Posted by Watchdog on 3, 2001 at 7:19 PM:
In Reply to: Just my 2 pence (2.94 cents!) worth... posted by Andy warne on 3, 2001 at 2:51 PM:
Why aren't there cheaper single joystick units ? The vast majority of classic arcade games have a single joystick and up to 2 buttons for play and the 2 start buttons. Far fewer classic games have other controls like two joysticks, trackball, spinner, or a control yolk. Therefore a single joystick unit with a few buttons would be suitable for most people and should likely cost at most $99 since it would only have half the inputs and be half the size of the current ones.
Valid points regarding PC motherboards but still it doesn't seem right that a game controller should cost more than a new game console. The Hotrod/X-Arcade is bad enough being as much as the GameCube but this Slikstik is even more than the Playstation 2. True it's a small volume market but still isn't there a point where the price is too high and you cut off part of your potential market ?
: Items like this are bound to be fairly pricey owing to the low volume and need for a custom made casing, machining etc. The only way to get the price down would be to invest heavily in tooling for injection molding and turn out thousands of them. Then you could also use the benefit of a molded case to sculpture the top panel and generally make it less boxy and more appealing to a mass market. They would also have to be made in the Far East. That is exactly what Ray at CustomArcade was intending to do but, as Ray has no doubt found, it's not easy! Also is there that big a market for mass-produced consoles? Don't forget here we have a specialist group of nuts, errrm.. enthusiasts!
: There is no way you can compare this to the cost of a PC. How many PC motherboards do you think the Taiwanese manufacturers have to produce in order to make a small margin on their cost? Answer: 1 MILLION units a month is the total output from Taiwan. It's a whole different ball game. A small-volume hand-made unit will command this kind of premium price whether it's an arcade panel or any other kind of item.