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CES 2014: Signal Announces 'RP One' Xbox-Style Gaming Controller for iOS
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Yeah, but $10,000, man. If they tested that new d-pad in a wind tunnel, I might see it costing that much to produce, but...
I'm kinda going off the fact that every single iOS controller we've seen so far is the exact same price. The lightning port iPhone pads might be able to justify that cost, but these two standalones? I dunno. Something else has to be driving the price up.
I'm gonna agree with you though, they probably won't be this expensive for long, and what we're seeing now are the early adopter prices. See how well they take at a certain price before driving them down a bit once the big games that take advantage of them start showing up.
If things turn out alright, we'll have more expensive games, console quality games to play with less expensive controllers.
nice story but this isnt an apple product. nor are the other controllers. if all these companies are releasing products that you feel are too expensive, either one of two things: 1) stuff costs more than you think. 2) theyre charging too much, will feel the pain, and lower their prices.
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have you brought a retail good to market? i have. in an established product category, but that didnt alleviate the need to do a *lot* of work ourselves -- products dont design themselves. designers, electrical engineers, programmers, quality control, marketing....people dont work for free, each of this are one or more people, working for a salary to provide for their families. all this adds up.
it's completely a matter of volume -- with few customers, things cost more. with many customers, we can discount and make it up on volume. for a new company w/ a new SKU (regardless of how old the category may be), it costs more.
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my bad, not an apple product. but a product using the pricing policy of apple. its a product made specifically for iOS7, right? i even comes with a stand for iOS devices. if it was a generic gamepad, it would be much cheaper.
the dualshock 4 is also bluetooth, but does not cost 100$. yet the RP One doesnt even seem to have rumble. what gives?
I can understand charging a little more for slower selling items, and that this controller probably won't sell as much as a Dual Shock for the PS4.
But with this, they and the other controller manufacturers are pricing them so high, they'll barely sell at all. $100 for a product that's basically a slight tweak of what's been around for the last 20 years is ridiculous. Mad Catz and other 3rd party controllers for the consoles, which likely require the same amounts of R&D, marketing, quality control, etc. only sell for $30-$40 off store shelves.
Like I said before, $60 I could understand. It's a little pricey, but justifiable. $100 for a well built, but ultimately standard bluetooth controller is just asking too much.
It's ok - someone else replied to my post saying that if it is an official "made for ios" device, they have to pay a licensing fee and go through some steps to get that branding. That could also bring up the price. So, in a way you are right to call it the "Apple way" and my initial reply to you was too harsh. So I apologize for that. I see your point.
I do wish they were closer to the $50-60 mark. Maybe I am just used to Sony and Microsoft controllers costing that much. And third party generic controllers even cheaper!
You might be right that $100 prices means these won't sell, but that doesn't mean all these iOS controllers should be sold cheaper. Selling at a loss isn't necessarily better than not selling at a profit.
There is an existing, proven market for 3rd party console controllers; and the controller makers know they can spread their engineering/test/support/manufacturing/overhead costs across production runs of tens/hundreds of thousands of controllers. On the other hand, there's no guarantee iOS controllers will take off at any price, given you have gamers complaining about $1.99 being too expensive.
No. It's business 101: you should price your product based on how much it is worth to your customers (=how much they'll pay).
If your costs (including margins) are higher than what your customers are willing to pay, you need to either 1) go back to the drawing board and cut costs OR 2) ditch the product.
Businesses that follow this rule succeed (example: Apple); the others fail.
looks nice (price aside), but probably only good with an iPad. for an iPhone i think that a snap-on controller is better.
I kind of understand why they are so expensive. But I also have to agree that at this price they just aren't going to sell very well. And the problem is, this will probably be received as 'nobody wanting the controller' rather than 'nobody wanting to pay such high prices for a controller'.
