FS: My 7th N64p

[jjhammerstein]

If you got fast at good casework, you could crank these out daily.
You'd be able to turn a sizable profit.
Let's you can get costs down to $175 per unit. 8 hours of work, sell for $350.
You could make more than $20 an hour. That's enough to pay the bills!

All you'd need is a mass-producing vac-form set up like Bacteria is doing, and the finesse to make your holes without having to cover with paint.


I'd love to see this, but it doesn't seem very up your alley.

[Triton]

If it cost you $166 and you are selling it for $200, fair price.

However, for comparison, I put your prices in comparison to what I pay at car boot sales and e-bay:

N64: $35
£3 or £4 (car boot sales), with jumper pack. Expansion pack £7 (ebay / car boot)
Screen: $55
£40 unopened, new condition, e-bay; or £30 used but good condition. So £30.
Shipping for screen: $10
(included in above)
Controller: $15
£1 - car boot sales - official controller; otherwise about £2 for third party one.
Better option - Superpad controller, about £14 - ebay.
Shipping for controller: $6
n/a
Gamecube controller: $10
Plus £1 for a GC controller (although you can use PSone controllers for the joysticks, you get 2 in them too) - car boot sales
Buttons, switches: $15
£2 - most of the buttons and switches are from the original controllers.
TI converter + resistors and capacitors: $20
£4, although you can send for new samples if you want for free, I can't.

Total - £62 inc expansion pack - $89. By the same proportion you could sell for $120!! Very Happy (you might sell it then).

A bit different to $166!

while its all well and good that you would have only paid 89$ for parts he DID NOT. selling his system at a 40 dollar loss is stupid. the only thing he should be concerned with is his profit margins and quality of work, not what other people pay for their stuff and the like. and frankly 34$ above cost is a horrible, terrible profit margin. even tho it only took 5 hours to build (yay minumum wage equavalent! )

[jjhammerstein]

If it cost you $166 and you are selling it for $200, fair price.

However, for comparison, I put your prices in comparison to what I pay at car boot sales and e-bay:

N64: $35
£3 or £4 (car boot sales), with jumper pack. Expansion pack £7 (ebay / car boot)
Screen: $55
£40 unopened, new condition, e-bay; or £30 used but good condition. So £30.
Shipping for screen: $10
(included in above)
Controller: $15
£1 - car boot sales - official controller; otherwise about £2 for third party one.
Better option - Superpad controller, about £14 - ebay.
Shipping for controller: $6
n/a
Gamecube controller: $10
Plus £1 for a GC controller (although you can use PSone controllers for the joysticks, you get 2 in them too) - car boot sales
Buttons, switches: $15
£2 - most of the buttons and switches are from the original controllers.
TI converter + resistors and capacitors: $20
£4, although you can send for new samples if you want for free, I can't.

Total - £62 inc expansion pack - $89. By the same proportion you could sell for $120!! Very Happy (you might sell it then).

A bit different to $166!

while its all well and good that you would have only paid 89$ for parts he DID NOT. selling his system at a 40 dollar loss is stupid. the only thing he should be concerned with is his profit margins and quality of work, not what other people pay for their stuff and the like. and frankly 34$ above cost is a horrible, terrible profit margin. even tho it only took 5 hours to build (yay minumum wage equavalent! )

You say its "All well and good" that Bac spent less, but there's nothing wrong with that. SS could be extremely competitively priced if he went out of his way to lower his costs. When he sells his labor so cheaply, it's a shame that he can't offer a great deal.

[bacteria]

Way to get costs down is from buying from cheaper sources - see my last post on previous page. $89.

Making snug holes in cases takes masses of time, making a case look nice takes masses of time and work and accuracy; so it isn't something you can make a business from making portables with as such; plus, the market is small. Purely for the hobbyist and the hobbyist selling kits to hobbyists, rather than a commercial viability; unless of course the system is "in vogue" rather than an old and superseded system like the N64 is (as much as I like it, I add).

If you make a really gorgeous and desirable system, it will sell; however it takes so much time to make one that it isn't viable to sell as a business in any quantity and profit.

Triton - as you say, $34 profit, or thereabouts, is cheap for 5 hours labour; point is by looking for cheaper parts he can sell cheaper and sell more at more profit. Looks like he pays top dollar for components, rather than rummaging around at car boot / yard sales. Up to him, although it has to be more sensible to look for cheaper deals after all. If the batteries and charger cost $50, he could potentially sell a system for $195 including them, and make more like $55 profit which is a lot more than now, and stand more chance of making a sale. BTW - something is only worth what someone is prepared to pay for something - market forces. More desirable = higher sale price.

[Rekarp]

If it cost you $166 and you are selling it for $200, fair price.

However, for comparison, I put your prices in comparison to what I pay at car boot sales and e-bay:

N64: $35
£3 or £4 (car boot sales), with jumper pack. Expansion pack £7 (ebay / car boot)
Screen: $55
£40 unopened, new condition, e-bay; or £30 used but good condition. So £30.
Shipping for screen: $10
(included in above)
Controller: $15
£1 - car boot sales - official controller; otherwise about £2 for third party one.
Better option - Superpad controller, about £14 - ebay.
Shipping for controller: $6
n/a
Gamecube controller: $10
Plus £1 for a GC controller (although you can use PSone controllers for the joysticks, you get 2 in them too) - car boot sales
Buttons, switches: $15
£2 - most of the buttons and switches are from the original controllers.
TI converter + resistors and capacitors: $20
£4, although you can send for new samples if you want for free, I can't.

Total - £62 inc expansion pack - $89. By the same proportion you could sell for $120!! (you might sell it then).

A bit different to $166!

Umm case material anywhere in that? I don't know about yall but I don't settle anything less then $500 more my portables. I tend to purchase the best of the best. No crap 20% capacitors here. I have sold every single one I have made* for $500+. To me if I spend the good part of 2 weeks working on a case I am going to get paid for it. Hell when worked out I get only $5 an hour for working on my cases. Sure its a hobby. A hobby that I want to get paid for.

$200 seems like a fair asking price to me. Rock on SS. From your first N64p to this one I am impressed at the ground you have covered. Now just make a case from scratch and I bet you will have the premier N64p on the block


*(I havent sold my Duo cause I like it so much ^_^) v

[Rekarp]

If you make a really gorgeous and desirable system, it will sell; however it takes so much time to make one that it isn't viable to sell as a business in any quantity and profit.

You made a "gorgeous" system? Since when?

[jjhammerstein]

If you make a really gorgeous and desirable system, it will sell; however it takes so much time to make one that it isn't viable to sell as a business in any quantity and profit.

You made a "gorgeous" system? Since when?

His IntoPlay PS1p isn't done yet, but the case is.
My opinion isn't very important, but I'd definitely qualify it as "gorgeous."

[Triton]

Way to get costs down is from buying from cheaper sources - see my last post on previous page. $89.

common sense, that doesnt mean that everybody can get the same low prices as you can, it depends on the market in their area (and ebay) plus some higher quality parts cost more

Making snug holes in cases takes masses of time, making a case look nice takes masses of time and work and accuracy; so it isn't something you can make a business from making portables with as such; plus, the market is small. Purely for the hobbyist and the hobbyist selling kits to hobbyists, rather than a commercial viability; unless of course the system is "in vogue" rather than an old and superseded system like the N64 is (as much as I like it, I add).

if so inclined i could build a good looking functional snes portable in under a weeks time (if i had all the parts on hand) doing good work doesnt take that much time if you have the process down (operating a dremel and a drill is not hard) and you would be supprised at the demand for high quality systems. if i had not had other problems crop up i would have sold my DCsnes for 320$ plus shipping, now that im not obligated to sell it at that price i can improve it more and sell it for even more money. quality sells. people love buying one of a kind items

If you make a really gorgeous and desirable system, it will sell; however it takes so much time to make one that it isn't viable to sell as a business in any quantity and profit.

its all dependant on the process, yes making one by hand like i usually do is a time consuming task but people will pay GOOD MONEY for how good and unique the systems are. i had plans to make a bit of a business building snes and nes portables. average 1-2 systems a week with profit margins in the 100-200$ per system range, sure its not a ton of money but for something i do for fun its not bad

[bacteria]

If you make a really gorgeous and desirable system, it will sell; however it takes so much time to make one that it isn't viable to sell as a business in any quantity and profit.

You made a "gorgeous" system? Since when?

Since my current project - IntoPlay. I know what I am doing now.

BTW - the comment above was general and not specific - I didn't refer to anything specific, although you did.

[palmertech]

Also, he only said that a gorgeous system would SELL. At least as far as I know, Bacteria does not sell anything. Yet.

[hailrazer]

Making systems to sell is NEVER going to be profitable. You can make more working at McDonalds.

I sold both of my systems for over $600. Works out to less than $5 an hour.

Now I could build them faster but I would still never get more than around $10 an hour for them. And that's IF I didn't mess anything up or break anything.

Nahhhhh... It's easier to work for a living and do this for a hobby.

[bacteria]

palmertech - Indeed. On both counts. I'm not into making systems for commission, my fun is as a hobby, if I was to treat it as a business it wouldn't be so much fun. It is different selling cases however, plus the fact you don't have to provide any form of guarantee; unlike if you sold a completed portable. As reliable as systems are when made well, they can fail and I wouldn't want to leave someone unhappy with a system unreliable when they paid good money for it - i'm not like that.

hailrazer - indeed. I get the equivalent of £10 an hour in my job ($14.50) as salaried; if I wanted to earn more I would do overtime for £15 or £20 an hour - one shift of 9 hours and I would guarantee to earn more profit than by spending weeks on a system and having no guarantee it will sell. I therefore treat my project work as fun hobby.

Triton - I guess I am so used to the fact that things cost more in the UK than in the US that I thought good deals on s/hand kit in the US would be at least as affordable as here. BTW - what does your DCsnes look like - i'm interested to see it, as your work is always top drawer.

[Triton]

Triton - I guess I am so used to the fact that things cost more in the UK than in the US that I thought good deals on s/hand kit in the US would be at least as affordable as here. BTW - what does your DCsnes look like - i'm interested to see it, as your work is always top drawer.

not everybody has garagesales and auctions to rely on for their parts like i usually do and shipping usually negates any significant savings on ebay. here is a pic of my DCsnes. its going to be changed and the paint improved before i try and sell it again tho


the second pic is just primered not finished paint

[ShockSlayer]

Wow triton, that is smexy. Always love to see your cases. And I have read through this giant thread hijacking(which, I honestly dont care about at this point, atleast its on topic, and I love to see my threads do this), and for the most part, this is where we part ways on agreeing on everything bacteria. I don't know how much gas costs in europe, but it's like $2.00 where I live. Considering I live mostly far away from my "nearby" sources, in reality it costs much more than that.. And I'm certainly not walking 37.2 miles round trip just to get 3 leds. And you don't count, over here in america, we aren't cheap!

Let me put it to you this way: Considering that the only thing you can buy in a portable that is not used(ergo, a price that can waver from $20 to $60, in the psone screens case, I have gotten several, and each one had a different price) is the batteries, and thats if you frankencase, I dont think a single one of you, including myself, can set an exact price. At this point, all "price lists" can be considered as subject to immense change.

As triton said, that is how much I paid for it. And, if I have to spend the extra buck to get a quality unit, so be it. I can almost gurantee that this ones guts(the important part) are as good as anyone can make them.

So there!

I am selling this for quite a low profit. I've had one random person PM me with an offer, if they have money left from something.

And, as seriously heated as these things can get, I would like to kindly remind all of you that we are all freinds, m'kay?

SS

[palmertech]

I have an N64p case completely done, but I am do damn lazy, I cannot find the time to sit down and actually wire the thing.

Is that cart slot re-located? And how willing would you be to sell it without the PSone lcd?

I am not committing or anything, just wondering if you would sell it that way, and how much.