SMACH Z the PC handheld console. Kickstarted achieved in 2 days. Specs and so on.

Silent_Buddha said:
It's to be expected, unlike traditional consoles makers the hardware isn't subsidized by game royalties.
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Interesting point. Theoretically, a closed ecosystem could be a much better value proposition in terms of what hardware bang you get for your buck compared to an open system because of subsidies brought in from publishing licensing plus cost savings from tens-of-millionsof units volume production. Sony and Microsoft could, theoretically, sell the equivalent of any PC specification cheaper the market value of that Windows PC. I know DF often do there "can we build a PC equivalent to.." articles but it's never a similar hardware cost comparison as it's impossible to get PC components as cheap as mass produced bespoke consoles.

A shame that there's currently not a large market for that at the high-end as Pro and X have demonstrated. :no:
 
Silent_Buddha said:
It's to be expected, unlike traditional consoles makers the hardware isn't subsidized by game royalties.

I'd imagine the BOM is likely similar to that of the PS4 or XBO, but their only avenue for profit is in hardware margins of the console itself.

As they are low volume products, the margins as a result will have to be significantly larger than that of high volume products. IE - the product is likely to be higher cost than a laptop featuring similar or same hardware.

Regards,
SB
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I agree, but it just goes to show how tough of a market product such as this faces. Imo you are not getting much for a quite a bit of money.
 
Dr Evil said:
I agree, but it just goes to show how tough of a market product such as this faces. Imo you are not getting much for a quite a bit of money.
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Well, what you get are tangible and intangible benefits.
  • Custom settings.
    • Being able to choose between 60 FPS or 30 FPS with higher settings or anything in between.
    • Being able to disable graphics effects that a person might find unpleasant (DoF, CA, Motion Blur, AO, Camera Shake, etc.)
    • Being able to adjust FOV in games that allow it. This is important to some as narrow console FOV induces motion sickness in a small percentage of the population.
  • Ability to run applications that aren't available on consoles.
    • Plenty of indie games have a 1-2 year lag before making it to console, for example.
    • Many High A games aren't available on console (Civ V, Total War series, etc.)
    • Maybe you don't want to be limited by the music app. or video app. available on X console.
    • In a pinch you can run business applications if you wished.
  • Portability. This is mainly a plus against something like PS4/XBO. However, against the Switch you have the ability to run AAA games that may not have been ported to the Switch. Of course, the inevitable graphical downgrades come into play versus the PS4/XBO, but you gain the ability to play on the go if you desire.
  • Lower cost of games if you don't buy games on release date.
Of course, there also comes all the downsides associated with PC gaming. Lower cost of games comes at the expensive of a higher initial hardware investment. You're dealing with a full fat OS versus a gaming oriented OS, which means dealing with potential driver issues and malware, for example.

It's a niche product with a large attraction for that niche market. As such it offers greater bang for the buck (in their eyes) than a traditional console locked in a walled garden. But it also means it's never going to sell in the numbers associated with a traditional console. Although it may match or surpass Wii-U. :p

Traditional consoles will remain far more attractive to the majority of consumers that a handheld PC gaming device. Although I'd be pleasant surprised if this thing started selling like hotcakes.

Regards,
SB
 
Most of those plus's go away against a laptop PC and the portability is almost a wash also. you get a lot more with a laptop than with the Smach. Between a laptop and the Switch I feel like this thing is trapped in a corner. And that's a big no with regards to reaching the Wii-U numbers. Honestly I can't see it making 1/10th of Wii U´s numbers, but we'll see. Despite everything I wouldn't mind being wrong there.
 
Dr Evil said:
I am not sure if everyone is aware of the current pricing model of this system. They are offering 3 different configurations and a -10% discount if you pre-order the unit, which they claiming will ship in November. I have to say that regardless of if they can get these to market, the prices aren't very attractive in my opinion. The entry level model goes for $699 ($629 if you pre-order) and that has 4GB of Ram and 64GB of storage space. The step up 8GB/128GB is around $200 more. With about 35GB/s of memory bandwidth the performance is not going to be that great for that price. Unless a lower price is introduced it's hard to see these selling anything more than a very modest number of units.

https://www.smachz.com/shop/
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It costs about the same as a laptop with similar specs, differences being you replace a large screen with low dpi for a small one with high dpi, and a qwerty keyboard for an embedded steam controller.


They also made it easy to replace the motherboard so you can upgrade the motherboard with a new SoC in future iterations.
Plus they're using regular SODIMM slots so the 4GB may not be that bad of a purchase since you can change it later. Same with the storage that apparently uses a regular M.2 slot for nvme.

So you can buy the low-tier version and upgrade it to 32GB DDR4 2400 and a 1TB nvme SSD.
 
Kaotik said:

They actually do have a working prototype apparently
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Main PCB confirmed to be separated and changeable for upgradeability. without having to throw the entire thing away.
That's really nice, since Raven Ridge might become old news pretty fast.
 
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