How Come This Costs $80?


fargo

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M$ is about to introduce new handheld gadgets named SideShow. A SideShow device will cost between $80 and $150 with touch screen, bluetooth, built-in batter, Qwerty keyboard, 32bit ARM CPU, and 4GB memory.

I'm wondering how much profit GPH makes out of each GP2X console soled?!
 
This will likely have a weak CPU, and its controls plain suck for gaming (what controls? :p). Not to mention it will probably be closed to hobbyist developers.
 
Fargo said:
M$ is about to introduce new handheld gadgets named SideShow. A SideShow device will cost between $80 and $150 with touch screen, bluetooth, built-in batter, Qwerty keyboard, 32bit ARM CPU, and 4GB memory.

I'm wondering how much profit GPH makes out of each GP2X console soled?!



How can you say much about it when you know almost none of the specs? The $80 version looks pretty low resolution, and probably doesn't have a lot of memory or CPU speed.
 
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Not to mention to M$ money isn't a concern. They could give them away, they probably would love to give them away to get the market share.

Of course they can't due to all the old unfair competition laws. So they will sell them way below cost instead.
 
Typical ARM9-cpu boards with similiar clocking like the gp2x with a little periphery added are to be bought for the same price (sub $100).. of course they are shipped without case, lcd, buttons. Sometimes they come with network hubs, usb and serial ports instead of.

I'm still looking for technical specs but it seems the cpu is somewhat weak.

So m$ now tries their hand in the handheld market as a hardware vendor too. Let's see what its impact is.
 
Even the $150 version is cheaper than GP2X! As for the controls, it is just a design decision, it wont add to cost. I'm talking material cost, of course.

I think GPH needs competitor(s). Linux game consoles can be mainstream and in hands of many kids.
 
slaanesh said:
80 Mhz ARM7 CPU...



Thanks. Up to 80MHz ARM7, maybe that just means that it's variable clock rate, but even at 80MHz that's not a lot. And the $80 version is probably only 176x220 (the display definitely looked both low resolution and non-square to me), which isn't any good.
 
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Its apparent that the GP2x can't win a peripherals war. Thats a design drawback probably made to make a possible new model very attractive.

Yet its competency to have all necessary components as a fine gaming device outclasses this hearthless gadget. The sideshow has no real purpose so to speak. I'm not sure what it could be cabable of anyways.
 
Fargo said:
I'm wondering how much profit GPH makes out of each GP2X console soled?!
There are not that many 2X's, so the cost of production will be much higher... Plus Cum$oft will use their windose monopoly to finance it - they'll not need to turn a profit like the GP2X has too, it'll just need to cut off the competitions oxygen supply (read revenue)...

Do users ever win with Cum$oft 'products' anyway? Better to pay more and keep Ballmer's sweaty palms off your shoulders while you code if you ask me...

:gp2x
 
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Fargo said:
Even the $150 version is cheaper than GP2X! As for the controls, it is just a design decision, it wont add to cost. I'm talking material cost, of course.

I think GPH needs competitor(s). Linux game consoles can be mainstream and in hands of many kids.
As someone else pointed out a small company like GPH doesn't have th buying power of M$ so components will be more costly, not to mention that I'm sure It will be subsidised by M$ as well. Besides that the two gadget are poles apart so a fair price comparrison isn't possible.

As for GPH needing more competition I think that would be bad for the community. A gaming device like the 2x is a fairly niche item and to add a direct competitor would most likely divide the community and result in one of the companies going bankrupt.

As for whether linux based consoles can be mainstream, of course they can. But not a console like the GP2X. It would need to compete with the likes of nintendo and sony and require a huge catalogue of games. And you can bet that if this was the case it would be tightly locked down so that there would be no open source development and would in reality be no different to any of the other consoles out there. Mainstream isn't always better, personally I like to be different.
 
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i would not say that the gp2x and the sideshow are or will be competitors becuase the sideshow looks like more of a pda design with its touch screen and bluetooth technology wheras the gp2x is built for media and games.
 
I'd like you to make a gp2x for less than gph sell it for. Prices are always based on mass production quantities. Sell 10 and cost would probably be $5000 each, if not more.

Face it, the gp2x is a niche product - it's not exactly something that will sell thousands every single week like some of the other consoles when they came out.

It's the same with everything. At work we buy full development kits and then throw away everything apart from the jtag programmer, simply because it's cheaper to buy the dev kit, than the jtag equipment on it's own (due to the dev kit company buying the programmers in bulk). Do it with lots of other stuff too (for example, a small division wants an internal file/web server - we buy them an xbox as it's cheaper than a full blown pc and does exactly the same job)
 
Zune, and now this.

Honestly, I sorta wish MS would stop beating around the bush and release their portable game offering already. I'm sure their game division has had it in mind for awhile.

I didn't really like the Xbox first generation when it came out. I don't have a 360 but I admire its capabilities and microsofts willpower to make it succeed. Having SOTN on a console automatically gives it points in my book.

Thing is, with all this, Microsoft really has some nice advantages to taking the portable market if they wanted to.

The DS is great but can you imagine an affordable gaming handheld with a touchscreen and Windows Mobile built in?

I'm sure Microsoft knows this as well, so I wonder what has held them back for so long. And I'm sure they salivate at the connectivity between the 360 and such a device.

It would push both Windows Mobile and their gaming initiative at once.

That said, it'd still take alot for them to convince me to buy one.
 
Fargo said:
M$ is about to introduce new handheld gadgets named SideShow. A SideShow device will cost between $80 and $150 with touch screen, bluetooth, built-in batter, Qwerty keyboard, 32bit ARM CPU, and 4GB memory.

I'm wondering how much profit GPH makes out of each GP2X console soled?!



Not much. M$, on the other hand, will likely make a loss on the sale of that thing, compared to manufacturing cost. Just as with the XB and XB360. However, for M$, the important thing is to establish a platform for software sales and downloadable content - Just as with the xboxen, the real money to be had is from payed-for downloads and must-have programs. Software/information can be sold many times for a more or less single investment in manufacture. There's the profit. You won't find M$ touting that things ability to run homebrew softs...

GBH don't have the luxury of pushing up the price of the GP2x software, so they'll just have to stick to trying to recuperate the manufacturing costs on hardware sales.
 
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Wow, the sideshow looks horrible. The $80 one is way too small to be even a passable PDA let alone a gaming device. The $150 one looks like a crappy PDA phone. I use an old Sony Clie NR70V for my PDA and a GP2X FE for my gaming and would rather be whipped nude with an entire rose bush than trade either.
 
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