Posted by saint on 24, 2001 at 12:22 AM:
In Reply to: Re: OzStick HAVE left room for a spinner..... posted by Same old same old... on 23, 2001 at 10:29 PM:
I don't think anyone disagrees that there are numerous possibilities for building spinners. I don't however agree that the companies should be taken too terribly to task for not having them (particularly any of the smaller companies) already.
A good average price for a spinner is about $50 give or take -- yet people already complain about the cost of the HotRod without these extras added on. Almost any business person worthy of the name knows that volume selling is a much better way to make money than high profits on lower sales. I have to think that the costs of mass producing a viable spinner are what's preventing them from being offered on arcade sticks so far, and not the technology behind them.
A brief trip down memory lane: V-Stick, Retrostick (remember Brent Geery anyone? One of the original guys who did this? You out there Brent? Say hi! :) ), CustomArcade, Stick-It, Arcade2000, ArcadeSolutions, and a couple of others... All of these have been commercial ventures that failed or decided it wasn't worth the effort for pretty much the same reason - the difficulty in mass producing their product and getting it to the customer in time. All of these IMHO were good quality products who succumbed to overwhelming demand. Richard/HotRod did a very smart thing by teaming up with the manufacturing and distribution clout of Hanaho. Has anyone noticed that out of all the vendors, there have been essentially zero complaints about the quality of the product? Barring a few statistically insignificant (and I don't mean to minimize anyone's ordeal, but there just haven't been many complaints about quality) complaints, all problems have been with actually getting the product in hand, not the quality of the product.
It will be interesting (and my best wishes and hopes!) to see how Oscar, Fultra, OzStick, X-Gaming and a few others (forgive me for missing anyone, it's very late and my son is trying to help me write this) make out with their ventures. I think the make/break will be their ability to supply the demand they accept, and of course that's basic economics.
Hence, what's holding up a super arcade stick with spinners and trackballs? Economic methinks, not technology. BTW - for anyone in the business trying to solve this trick, take a look at the Wingman Warrior once sold by Logitech - the incorporated a spinner in a mass produced stick, maybe there's something to learn there...?
My 2 bits...
(BTW - regarding taking YEARS for research... this whole hobby is only a 3 years old, most vendors have been around a year or less)
--- saint
: Why does this 'premature' announcement sound the same as everyone elses?? Because it is. How come it has also taken you YEARS to do 'research' on how to add an affordable spinner. C'mon we've been doing custom spinners for a long time now; there's no real research or secrets as to how to make them correctly. Looks like we'll be waiting ANOTHER YEAR from all these companies. *SIGH*