Kickstarter

So, since Gamestick made the BBC news today (thanks for the heads-up nickr), this update is public so everyone knows where Picade is, and that PlayJam aren't the only ones who got delayed in the games Kickstarter space :-)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22064538

We'd not going to judge, life's too short, but we do want you to understand how it relates to the Picade.

Personally I can say that when we were sure the Feb shipping date was looking dangerously optimistic we were shitting bricks about letting y'all know. As it happened, after feeling quite unwell and stressed for a couple of days, we bit the bullet, and you were all really nice about it. Thanks.

We hope you understand how much we love the Picade at Pimoroni. To keep things clear, here's the position as we see it:

1) Backers come first. We will make your Picades and PCBs first, and make them beautiful before we even *think* about Picade beyond Kickstarter. We're doing this for the love of making something fun and good, and that chunk of cash to the right puts an obligation on us that we're well aware of.

2) Keeping in touch and open about what we're doing and why is part of the KS process for us, involving you in the design and building process. We're far from excellent at it, and you guys have been really understanding about things and given us a kick up the arse when we need it. We also realise your patience is not infinite. I think we'll start shipping units late May as things stand. Jon reckons June, which leads to...

3) This is where we are RIGHT THIS SECOND:

• I've made 3/4 cabinets for the screen sizes we've narrowed down to for Maxi. I'll hook them up and do the long promised screen update which will kick off the ORDERING A BOATLOAD OF LCDs stage of Picade which is holding things up. Est: Thu/Fri realtime
• We have suppliers for decals, wood, buttons, nuts, bolts, wires & connectors, joysticks, fixing joints and acrylic all sewn up and the paint finish now has a Plan A and a Plan B (do it ourselves)
• Jon has the PCBs, which are on Rev 4 and almost working nicely. PCB design is *hard*. We have making and assembling PCBs sorted, and a Plan B if that turns out to not be the case suddenly due to subbies.
• We need to work out how we're shipping the Picade out so it arrives in the expected 100-odd pieces, rather than 150 or 200.

Any other questions we have on our todo list (nickr and others gave us a list of stuff) will be in that update, as is 'usual' now.

Any immediate concerns or questions, let us know in the comments. As Frasier says 'I'm listening...'.

And on a personal note, we wish the PlayJam peeps luck in making the Gamestick happen in a big way. I like the idea of a games marketplace with a bunch of open, more friendly consoles like the Ouya, GameJam and Pi :-)

- Paul & Jon

*Yes, we moved the workshop around again. Storage is king :-)