i do think that there’s already precedent set, so people more used to the communication style don’t have as much of an issue. it would be nice to have more info, just so that people who preordered can know whether they’ll be able to get their devices within their stated timeframe of shipping.
Oh I absolutely dislike the silence and consider it highly unprofessional and probably causing them to lose sales. That said, I got the Gameshell because of the hardware, and they delivered a solid platform. The software was unfinished, somewhat untested, and buggy, but thankfully certain folks in the community here stepped up and addressed those problems in their spare time. (I’m looking at you. @javelinface, but there are several other folks who have made critical fixes and stable alternative OS options and software options.) Personally, when I saw how the official software was supported, I decided to stop using it and instead used one of the more up to date, stable, and less buggy user created options.
For the DevTerm’s sake I hope that happens again. I want to see the company continue to make this hardware because they do a great job with it, and the Gameshell was worth it for that alone.
But I do think it was disingenuous to sell the Gameshell as a sort of assembly required emulator device, because I’ve seen a number of disappointed folks on the forums who only wanted a working device to play games, and didn’t realize they were signing up to help develop (or at least help test) community software to be able to use it in the way they imagined. Personally, I’ve enjoyed tinkering with it, and didn’t want it to be a plug and play emulator device.
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@adcockm You flatter me! I merely packaged what the community all came to create in a single OOB style image. I also got the most enjoyment out of troubleshooting and creating content. But that’s possibly because I’m a masochist who likes to fix things. This shouldn’t be expected to be the norm.
I still think that it’s a cultural communication difference on two fronts. First there’s the language barrier, having to carefully choose their words and make sure nothing is lost in translation. Then there’s the literal nature of being Chinese.
I am a “banana man” Asian, ie I am born Chinese, but was raised in a western society. One thing I never understood was colloquialisms, sarcasms and embellishment of speech. When Chinese people I am related to say something, they mean it, stick to it, and only provide facts.
My guess is that in saying that the device will be shipped by a date, they will keep to it unless they say otherwise. They don’t provide much build up teasers, marketing hype or other things considered the norm in western culture. Look at how Nintendo have randomly been dropping surprise titles that no one knew were in development, but would be coming out in a month. (Eg, Zelda skyward sword)
The second thing is, afaik, they’re a ridiculously small team of less than a half dozen. I have no idea what else they do with their lives, but seeing as they are out of stock on Gameshells, don’t get any revenue vis clockwork, and aren’t sponsored by anyone, they must have day jobs. Asian work ethic is insane. From the POV of a banana man, I know that my parents expected more of me than I realised I could get away with in a western world. It’s just the way things are.
On the note of teams, I’ve tagged her a few times, but there was once a mod on the forum called @Veronica who was a part of the dev team. She would deal with user/customer problems when they arose, make announcements and even start posts to instigate discussion. If you search for her posts, you can see that she was very active for a period, but then practically disappeared overnight. No idea what happened there.
Right. Sorry this became a cultural post! You can see that I am an Asian in disguise given how verbose and unsuccinct my expression of language always comes across. I’m not defending them, don’t work for them, and am not some blinded die hard fan. I’m just providing one possible reason explaining “the way things are.” It could all be completed wrong, but eh. It’s not affecting me in any way.
All the information they’ve provided is enough for me to do my own research and speculation. I don’t really care for knowing the exact process, time frames, or be provided with production line photos etc. I ordered another competitor’s device; the piboy dmg. Boy did that have a waiting time, and zero communication. They were based in the US AFAIK.
People ended up starting unofficial reddit groups, posting their order number, date they ordered the device, received shipping notices and the day they received their device. I’ve just come to expect “hacking” devices to not have huge marketing like buzz and communication. @ghostwerk you’re definitely right about the precedent being set; not just here, but across the handheld hacking device community as a whole.
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It may be the official forum, it is mostly community driven. Official does mean that they back it, not that they spend all of their time or do most of moderation/animation.
Most moderators on this forum are people who were there at the time the Gameshell was on kickstarter and were backers of it.
You may have not noticed, but ClockworkPi is a small company, they probably spend most of their time working on the new products and don’t have a lot of time to spend here.
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Wow, awesome. I’m so excited to get one!
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happy march, everyone! hopefully we’ll be getting shipping notifications sometime this month, and putting our devterms together very soon.
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Still no news 
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