Posted by Marshall on 4, 2000 at 6:49 AM:
In Reply to: Disgruntled-Controller Design posted by FiZZLeRoM on 4, 2000 at 12:25 AM:
: And when you will pay money, which some of ous who wont fuss have paid for a Hotrod SE or a Stick-It, which is not so reasonably priced, becasue if anyone has actually looked at those prices and DONT DENY it have coughed a little hard at its price! I mean come on anything over 100.00 bucks is kinda just ripping ous all off to relive a past.
Anything over 100 buck is ripping us off? Let's look at this?
2 Happ Supers - 20.00
16 arcade buttons - 20.00
Keyboard Encoder with pass-thru - 50.00 (I realize Hanaho uses a proprietary design and therefore really only pays for the chips, but that's what it would cost me to buy one.)
3/4 inch particle board 5.00
T-Molding 2.00 ?
Polycarbonate overlay 3.00
Wires, paint, solder, cable 2.00
Hmm, I'm up to 105.00 in PARTS, I realize Hanaho gets volume discounts that I can't touch, but they also have to cover factory overhead, advertising, staff, labor, and losses to customer returns that I haven't factored in.
Would I pay $199 for a HotRod? Well no, but mostly because I want a custom design that they don't offer and I don't care about having 3/4 wood in my panel.
On the other hand, I probably will have $90 some dollars in my panel using a hacked free keyboard for the interface.
In addition, keep in mind that if Stick-It is out of business, (in my opinion) it is largely because they offerred a Hot Rod competitor for 79.99 and couldn't keep up with the flood of inquiries much less keep up with demand for the product, plus offering a better-featured product for 85.00 less probably killed sales of the original Stick-it. My point is that to some extent, you have to overprice to ensure that you can meet the expected demand. Also, arcade controllers is a fairly limited market, so you price a little high to make up for the lower volume of production.
I wouldn't say 100.00 for arcade quality controls is ripping us all off!