Posted by JP4 on 17, 2000 at 7:35 PM:
In Reply to: To elaborate on an earlier post about put-together cabinets... (please read) posted by PacFan on 17, 2000 at 1:53 PM:
Bob,
I'll admit that it looks like a great idea on paper. I mean, how many of us with cabinets have had friends drool over it? But there are a couple of "marketing"-type obsticles that you'll face:
1. I really don't think that anyone here on this board would buy one. After all, most of us have already done our own cabs, or are in the process of doing so.
2. There is still some amount of "work" involved in wiring up the buttons and joysticks, and anything electronic like that frightens the average person. Which brings me to my third point:
3. Most arcade builders/collectors AREN'T "average people". We are kind of on the fringe a bit, and that's why most of us aren't afraid to charge ahead and tackle this project ourselves.
So you're kind of at a catch-22 there. People who aren't afraid of the work will build their own; people who don't want to do any work will buy a PCArcade from Hanaho. I'm just not sure that there's quite the market for that "middle ground" or not. I could be WAY off-base though.
Perhaps a decent idea would be to sell blueprints of your cabinet design with detailed assembly instructions (kind of the way that TwistyGrip did with their flight yokes)? I'm just afraid that by the time you factor in the cost of cutting, packaging, and shipping people the pieces of wood that they could've just gotten themselves, you won't make money at it.
Just my $0.02.
-JP4