It’s a niche gizmo they’re selling for a healthy profit. The break-even point has to be very low. They want some people to buy it. But they don’t care if you buy it.
They don’t need to spend money supporting it because it’s strictly local. If it was a new PSP, there’d be a whole storefront, and updates, and complex risk assessment for how much to spend for expected returns. There’d be a huge marketing push to ensure they hit some lofty goal for sales figures.
But this is a split controller glued to a shite Android tablet. It’s low-risk. It could have sold zero units and they’d shrug off a minor loss. They don’t expect it to sell a zillion units, and they don’t need it to sell a zillion units. It’s there for anyone who wants one.
I don’t think developing and selling a whole hardware device is quite so trivial, but I also doubt that it would mean they don’t mind taking losses on it. This is not a new market that would be worth risking a loss to get a headstart, people could even get the same experience with… a tablet and a split controller, which has a lot more functionality.
I don’t know what’s your point with “they don’t care if you buy it”. Of course they don’t have a department keeping track of one single guy. Sounds like you are taking criticism of this device personally.
I’d think companies like Sony do care if people buy or not
It’s a niche gizmo they’re selling for a healthy profit. The break-even point has to be very low. They want some people to buy it. But they don’t care if you buy it.
They don’t need to spend money supporting it because it’s strictly local. If it was a new PSP, there’d be a whole storefront, and updates, and complex risk assessment for how much to spend for expected returns. There’d be a huge marketing push to ensure they hit some lofty goal for sales figures.
But this is a split controller glued to a shite Android tablet. It’s low-risk. It could have sold zero units and they’d shrug off a minor loss. They don’t expect it to sell a zillion units, and they don’t need it to sell a zillion units. It’s there for anyone who wants one.
I don’t think developing and selling a whole hardware device is quite so trivial, but I also doubt that it would mean they don’t mind taking losses on it. This is not a new market that would be worth risking a loss to get a headstart, people could even get the same experience with… a tablet and a split controller, which has a lot more functionality.
I don’t know what’s your point with “they don’t care if you buy it”. Of course they don’t have a department keeping track of one single guy. Sounds like you are taking criticism of this device personally.