GameStick Kickstarter Consoles Delayed To June

hypnosec writes "Developer units of Android based gaming console on-a-stick GameStick have already been shipped but, the units meant for early Kickstarter backers have been delayed by two months and will now ship by late June, PlayJam has revealed. The reason, according to PlayJam, is that the consoles would require stronger tooling as compared to silicon based moulds of the dev consoles, which would be finished sometime by June 10. Further, because of the sheer increase in the number of units, PlayJam has said that it won't be able to afford the air freight and will be going for sea freight instead, which will delay the shipments to June."

Comments

Stronger tooling?

[Anonymous Coward]

>consoles would require stronger tooling as compared to silicon based moulds

It already takes quite a lot of effort to cut through silicon. What are they making the consoles out of, battleship armor?

Re:Stronger tooling?

[Rod.Dorman]

>consoles would require stronger tooling as compared to silicon based moulds

It already takes quite a lot of effort to cut through silicon. What are they making the consoles out of, battleship armor?

It isn't about what the consoles are made of, the issue is the silicon molds wouldn't survive the higher production volume and the new higher end tooling takes longer to procure.

Re:Stronger tooling?

[Anonymous Coward]

It isn't about what the consoles are made of, the issue is the silicon molds wouldn't survive the higher production volume and the new higher end tooling takes longer to procure.

Another person who doesn't know the difference between silicon and silicone. LOL

Re:Stronger tooling?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think there is a typo. They aren't using Silicon they are using Silicone. Note the 'e'.

Controller

[ArcadeMan]

The two analog sticks aren't even aligned vertically... what's up with that?

Re:Controller

[archshade]

The only consoles I can think of that have vertical aligned analogue sticks are Sony PlayStation* controllers. For this reason I have never felt completely comfortable with them. I guess it's what your used to but having gone Nintendo > MS on consoles, which probably explains it. My favorite controller ever was the original Gamecube one slightly small, but for games designed with it in mind second to non.

As far as controllers go I have never thought Sony really knew what they where doing the the shoulder buttons never seemed to be in the correct place and I prefer the asymmetric analogue stick layout - the later is training though.

Re:Controller

[macdude22]

Sweet Malty Balls, a sane person at last!. I'm surrounded by people that claim offset sticks are terrible and the DualShock is the greatest controller ever conceived, even though it is an RSI inducing pile (thats not to say in the mid 90s there was anything better, but now?). I always felt completely comfortable with a Cube controller, the 360 controller is probably second best. I use a Cronus Device just so I don't have to use the DualShock of death on my PS3. The left stick and buttons are the most commonly used items on a controller and Microsoft and Nintendo put them in the place where your thumbs naturally rest. Not sure what the Big N was thinking when they cranked out the Classic Controller and the Pro Controller for Wii U.

Re:Controller

[Diamon]

It looks like it's set up to be used either Joystick & ABXY or D-Pad & Joystick. Why would they line up the joysticks? It only would make sense for games you would play with joystick & joystick (a la Robotron: 2084) which would seem to be in the minority.

Re:Controller

[Anonymous Coward]

Sweet Malty Balls, a sane person at last!. I'm surrounded by people that claim offset sticks are terrible and the DualShock is the greatest controller ever conceived, even though it is an RSI inducing pile (thats not to say in the mid 90s there was anything better, but now?). I always felt completely comfortable with a Cube controller, the 360 controller is probably second best. I use a Cronus Device just so I don't have to use the DualShock of death on my PS3. The left stick and buttons are the most commonly used items on a controller and Microsoft and Nintendo put them in the place where your thumbs naturally rest. Not sure what the Big N was thinking when they cranked out the Classic Controller and the Pro Controller for Wii U.

I read "Sweet Malty Balls" as "Sweet Sweaty Balls".

Re:Controller

[Anonymous Coward]

I seriously can't understand the point of asymmetrical style.

Given a large number of games, the analog sticks are commonly used, with the D-pad and action buttons being tertiary, and shoulders secondary (some genres flip this entirely, especially RPGs)

Not only that, the symmetrical design allows you to easily flip the sticks around if you prefer aiming on left and movement on right. (I've even used that on PSP before with Resistance, but without the 2nd stick I made the action buttons movement and analog stick aiming, felt weird but got used to it after 5 minutes)
But with the asymmetrical design, you now have your camera control on the left stick up there and movement in a "weird" place.

And even more, the stick being up there basically has no advantage at all.
A stick being down there where your thumb naturally rests not only gives you less strains when playing, you can also make subtle twitch movements easier, and in general have better precision control.
And on that note, people putting their thumb on an analog stick and not at the sides are doing it horribly wrong.
Putting your thumb on the top-left stick equally stretches your thumb out further, so for a large number of hand sizes, it isn't even equally spaced on it either, so you end up gimping the up directions ever so slightly or having your thumb weirdly crushed to fit on it. (which is why a lot of things lack a lot of depth in the up direction, even in places where gravity have no meaning or very little in future settings)

Gamecube controller felt the best in that regard, but the Microsoft versions of it felt awful.
My thumb feels stretched on the outside, that just isn't normal for a position that is constantly held, never mind being moved even further.

With the dualshock design, both types of control are equally spaced in a natural design that doesn't overly stretch any thumb, or crush it in certain actions.
And on that note as well, I hate everyone who laughed at the dildo banana controller for PS3. That controller would have been brilliantly comfortable.
It would be like the top sweet spot of a steering wheel as a controller. These people obviously never played racing games, arcades or drive a car, it is so comfortable. Now we will never get it back.
That touchscreen looks like it is going to be awkward as hell. It is already quite weird on the PS Vita in the middle sections, edges are fine though.

Re:Controller

[Mike Mentalist]

The Dualshock is an awful controller, and the sticks are in an unnatural place.

I don't really understand what you mean about flipping the sticks around - I've never had a problem changing the controls over.

Re:Controller

[Anonymous Coward]

Sweet Malty Balls, a sane person at last!. I'm surrounded by people that claim offset sticks are terrible and the DualShock is the greatest controller ever conceived, even though it is an RSI inducing pile (thats not to say in the mid 90s there was anything better, but now?). I always felt completely comfortable with a Cube controller, the 360 controller is probably second best. I use a Cronus Device just so I don't have to use the DualShock of death on my PS3. The left stick and buttons are the most commonly used items on a controller and Microsoft and Nintendo put them in the place where your thumbs naturally rest. Not sure what the Big N was thinking when they cranked out the Classic Controller and the Pro Controller for Wii U.

I don't understand, your right thumb is not symmetric to your left thumb, or you don't use both analog sticks in a game at the same time, what is the problem... I always figured the asymmetric designs existed because symmetric ones were patented, not ergonomic benefit to people with lopsided thumbs.

Re:Controller

[loufoque]

Everyone knows the best controller is that of the Gamecube. The Dreamcast wasn't bad either, and the Xbox360 is pretty good as well.

Re:Controller

[Anonymous Coward]

Take a look at the Xbox 360 controller some time. It is arguably the best gamepad design around and it doesn't have vertically aligned analog sticks.

Really the only gamepad I can think of that has vertically aligned analog sticks are the PlayStation gamepads and those things are fucking horrid.

Re:Controller

[archshade]

I'm amazed that this is such a polarizing issue

As I have already stated that I prefer the asymmetric design, this is almost certainly due to what I'm used to. I would not criticize if someone prefers an alternative. I would pull them up if they say my preference is wrong though.

I think this comes down to the fact that modern games have 2 different controls set ups. Either 1 analogue stick and the action buttons or 2 analogue sticks, so maybe we need 2 controllers for these two situations, one with the NGC/360 set up the other similar but with the the action buttons and the right stick switched. Either way I would go out of my way to avoid using a PS* style, after using a Dual shock for an hour or so my hand cramps maybe I'm holding it wrong?

Re:Controller

[Anonymous Coward]

DualShock controllers give me carpal tunnel when I try to use the shoulder buttons. It's just too damn small. Make something for my giant American hands and not some tiny Japanese guy.

Re:Controller

[Anonymous Coward]

The two analog sticks aren't even aligned vertically... what's up with that?

Do you always drive with your hands at 10 and 2? I almost never do.

Re:Controller

[Anonymous Coward]

Absolutely. I, personally, cannot stand the layout of my PS3 analog sticks. Hold your left hand up in front of you, then face your palm inward. Notice where your thumb goes. That is, ideally, where the left analog stick should be. Somehow, consumers have been perfectly content, in droves, with the highly un-ergonomic Playstation analog stick layout for years. It boggles my mind, as that layout causes carpal-tunnel syndrome symptoms in my left hand after some time. The 360 and Wii U both have superior analog layouts, but the Playstation, what on earth.

Re:Controller

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody gives a fuck about your lard sausage fingers.

Re:Controller

[Nyder]

The two analog sticks aren't even aligned vertically... what's up with that?

The Xbox 360 controllers do not have vertically aligned analog sticks either.

GameStick delayed

[fustakrakich]

is GameStick denied

no air freight?

[asshole felcher]

That explanation makes no sense whatsoever. The total cost goes up, sure, but does the per unit cost go up? They're paid per unit. More units means more revenue. More units should also give a better economy of scale. Sounds like their cost estimates were way off and they're trying to reduce expenses wherever they can.

So why are they lying about it? What else are they lying about?

Re:no air freight?

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. If the units cost $100, and that included air freight, with let's say $20 going towards air freight, then whether they have 1000 or 100,000, there's still $20 going towards air freight, and generally a larger volume saves you money. If it's still cheaper to do them in 1000 unit shipments, then do them in 1000 unit shipments.

Re:no air freight?

[Type44Q]

What else are they lying about?

For one thing, the intelligence of the idiot they hired to come up with the lies...

I still don't get it.

[Jiro]

Why is everyone going gaga over Android consoles? You can already hook up many existing tablets or other Android devices to HDMI and see games on your television. These new Android consoles are unlikely to get lots of games specific to just that console, so they will mostly run ordinary Android apps. They'll probably be used mostly to run emulators and media players on a TV--except that you can jailbreak a Wii to get that and the processing power of Android game consoles is weak enough that they have no advantage over a Wii for emulators (and only an advantage for media players because they have hardware decoding).

Re:I still don't get it.

[Gaygirlie]

You can already hook up many existing tablets or other Android devices to HDMI and see games on your television.

Well, it's usually the "I have to crawl in there and start fiddling with cables" that puts people off such; the average consumer does not like cables or playing with them. Even I hate those things with a passion and I'm a geek.

They'll probably be used mostly to run emulators and media players on a TV

Is there something wrong with such usage, though? A small, completely-silent little box tucked away that can play all the tens of thousands of games of the past, all at your perusal with just a push of a power button and a few menu-items. I can definitely see the appeal.

--except that you can jailbreak a Wii to get that and the processing power of Android game consoles is weak enough that they have no advantage over a Wii for emulators (and only an advantage for media players because they have hardware decoding).

There is a resolution-advantage, however, as Android-devices can sport 1080p graphics both in games and in videos. Some Android-devices can do stereoscopic-3D, too, if your TV-set supports it. Also, all these Android-boxes consume less power than even a Nintendo Wii, so they make sense for families with lots of users that'll keep the thing going for days on end, or for the people who have this or that need to conserve some energy. Oh, and well, on families with lots of young, active children it might even be more cost-efficient to buy a cheap ~$50 box than one of the more powerful once -- if it gets broken it won't cost much to replace the thing!

You don't have to agree with me or give these things the same value as I see in them, but the truth is that there are bound to be some people out there who would benefit from using these kinds of devices.

Re:I still don't get it.

[alen]

i have no intention of buying one, but the use case is a $99 console and a cheap phone. if you are outside the USA where phones cost real money then this sounds like a good deal

Re:I still don't get it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah but it still runs Android. That's a deal breaker for me. I will not suck on the teat of Google. Those that do are corporate whores.

Re:I still don't get it.

[The Infamous Grimace]

A console capable of 1080p output, has low-cost casual games, and doesn't require an always-on connection. Don't talk to me about graphics unless they're truly crap, because for me it's gameplay that matters. I have a PS3, but am done with Sony entirely. Nor will I be buying a new Xbox or a Wii U. The major console makers have taken enough of my money, and now they want to control when and what I can play - always-online and no used games. I'll be buying an Ouya as well as a GameStick, and I'll be buying my games through their console stores and i.e. Steam.

Re:I still don't get it.

[gl4ss]

you could have bought android consoles to attach to your tv with hdmi for few years already though.
what's changed is marketing.. and bundling a game controller.

they're for nerds who don't have a computer hooked up to the bigscreen.

Re:I still don't get it.

[loufoque]

This still doesn't fix the biggest problem with android games: lack of a proper controller.

Re:I still don't get it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there something wrong with such usage, though? A small, completely-silent little box tucked away that can play all the tens of thousands of games of the past, all at your perusal with just a push of a power button and a few menu-items.

If you see nothing wrong with a piracy (oh, excuuuuse me, copyright infringement) based product feature, why, golly, there's nothing wrong at all.

The people at Ouya seem to be doing a sort of "wink wink, nudge nudge" type thing about emulation but they'll probably get bitten in the ass in the end.

Re:I still don't get it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there something wrong with such usage, though? A small, completely-silent little box tucked away that can play all the tens of thousands of games of the past, all at your perusal with just a push of a power button and a few menu-items. I can definitely see the appeal.

I definitely see the appeal, but theres no money in it beyond geek hardware sales. That and if you make it easy and popular enough you're going to get sued.

Re:I still don't get it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Enjoy pirating ROMs and playing Angry Birds

Re:I still don't get it.

[shoemilk]

Yeah! Tell him brother! CORPORATE WHORES! You can pry my iOS, no... Windows Mobile, ummm Windows WTF?... errr fuck, what's some mobile platform that doesn't suck on the balls of some fat corp?

Re:I still don't get it.

[Anonymous Coward]

FirefoxOS?

Re:I still don't get it.

[Jiro]

Well, it's usually the "I have to crawl in there and start fiddling with cables" that puts people off such

What? The number of cables it takes to attach a tablet with an HDMI port to a TV is one. If one cable causes people trouble, I don't understand how they can handle their PS3 and Wii.

And a more basic problem with this argument is that the main audience for these devices is geeks, who don't have problems with attaching cables, using wireless controllers, or any of the other things that are supposed disadvantages over using a tablet with an HDMI port. It doesn't matter if these devices are slightly better for your grandmother; your grandmother probably won't step in a Gamestop, never mind use Kickstarter or even want a video game console at all.

Is there something wrong with such usage, though?

Using it for emulators and Pirate Bay is just a consolation prize. It's not advertised as doing that. Not all people like to do such things and for those who don't, the worst case is finding out the device is not useful for its advertised purpose and having no use for it at all.

(Actually there's another use I left out. Legitimate Netflix. But existing game consoles can already handle that.)

on families with lots of young, active children it might even be more cost-efficient to buy a cheap ~$50 box than one of the more powerful once

The lower end of small cheap tablets with HDMI ports already falls under the $100 range.

Re:I still don't get it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not put together a gaming PC? You could do it cheap and it would run much more advanced games.

Re:I still don't get it.

[Nyder]

Why is everyone going gaga over Android consoles? You can already hook up many existing tablets or other Android devices to HDMI and see games on your television. These new Android consoles are unlikely to get lots of games specific to just that console, so they will mostly run ordinary Android apps. They'll probably be used mostly to run emulators and media players on a TV--except that you can jailbreak a Wii to get that and the processing power of Android game consoles is weak enough that they have no advantage over a Wii for emulators (and only an advantage for media players because they have hardware decoding).

What if you don't have any android devices, ie, tablets or smartphones? Wait, the world evolves around you, right?

Re:I still don't get it.

[TWiTfan]

Why not put together a gaming PC?

For $100?

Re:I still don't get it.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Ordinary Android apps"

You mean apps from the Google Play store? Well, I'm not sure about GameStick, but OUYA uses its own store and doesn't have access to Google Play.

Walks like a duck...

[Anonymous Coward]

One small problem. It doesn't look like a stick. That may delay it even further. :)

more units more money?

[Anonymous Coward]

because of the sheer increase in the number of units, PlayJam has said that it won't be able to afford the air freight and will be going for sea freight instead

Increased number of units would increase revenue proportionately, decrease production costs and keep shipping costs constant, or reduce them (on a per unit basis)

So, this doesnt make sense

From reading more...

[Anonymous Coward]

It appears they've made deals with several retailers (ie GameStop) and are trying to produce/ship all orders at once, including Kickstarter, allowing them to lower costs on all orders and maximize their profits. From a general accounting perspective, that makes sense, but from a public relations standpoint, it's terrible. They're basically doing the major retailer orders on the backs of the Kickstarter early backers, and not giving them any real reward. It sounds like backers may not even get this much prior to GameStop starts selling them. They should've produced and shipped the Kickstarter orders as originally planned, and then brought in these new methods for their retail partners.

Re:From reading more...

[Anonymous Coward]

It appears they've made deals with several retailers (ie GameStop) and are trying to produce/ship all orders at once, including Kickstarter, allowing them to lower costs on all orders and maximize their profits. From a general accounting perspective, that makes sense, but from a public relations standpoint, it's terrible. They're basically doing the major retailer orders on the backs of the Kickstarter early backers, and not giving them any real reward. It sounds like backers may not even get this much prior to GameStop starts selling them. They should've produced and shipped the Kickstarter orders as originally planned, and then brought in these new methods for their retail partners.

I think the problem is how you are viewing Kickstarter. You (along with most people) see kickstarter as a preordering platform eg I'll give you money now and I'll get the finish product sometime in the near future (and your will see my fury if you don't deliver.).

Kickstarter is an investment/producing platform. Eg you invest your money into the production and if all goes well I'll reap the rewards. If the project shits the bed, then you're out money. Kickstarter has more in common with angel investing then it does pre-ordering BF4 at GameStop. If PlayJam wants to make deals with retailer and sign contracts with devs while standing on the backs of their backers and offering no reward (other then what was selected on kickstarter), they more power too them.

I am, as a backer of the GameStick, perfectly okay with what they are doing. I gave my money to them fully aware that I may never see it again or get my reward for backing the project. Kickstarter doesn't guarantee that a project will be successful even after you've given up your hard earned dough.

Re:From reading more...

[Anonymous Coward]

But they explicitly told people how they planned to schedule/manufacture/ship these products, and people invested based on that. Now they've changed their plans while making flimsy excuses about why it's more expensive and taking longer.

Re:From reading more...

[Anonymous Coward]

Er. If I pre-order a game, I get it on launch day. If I angel invest, and I in fact do, I tend to get behind the scenes access, betas, and definitely early access to the finished product. This kickstarter is in fact far more like the Gamestop preorder than angel investing. If you are angeling choosing to remain that hands off, you don't value your investment enough. I test, give feedback and evangelize every one of my angel and VC investments.

Re:From reading more...

[Anonymous Coward]

You miss the fact that Kickstarter exploits the bug in the human brain that leads to messianic fervor and/or religion. The reason these kickstarter project supporters feel the need to call it "investing" rather than "pre-ordering, with no right of refund" is that the former term validates their subconscious feeling that they are doing something amazing (world-changing?) when they give their money to these people. Reducing this to a commercial transaction creates cognitive dissonance with their construct, which is uncomfortable for them... thus they loudly defend their "investment model".

Besides, when you call it (honestly) "pre-ordering, with no right of refund if the vendor fails to deliver", then who would do such a thing?

Suckers.

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone who wasted money on a kickstarter consoles like this or the ouya are just suckers plain and simple.

This is as stupid as those people who threw millions of dollars at a Bethesda kickstarter game.

I don't know whats stupider, putting money down for a home made console that wont be worth jack or giving money to already established developers that made a boatload of money off skyrim for them to make another game.

Kickstarter is quickly becoming the nerds sinkhole for money.

It doesn't add up...

[jones_supa]

If you look at the summary, it seems like both the retooling and sea shipping would push the delivery date to June, so adding those two up, wouldn't it push the ETA even further?

Actually, the paritynews.com article says:

Following the mechanical tooling, which is expected to finish by second week of June, the units will be assembled, tested and then packed. PlayJam notes that because of the sheer increase in the number of units, it won’t be able to afford the air freight and it will be going for sea based shipments instead which will add to the overall delay.

So we're maybe talking about July...

Re:It doesn't add up...

[shoemilk]

As a backer, I can see the updates on KS. Here is what they said:

Initially we had hoped to deliver GameStick to you at the end of April. We now expect to complete mechanical tooling about 4 weeks later at the end of May. Then the units are assembled, tested and assuming there are no issues, packed prior to shipping to each territory. We expect to ship around the 10th June. The volumes are now too large for us to be able to afford to air-freight them, which was our plan, so now we are going to have to use sea freight to deliver them. That's going to take around 2 weeks. Then we have fulfillment in territory – which we estimate will take between 1 and 5 days depending on where you are located. This means we think the likely date of arrival of your hand crafted GameStick will be at the last week of June.

From the horse's mouth

[shoemilk]

There seems to be confusion here because the story is a news article and not the direct update from PlayJam. Here's what they told their KS backers

Huge Momentum.

When we started this project we were unsure how successful it would be. Our expectation was that we would do an initial run of a few thousand units and then go from there. What happened next was a whirlwind. We’ve now got 27 retailers around the world engaged and placing orders for our micro-console. We have GameStop in the US and Game in the UK as our lead retail partners, but with over 5,000 stores between them we are in a remarkable position to scale this project.

With your support and backing we have created something that quite literally could help re-shape the games console industry. Quite a feat if we get it right.

Dev units shipped.

Key to making this happen is getting developers behind us and so far over 600 developers have signed up, including many great indies and major studios. We’re working on bringing some great titles to the TV and over the coming months we will make some announcements on some of the awesome exclusive content we have in development. We’ve also signed strategic deals with companies like Amlogic and ARM which will help us promote our network throughout their huge eco-system. To harness this potential we have started shipping out the GameStick DEV units to our developer partners and will ship out the remaining units this week and next. One batch has been held up in customs because of the current issues around the use of air-freight to transport lithium batteries which exist within our controller. Hopefully this batch will be released next week.

Using your feedback on these units we have already begun to make refinements on the final production model. We have adjusted the movement on the shoulder buttons, changed the analog stick assembly, moved the LED configuration, re-designed some of the buttons, changed the texture on the analog stick hats and put a mechanical door on the back of the controller so that when GameStick is being used the slot in the back of the controller is closed. We’re looking forward to getting further feedback from you all.

Main Production Run.

The main production run has gone from a few thousand units to tens of thousands of units. This has meant that we have had to change production methods and move to high volume tooling.

Initially, we planned on demand for around 1,000 units so we were going to use silicon molds, which is what we have used for the GameStick DEV units. These don’t take much time to make, but they also cannot cope with the high volume production that we now need. As a result we have had to move to much higher end tooling which is being made in both China and Germany. To create these tools takes around 3 months and is a huge investment for us – one we can only afford to make once. Whilst this work has been underway for a while we have had to slow things down a bit to ensure we can get the final controller amendments prototyped and tested before the final tools can be finished.

Initially we had hoped to deliver GameStick to you at the end of April. We now expect to complete mechanical tooling about 4 weeks later at the end of May. Then the units are assembled, tested and assuming there are no issues, packed prior to shipping to each territory. We expect to ship around the 10th June. The volumes are now too large for us to be able to afford to air-freight them, which was our plan, so now we are going to have to use sea freight to deliver them. That's going to take around 2 weeks. Then we have fulfillment in territory – which we estimate will take between 1 and 5 days depending on where you are located. This means we think the likely date of arrival of your hand crafted GameStick will be at the last week of June.

Whilst we would have liked to ship earlier, we are, to a large degree, victims of the success we have created toge

Re:more units more money?

[servognome]

To play devil's advocate, it seems that those running this project don't fully understand the problems of order fulfillment
If they are shipping from overseas (I'm assuming since the alternative is sending by boat), you run into customs and logistics issues. There are all sorts of crazy limitations, duties, paperwork and other overhead when transporting commercial goods by air that are minimized when you send by sea. For example there are seemingly arbitrary container requirements for shipping certain items by air, which limits how much you can get on each flight. Then there are restrictions on the number of units/volume a plane can take based on the classification of the goods and the type of flight that is carrying it. Additional headaches are proportional to the value of commercial goods being handled, the more valuable the shipment, the more hoops you have to jump through for the authorities.
Most people don't run into issues because the value and quantities they ship are small.

The insanity of commercial shipping obviously is going to be compounded when you have business customers that require you to coordinate their deliveries at the same time. Otherwise one retailer will be pissed off that their competitor got product before them.