Other than the initial video, which was an advertisement showing very little real game play, we haven’t seen any solid videos relating to the capabilities and quality of the Gameshell. I would like to purchase this product while the pre-order discount is still available, but a $100 gamble is too pricey for me without more than proof of concept. Will any reviewers receive this product early?
I have high hopes for the Gameshell, but tactics like this are comparable to that of No Man’s Sky and other such flops. The production being based in China (A country known to be near impossible to make an effective company lawsuit) coupled with the lack of money back guarantee due to Kickstarter’s terms of service makes this an utter shot in the dark for all backers, and there should be concern regarding this issue.
If it works better than this garbage, I’ll be extremely happy. And do you think Steam’s going to issue me a refund after I’ve been playing the game like this for hours?
You’ll have to take my word on it, but there’s been updates on the Kickstarter for the backers of videos showing the progression of the production process and are due to ship out soon. If you require weekly updates of people using the product to be convinced that the GameShell works, this will not happen, but there was video of it working in the campaign and the concept of the GameShell at a technical level isn’t anything new. It’s innovation is it’s modularity, not it’s tech.
tl;dr - there’s been updates for backers and it’s on schedule, so if you want the GameShell and you like discounts, now’s the time to order.
I agree that the GameShell’s innovation is modularity, not its tech. The most recent high tech equipment I came into contact with made rude noises that were just subtle enough that one couldn’t accuse the perpetrator of using the device. The noises were designed to evoke negative responses from the listener. The machine is intended to be used by an agent in a position of superior authority to eliminate unwanted subordinates without drawing attention to oneself. It was slightly more complicated than that, but the general idea is that the noises sound like pittering mouth farts to the targeted individual, highly offensive. Yay for modern tech.
I mean, they sorta demoed that it is like a Raspberry Pi but in Gameboy form.
They had some issues with “showing” what games you can play, legal reasons I think.
You can check out the comparison table. It compares this hardware with the RPI, and it seems to logically make sense. No outrageous claims.
But if your looking for how well it will play StarFox64:
It probably can’t do N64 games well, bad example.
Performance will very by emulator and rom. Even different dumps of the same game.
Compare similar hardware
As with every campaign, there is a chance they could run off with you money. When the campaign is in that sweet spot between “I could build this myself for $150” and “I can blow $75 on a kickstarter project”, is when I buy it. Trust me, I would rather lose $100 dollars to these people than try and build this for a 3RD time.
If I were to guess, I’d assume the most concerning part of the campaign is the “ships to backers in April” when the campaign finished in December. Given my experience buying this from China (where they are shipping out from), the time tables of when the production / shipping phases will occur, and that they started production on the product after the campaign ended, the shipping in April the most realistic and accurate date (especially when you factor in the loss of production time for the Chinese New Year holiday).
To respond to your earlier inquiry as to why I find the situation sketchy, I believe that transparency is lacking to an extreme degree. I apparently cannot argue that shipping details have not been set in stone, as you say that there have been updates relating to that for backers (details that should not be hidden behind a paywall), but there have been no comments regarding the quality of build from a neutral perspective. The place of operation’s dubious nature aside (which I am not saying is in of itself dubious, merely that many scam products come from China and get away with it) the shipping date is so far from the other stages that credit card charge backs will be near impossible to receive, and considering the lack of protection Kickstarter provides all of this compiles into what could very well be a loss of over $100. This all paired with my comments provided in the original post.
I am not calling out the Gameshell as a scam, but I am claiming that these are practices one would see in a scam. I don’t really want to just be negative in this situation, but with all of this said, this forum as a whole is ignored. I have seen 0 comments from devs here, and the only quality comments I have seen here have been yours. That said, I realize that my money is my own to spent, and I can easily wait for the product to actually come out before I purchase anything.
Yes, they tend not to respond to these threads unless summoned into a thread (like this: @yong), however they have a holiday coming up tomorrow, so it may be a bit until you get a response. I also realize I’ve been referring to these backer-only updates in the abstract, here’s some of the key points mentioned in them (summarized and paraphrased for brevity):
2017-12-09:
Production progres
2017-12-16:
Video shared on YouTube: link, and confirmation that there’s been no hiccups in production.
2017-12-19:
Campaign ended, general thanks, pointed out that there’s an Indiegogo campaign up now.
2018-01-02:
Forum goes live
2018-01-09:
Further confirmation that there’s no issues in production
2018-01-17:
Another glamor shot of the production stuff
2018-01-30:
There’s a video posted on Kickstarter’s video hosting, so I cannot link to it. It’s a video of the production line. Here’s a few screenshots:
2018-02-06
Informed that GameShells were being sent out to backers who filled out their survey before the deadline once the holidays are over, tracking numbers to follow soon.
Hopefully that helps. In the end, the difference of price between the retail and the discount you get for backing early isn’t that huge, and if your main concern is if this is a scam or not you can always just wait until we all get the GameShells and can report if they are legit or not. Then you can order one then and know fully that you will get your money’s worth. From where I’m sitting, though, this seems legit to me and I haven’t seen any evidence yet to show otherwise.
This is reassuring, but I still feel as though these things shouldn’t be hidden from non backers for this exact reason. While I still certainly have my complaints, this does put many of my arguments to rest. Much appreciated, and have a nice day.
I’m glad I as able to help. Also, in fairness to Clockwork, a lot of the updates also included content that would not make sense to a non-backer (e.g. things about surveys and pledge management), so it’d make sense to check them as “backer-only”.
Since the staff has not broken any promises, asserted or implied**, or even extended any release dates, I have zero reason to suspect the company intends to cheat me. I do not believe I can find anyone who has been cheated, and I have no one to investigate to discover any grounds.
** For instance, I can’t find the link, but I remember that someone once sold a penny on Ebay as an artistic copper engraving of Abraham Lincoln and made a lot of money. Although he told no lies, it was determined that this was a fraud because he intentionally mislead his customers. As for “implied consent,” that’s actually how a lot of rape happens. Yet, that appears totally legal. “Implied consent” can be interpreted as an intention on the part of the law to do fraud. So, as for whether the law intends to do justice, that’s its own question. Still, this company has not incurred any ill repute.
@Mugman16, I’m sorry that we have not released more video to make you feel more confident about GameShell , we will try harder to post more updates in production as soon as everyone is back from the New Year holiday in about a week time. This is the longest holiday in China, some of our manufacturing partners in Shenzhen may not have workers back until the first week of March. I appreciate your interest and suggestion, in the mean time, please stay updated, and feel free to order when you feel convinced.
@aewens, I cannot thank you enough for posting these pictures to help clarify our progress.
Yong, that’s all great and everything. But my dog ate the cover off one of my books, and I had to spend twice as much for the content to replace the book with one that had exactly the same cover. Somehow I just know it was your fault. You must release a GameShell update immediately to ameliorate this pressing concern.
