PCE/TG16 HuCard Everdrive...

[StoneAgeGamer]

Ah, it's a shame it took so long to come out. Given that the bare unit itself was sold out for the longest time, most people probabably just purchased theirs from KRIKzz's store directly or from another source. Is there an option just for the cartridge shell? I assume not, given you mentioned you don't want to create half-kits. It's just kind of hard to justify a $70 + Shipping purchase when a new Turbo Everdrive is essentially almost the same price. The box, inserts, and other trim are kind of nice, but it would also be nice if users had a choice to lower the cost by not including them. Mostly because, as people have pointed out, the Turbo Everdrive is kind of a special product.

Well it took so long because it was a hard product to develop around. It wasn't actually designed for a shell. The 4 holes were added at the last minute by KRIKzz in hopes that they could possibly be used to attach something, but there still wasn't any elegant way of attaching it.

The PCB requires modification to attach the shell. So it would not really be a practical thing to sell and my guess is 90% of people would not be comfortable drilling out holes into their PCB. Its not something you can do by a hand drill you would need a drill press to do it. I think people grossly over estimate the EverDrive after market for labels, shells, etc. Most people who buy PCB only are fine with just putting together their own cart, many are not too concerned with how it looks. Granted I have seen some nice do-it-yourself carts, but most people just carve a hole in a shell and call it a day. This is great thing about these products is that you do have that option.

I think people think removing those "fluff" items would drastically lower the cost of this. It would lower the cost of course, but not as much as you would think. The 3 most expensive components in the Turbo EverDrive Deluxe are #1 PCB (of course), #2 labor, and #3 the shell. The shell isn't expensive, but more expensive by itself than the other components by themselves. Part of this is because I only ordered 200 originally because I was unsure if it was a good solution or not. Next batch I may order more to lower cost per shell. All 3 of these components would still be required for the cart only version. So you may be talking $20 or $25 less for a Cart Only version. This may be something we do eventually when we can meet Deluxe demand, but not something we will do right now. It will be interesting to see how well the 3D printed shell sells for buffalo.

I think you under estimate how many people did not buy the PCB only option because there was no way to cover it. When we originally sold the PCB only pre-order and then the second back order we gave people the option of waiting for a possible Deluxe (no guarantee it would be made) or shipping ASAP. Obviously if at anytime we decided the Deluxe was not possible or practical we would fulfill their Board Only order. About 80% of people who ordered asked to wait. Not a single one of them dropped out and some of them had pre-orders from early July. So, some people waited 5 months for a product they weren't even 100% sure if it would be made. We put the Deluxe back up for back order this past Saturday and had our 3rd biggest sales day of the year. The only days that beat it were Black Friday (barely) and the day we put the SD2SNES Deluxe up for pre-order.

So I am not against doing a cart only, but it makes no sense to do one right now for us. A kit is just not practical, I wish it was because that was our original idea was to hopefully sell a kit to allow people to upgrade to Deluxe and maybe eventually cart only since out of all the carts this one actually makes the most sense to do this since there wasn't (at the time) any other option. However, due the issue of having to modify the PCB this really kills most of that possible market.

We will see what the future holds. Now that we are contracting out the manufacturing of many of our Deluxe Editions we have kept stock much better than we had in the past. If we can start meeting and surpassing Deluxe demand cart only versions would be the next area we venture into. Maybe even offer kits for the other EverDrives as well.

Thank you for your response, and not everything I said we specifically directed at you, just talking in-general terms mostly.

For those interested in what actually goes into a Deluxe Edition we actually posted a photo album from start to finish of the 100th Mega EverDrive (Deluxe Edition) that we gave away on our FaceBook: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?s...1&l=cdf8b90a98 . When I was first training the contractor in making Deluxe Editions he said "I had no idea how much work actually went into each one of these, it definitely makes me appreciate the price much more."

[BuffaloWing]

Stoneagegamer is correct that demand for DIY shell kit might be over estimated. Very few people ordered the 3D printed shell. Part of the reason may be cost which I understand. We are all used to see small plastic part and think to ourselves "this thing should cost no more than $1 to make". But the reality is unless you mass produce with injection molding, that price point is really unrealistic. I started my project originally to satisfy my own need. I decided to make it available only because some members expressed interest and it was fun for me to tinker with. I'm grateful to those who purchase since they essentially help me pay for my copy of the shell. Other than that, I don't expect it to big revenue generator.

[StoneAgeGamer]

Stoneagegamer is correct that demand for DIY shell kit might be over estimated. Very few people ordered the 3D printed shell. Part of the reason may be cost which I understand. We are all used to see small plastic part and think to ourselves "this thing should cost no more than $1 to make". But the reality is unless you mass produce with injection molding, that price point is really unrealistic. I started my project originally to satisfy my own need. I decided to make it available only because some members expressed interest and it was fun for me to tinker with. I'm grateful to those who purchase since they essentially help me pay for my copy of the shell. Other than that, I don't expect it to big revenue generator.

I like your shell, but I also looked into 3D printing and personally did not find it was at the price and quality I wanted. Even if we got a mold made for your shell and mass produced you are probably talking at least $3K - $5K for an aluminum mold or $7K - $9K for a iron mold. Those prices may be a bit cheaper for this product since its only 1 sided and smaller, but when I looked into shells for other carts this was about he going rate. That's just for the mold. Then we would probably want to order at least 2000 to make the price per reasonable enough. So we are talking probably at least $7K - $14K up front cost. Thus why you don't see any custom EverDrive shell molds made. I may have considered it if I had exclusive rights to sell the product, but since I don't and since I don't have any control over the project or a back up plan if something bad happened to KRIKzz or he just decided he was done with flash carts one day I could never justify the cost of getting shells engineered and made. The risk is way to high and the upfront costs are pretty staggering.

BuffaloWing, I actually planned on PMing you, just never got around to it about some other possible projects (not EverDrive related). Once I get some time I plan to see if its something you may be interested in.

[BuffaloWing]

StoneAgeGamer, Have you ever look into urethane resin casting? http://www.smooth-on.com/Urethane-Pl.../c5/index.html You can utilize acrylic based 3D printing which has higher resolution, typically used for industrial design proofing as the master to make latex molds and use the urethane resin to make castings. Granted the process isn't fast nor get you to the the magical $1 price point, it should still be cheaper to injection mold or individually 3D print each part.

[Trenton_net]

@StoneAgeGamer: That makes sense. If you ever did offer a cart-only mail in upgrade for existing owners at a lower price, I'd be interested in that for sure. I can't speak for other people but I eventually broke down and got an Everdrive after not wanting to wait for a Deluxe version that might not come. I'd probably would have gotten it from your website too if it were in stock at the time. (^_^);

[Eyedunno]

I should be getting one soon.

The feature I REALLY want to be added is Tennokoe 2/CD-ROM save RAM backup to/loading from SD. I realize there's no RAM on this device, but it would be nice to at least be able to back up and restore existing save data (like the Tennokoe Bank, but on SD for far greater convenience. Heck, a hack of the Tennokoe Bank software (that copies the Tennokoe contents to SD instead of to card-internal SRAM) might do the trick, if that's even possible.