nD SDK released

[jdarling]

Having a background in Digital Engineering and working closely with many groups to get high BOM (Built On Mass, not Bill Of Materials) let me say this. If they can get the qty up high enough the price is more than achievable.

Board Mfg costs when doing 10k+ is down around $0.02/sqin (and that's not including corporate discounts) for 4 layer
Case/Body Mfg costs again come WAY down when you look at 10k+ builds, in fact I've seen molded costs in the $1 range for 6x8x3
Shipping, really, have you heard of fixed cost shipping? Ungodly low, and they are not claiming free shipping (yet)
FCC - Ok, granted, these licenses alone run 15-30k IF you reinvent the wheel. I'm betting they won't
Parts (IC's, sockets, etc, etc) could be as high as $10/unit at 1k so I'm guessing $5 at 10k+ (and that's a high guess)

I have my doubts too, but I keep in consideration that this guy spent the $$ to create a game company for a game he himself took 7 (maybe more) years to build. Funded the costs associated with attempting to license with Nintendo (15k+), and then had the balls to tell them "screw you, if you won't put it out, i'll build my own box" LOL

Don't count WiFi out yet, if they are using some of the newer ARM11 or ARM-ME cores then WiFi is just an Antenna away. The costs associated with these cores is on par with ARM9's and there are pin compatible versions already planned by the big boys (Atmel, TI, etc)... Still it is a lot to ask.

At one time there was info on the development system, and no, it isn't a beagle board. In fact it was pretty custom in general. They do have videos of the beta (alpha?) hardware running Bob's game, so the initial investment has been made... Now the REAL question is, will the big boys fight back, will it take another 10 years to get it done, will anyone back it or will everyone run, and can they get the teamups required to get 10k+ builds. One movie, Mc Donalds, or Dollar General is all that takes. Guess we will have to wait and see.

- Jeremy

[phibermon]

Jeremy - You quite clearly have experience in these matters so I shall defer to your wisdom. I'm suprised to learn that there is room within the various cost conciderations to actually meet such a low price, makes me wonder if the pandora team could of got better deals.

Reading what you say it seems that the right buy-in partner at this stage could make all the difference. Certainly what they offer is attractive and they seem to be marketing themselves well but it is concerning to think that a big name manufacturer could seek to push a small start-up out of pocket given they have so many strong ties to publishers and have the edge in marketing funds.

I should expect that the Dingoo or various gamepark devices could also be sold for far less given they seem to be in the same ball-park hardware wise. I'll cross my fingers for the nD but in the end, I'd choose a pandora if only I could get my hands on one!

[jdarling]

The entire problem is in numbers. An example, we were looking at doing a robotics platform based around an ARM7 from Atmel. The processor in low quantities was ~$5.00, but if we could figure out a way to get to 10k+ the price drop was like $1.79. Absolutely insane, but that's the way it goes .