold (but with manufacturing paid for) consoles.
Third, investors tend to like to see how something succeeds, not sustain it indefinitely. So the 3000 is also a "taster" to make sure it can sell and make money before you get into needing serious money to ramp up production. Plus, you can pick up on quality control issues, make design changes etc.
Fourth, if these items are being mass-produced, you'd probably find that in units less than 3000 the manufacturers won't even entertain the idea and in units much more than that you can't afford to do it on the basis of "expected sales". They want to be able to build production lines, train staff, etc. to build thousands at a time, not ones and twos.
Fifth, there is *nothing* to stop the designers ordering more units from the manufacturers (probably in batches of thousands, and probably a bit cheaper than the first batch) once they have been made once and sold enough. The money from the first batch pays for the second batch to be made, the money from the second batch pays for the third and so on. Each step you make profit.
Sixth, say there IS a problem with the manufacturing. You just ordered 3000 consoles that are somehow faulty. Maybe you can fix them with a 1p resistor and a bit of soldering but better to find out on the initial 3000 than 10,000 or 50,000.
This is before you even get into availability of components (e.g. LCD screens), capability of the manufacturers (what if they can't make more than 1000 a month because of other jobs etc.?), packaging, shipping, talking to retailers, distributing samples to reviewers, distributing samples to developers and the million and one other things that have to be paid for.
Think about it. Say there's a significant markup on the Pandora, so each one costs only £100 to produce and sells for £300 - that's £300,000 for manufacturing the initial batch of 3000 before you've sold anything, before you've paid anybody, before you've packaged, shipped to a distributor, distributed them to retailers, before you even know that it works when it's been mass-produced... that's a lot of money.
The owners will make it back in the future *IF* Pandora sells, and some more. But say it's a sell-out and they get £300 per unit... that's £900,000 income - out of which you'd need to be paying AT LEAST another £300,000 to manufacture ANOTHER 3000, plus a significant amount of the boring overheads. And more likely, you'd be looking at trying to produce 5000-7000 of them the second time around, so your spare cash is in a constant cycle of "we made money, we have to spend it to make some more". And if you mess up the cycle (by mis-predicting demand), you can easily come out without any money at all and an awful lot of unsellable stock on your hands.
It's a risky business, which is why investors are usually very rich and can afford to take the chance. On the whole, you *usually* come out a winner. But if you're playing with someone else's money (i.e. an investor has said they'll pay for you to produce thousands of handheld consoles on the basis that he gets 50% of the profit), then you can't just blow all of it on a mass production run. You have to tread carefully and make money at each step, even if it's just enough to pay the bills and produce some more products.
Disclaimer: I know nothing about mass production of handheld computer consoles.
SharQueDo
Still Fresh
bmxx132 said:
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anexanhume
Member
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- 412
If I had to guess, I'd say 3000 is a perfect number for the initial run, which means you have some intelligent people behind it. 3000 is not overstating the pandora's capability to sell but it is enough units to:
1. Bring the cost of the production run down. Bulk helps pricing.
2. Ensure all pre-orders are met and word-of-mouth buyers can get theirs too before more need to be made.
Craig and co. know what they are doing. Chill.
1. Bring the cost of the production run down. Bulk helps pricing.
2. Ensure all pre-orders are met and word-of-mouth buyers can get theirs too before more need to be made.
Craig and co. know what they are doing. Chill.
Sphinxter
Says What?
3k is a big run.
Svartalf
Active Member
Well...bmxx132 said:
3K units is a nice production run size for a custom device- big enough to get some semblance of a volume discount on the run, but small enough to limit the loss potential for the whole affair if things don't go well.
I wouldn't be doing more than 5k units myself, if we're being honest here.
Heh... For someone that knows nothing, you've done a pretty darned good job of hitting it on the head of the nail there.ledow said:
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Prophet
God I'm old.
In my opinion... I want one.
And I am unanimous in that. /britcom reference
And I am unanimous in that. /britcom reference
Exophase
Nothing good will ever come of Exophase.
I don't think any of the Pandora team expects there to be a problem selling out the first 3000 (if they do then they probably don't have an awful lot of faith in the product). It's not that they don't think they could sell more if they make them, it's that making them is really expensive. 3000 units must cost hundreds of thousands of GBP, on top of the initial amounts already spent. Only a major company can actually afford to put out hundreds or even dozens of thousands of units for an initial run of a relatively expensive product like this. Even Sony and Nintendo can't come anywhere near to meeting demand for their consoles early on anymore.
Once the 3000 sell they'll have made enough money back to make more.
Once the 3000 sell they'll have made enough money back to make more.
Gamedout001
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ok i get was your saying thanks i was just worried they run out and id have to wait for long for them to build new ones.
3000 isn't a lot (I'm sure it will be hot news a couple of weeks before its release). I think it will be great publicity when this is a real wanted object that is sold out fast.
That said I hope current forum members will be able to pre-order before the rest of the world. Would really hate it when I'm not one of the happy 3000
That said I hope current forum members will be able to pre-order before the rest of the world. Would really hate it when I'm not one of the happy 3000
geo12
Retrofuturist
Since we're on the topic, is there any speculation about when the second batch will be out. I won't be able to get one until after the summer when I've had a job and made money.
Sphinxter
Says What?
How many would you say a lot is? Granted it doesn't sound like it but if you had to assemble them would that make it seem more like a lot? Lets's assume each unit costs $100 to build, (just suppose), and add two zeros, does the amount sound like a lot? I think it's a lot since 3k units is about 2% of all the gp2x's ever sold. When they deliver them all at once and they're sitting on a palette for final assembly, it's going to look like forever to whomever has to deal with them. Then there's that, "we need to make another change to each unit", "rather die before I can look at another one", lot.b_o_b said:
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