Point. And they sold out a 10,000 unit production run (C64x-size)...in seconds, on the first day. :laugh1:
Are you on drugs? No way 10,000 people wanted a c64 case with a pc board crammed inside bad enough to spend that kind of cash.
Most c64 fans would just buy a real c64 from ebay for 30$
c64 was a fantastically lovely computer. But a pc with an emulator and a c64 shell? I just don't see 10,000 people (in seconds) buying that.
There were over 6 million Commodore 8 bit and Amiga users/households world wide while Commodore was alive. There were 250,000 c64DTV solds. I think worldwide, 10,000 is reasonable.
Most bought it because they can have a computer that does real co,puter work to contemporary computing needs not 30 years and not half-ass. You got WYSIWYG with 16 million color word programs. What is printed is usually close to what you see. Mostly ink to light differences. In any case, you can do real stuff but most of those may have bought it for having a modern pc in a c64 style case with a good flavor of Linux with real computing and programming capability BUT you don't have to program Linux to use it. They have user interfaces like every other major OS like windows and mac osx. It is also produced by respectively legitimate licensee of the trademark and brand.
Of the 6 million individual users in the peak and probably closer to 10-12 million distinct individuals having bought c64s and a number of them were the bulk of Amiga purchasers. There is others who didn't get a Commodore back in the day that wanted one and probably had got one near the end or second hand shortly after 1994/1995 and then was part of the community when the community was closer to a million active users and they left with the mass progressive exodus between 1995-2000. Those years had huge impacts on the Commodore community. There is not remotely that many Commodore and Amiga users active. I have not seen much of any computer hardware product from anyone other than CMD that sold more than 250 in a 1-3 year span. How many hardware products other than x-cables and other cheap cales made by many different hobbyists and vendors, sold in the order of 1000+.
Anyone ?
The life blood of any business to be in business is to have cash revenues. Other than what can be said as tax fraud are you making profit. Deliberately making products knowing you never make a profit on is not something that can be lawfully used as business loss on taxes. Deliberately making a business loss and getting the IRS to reward you for that... Is definitely an abuse of the system and best described as a form of tax fraud.
I am not sure about the other countries but I would think they would have measures to come in with police force, break your legs and throw in jail while waiting for years to get a trial and even then it is a kangaroo court.
The hobby 'business' maybe more relaxed on these issues but to be a business.. The bottom line must be kept in mind.
For a developer to make this something of a full-time business, you better make the money or you better have a serious trust fund or win the PCH $5000 a week for life or the big lottery or a government supporting your living expenses (social security, welfare, etc.). Then yeah, I can see you doing this for nothing.
The majority of us don't have that and every hour spent on producing something must be accounted for.
Can any of you really be able to support customers daily and spend 40 hours a week or more running a business dedicated to the Commodore and Amiga classic systems developing hardware and software as commercialware?
I think we agree that is not a reality at this point in time and probably not for any foreseeable future.
I know people have came to accustom of waiting 10 years for an order to be fulfilled.
Lets think about this for a moment. Some of you might know what I am referring to.
One of the challenges for me to purchase stuff from hobbyist is I am not in any desire to wait 10 years for an order to be fulfilled and it never gets fulfilled. I want something in a reasonable timeframe fulfilled. I can handle a few months from a hobbyist. It depends of course.
