Kickstarter Project Update #25: OUYA: Shippin' Update

[Outlander999]

Hey guys, have you seen last infos?




LOL

I'm only joking

[Outlander999]

To be fair, OUYA could just email everyone who hasn't got a console yet just to let them know it's been delayed

Too simple XD they'll never do that XD
I can wait for my OUYA, no prob.
But Uhrman & C. MUST improve the communication with customers, for sure.

[Magnesus]

Now they only need to blow on that line a little and everyone has OUYAs.

[gandhimaster]

Again, if shipping were in order of backer number nobody would have any issues with this.

[RiotingSpectre]

Plus I thought I may get the attention of someone official from OUYA trolling, you never know!

We do know, actually. We've been trying to get "attention" to have our questions answered since the KickStarter ended. For god sakes, they REALLY need to give us more information.

[Bessie]

I got this from support...

Unfortunately, we have experienced unexpected delays with some Kickstarter shipments, thereby affecting shipments like yours that were supposed to be sent out afterwards.

Rest assured, we are hard at work shipping the rest of the Kickstarter orders (these are orders placed before Aug. 8). After these are all shipped, you will receive an email confirmation with tracking number once yours is on its way.

We apologize for the inconvenience, but we promise we’re doing as much as we can to get you your OUYA ASAP! Hope you’re excited to play OUYA!

Should you need anything else, please let us know. We're here for you.

Best,

- Arsen
OUYA

[Masaaki]

Again, if shipping were in order of backer number nobody would have any issues with this.

Shipping by backer number, regardless of what they said they would do, is horribly inefficient. If they ship by region, they can bulk ship OUYAs, but by backer number they'd have to ship each one individually.
Disregarding what they said they would do, shipping by region is the OBVIOUS winner here.

[Outlander999]

I'm OK, the backers order could be terrible, but today I don't see clear benefits from the choice to do not follow that order.
The actual slowness of the shippings isn't a good thing.

I don't have the intention to whining all around like a baby, I'm a reviewer, I have other games to play.
The problem is that slowness is like an HAND-BRAKE for ALL the community.

People is nervous for the delay, and more nervous for the "almost-zero" communications about that delay.
Some starts to cancel the preorders. Not good, if I can say that.

Developers are "climbing a wall", because they are at work for games on OUYA, but WITHOUT an OUYA, limited to try it on PC.

Imho a reliable playtesting-debugging is impossible without a real OUYA, and the games of those days for sure will be LESS good, due to that delay.
I have no problem with the wait, but too much wait could have negative consequences for OUYA.

So...PLEASE, HURRY BOXER 8!

[arcticdog]

Retail launches do not work that way. There are contracts saying "50000 units at warehouse X by date Y otherwise massive fine". If there aren't 50000 units at warehouse X by date Y then you're hit with massive fines and no one will want to work with you. Businesses don't care about promises, they care about actual results.

Contracts are always negotiable. And how "massive" the fines are depends on the number of units that they promised to deliver per shipment (Walmart, for instance, charges 3% on the cost of goods they missed shipment on.. which, if OUYA were to be sold there, would probably be less than $3 per unit depending upon what they're charging the retailer).

"Per shipment" is probably the saving grace here. Don't confuse that with a production run. If they said they'll supply 200 units per week, that's very attainable. If they short the order by 50, they'll only be penalized for that (a bit less than approximately $150 total if 3% of cost is less than $3). Remember that the supply chain can ALSO be penalized for early delivery. What retailers are looking for is a "flow" of units in and out of the warehouse with regard to the anticipated demand. So I highly doubt Target and Best Buy are each expecting 50,000 units to be in their warehouse on June 4th. More likely they are expecting a much smaller set of shipments spread out over the course of the year.

Also, retailers don't usually penalize first time offenders. So they may end up burning their "get out of jail free card" here if there is a total disaster.