mesojdm said:
so thank you guys.. I guess. this has been a minefield of condescending snarks especially from one of the founders of this site which I still have trouble believing and I can't take it anymore.
I fail to comprehend how anyone can share ideas here without getting chewed up by a gang of elitists.
sorry to offend anyone(more confused than sorry actually)
As the founder of the site, I apologize for the snark. Like others have mentioned, though, this is an idea that has been thrown out there over and over again, from people with no skill at all (Brand new members) to many-year veterans with 15 portables under their belt (Mario and ShockSlayer). Nobody here is offended, they are just being frank about reality. I know it seems harsh to you, but imagine if you ran a custom car shop for years, and had a ton of employees all working to build custom hot rods for people. Every few weeks for the past several years, one of your employees decides to try and turn their latest design into a commercial mass produced vehicle, but despite the help of the whole shop, nobody ever manages to get anywhere, mainly because it is such a niche market. What is going to happen when some guy who nobody knows walks in and says "Hey guys! I have an idea: How about we make my custom car into a commercial one?!" It is unfair to the guy (Who does not know this history), but everyone is probably going to laugh at him, especially if his proposed design is something that the rest of the shop does not thing will sell.
Come on though, guys, no need to be a dick to him.
Here is the other thing: Thus far, you have showed us two really nice looking work in progress N64p cases. That convinces us of your ability to probably make a nice N64p.
The rest of your claims, though? To you, it may seem obvious that they are true, but to us, there is no proof you are capable of pulling them off, especially when there is a lot what would
seem to be contradictory information. Not calling you a liar here, just saying that there are things that stick out as odd:
1) How did you grow up with the N64, yet have"over a decade of experience in electronics, manufacturing, product development, and fabrication"? Growing up with the N64 would make you pretty young to be so accomplished, with all your contacts in Tokyo and Shenzen to boot.
2) You claim these are "full fiberglass prototypes(not original plastics glued together)", but your pictures sure seem to look like, well, original plastics glued together. In particular, the undersides of the wings, and the grille by the cart slot; I work with fiberglass a lot (Worked at a sailing center for years, repairing powerboats and sailboats), and that kind of work is very, very hard to pull off. Someone capable of that would probably have no trouble hiding the obvious blemishes in the case, and also know that those blemishes should be fixed BEFORE painting, not afterwards. The fact that your case appears to be made of the original plastics, screwholes and all, does not help.
3) For someone with so much experience in product development and fabrication, I don't know why you would choose to hand-make a model instead of a CNC'd CAD model. Heck, if you are going to do all this fiberglass work, why not at least CNC the buck?
4) Injection molding this case is going to be really, really tough. With that kind of size and depth, particularly with all those curves, you will need a lot of sprue work, and a pretty big block, too. I can't imagine the mold coming in at anything under $10,000 for even an aluminum mold, a proper steel mold will probably run closer to $30,000. Those are really, REALLY optimistic figures, and could easily run much higher than that, especially if you get any kind of mold revision. At that rate, even if you manage to sell 300 units, you still have to devote $100 per unit just to recouping the mold costs. Have you worked with injection molding before, and are you aware of these huge costs?
If you can actually pull this off, I would be glad to support you in any way I can. The hobby of portabalizing is in a bit of a downward trend, and IF this were to be successful, it would bring a lot of exposure and new members to the scene. A lot of newbs, sure, but they would mostly be contained to their own section in the N64 board.
If you can show yourself capable of accomplishing this, then I am sure nobody will have anything but encouragement.
Look forward to hearing from you!