The future of SaveMii

News from Bushing:

The SaveMii launch has been pretty hectic, and we’ve even gotten some large volume requests from resellers. We’re flattered to get these requests, but at the rate we’re going, it’d probably take us a week of work in the kitchen to fill just one of those requests (let alone the individual sales we’re making on SaveMii.net!).

SaveMii is something that neither marcan nor I plan on living on. Both of us have Real Lives™, and we can’t afford to worry about this project for any kind of significant fraction of them. We’ve spent a lot of time on it, and we’re just trying to put a useful product out there at a fair price. (Of course, it’d be nice to get a little return on our investments and also get some cash for future hacking!) We’re investigating a small-scale Chinese factory production run, but this is something that’s hard to do because we don’t know what future demand will be like, and we’re already hearing rumors of multiple people planning to clone it.

SaveMii took a lot of reverse-engineering work to make, but compared to modern FPGA-based drivechip designs, it will be pretty easy to clone — and we know this. When you buy an Authentic SaveMii, you’re not just paying for some parts — you’re supporting Team Twiizers’ past and future hacks!

Listen up, would-be cloners: the market for this device is probably not big enough for two or more teams to be selling competing devices. We will all end up with a bunch of unsold devices, which will probably hurt us more than it will hurt you — but it’s still a lose-lose situation.

That’s the carrot — now here’s the stick:

We can’t compete with a mass-produced clone of SaveMii. If someone makes a serious effort to sell one, we will probably release all documentation, sources, schematics, and everything needed to make one. marcan will even release sources for his earlier PIC-based version, which is a lot less optimal but tinkerers are more likely to have the parts at home. We’d rather give this to the world at large and let companies fight for the profits than worry about it.

http://hackmii.com/2008/09/the-future-of-savemii/