Head Tracking with Cliffs of Dover

[brando]

Originally Posted by adonys

Maybe in your world, not in mine. But what do I know?

I've put above a lot of reasoning, but you seem to not understand or ignore it. The simple fact that M$, which is by definitiona the mother of all greedy corporations, asks only 150 for a device which is far ahead in everything (hardware, software, characteristics, capabilities, utility and usage) compared with TrackIR should make you wonder.. but no, you seem to be obsure to common sense and reasoning.

I guess, after all, that's the reason we still have to live with overpriced devices.. because of attitudes like yours..

You don't seem to understand the difference between a massive worldwide corporation with a huge mass market and a company that makes head-trackers for a far far smaller market, and their respective purchasing abilities.
I wouldn't be surprised to discover that M$ makes a higher net profit on their devices just because of their buying power, and the kudos that being a supplier to M$ brings. Put it this way: if you were CEO of a chip-making firm and you went to a bank to raise some capital, which contract would you rather have in your back pocket; one from a firm called Naturalpoint or one from the corporation called Microsoft?
I see people running off figures like tens of thousands - big deal. M$ aren't even going to think about it unless the market is in the millions.
As for the idea that making 50% profit on an item is overpricing - what planet are you living on? Take a look around you, at your electronic devices, your furniture, even the clothes you are wearing. Don't you know that 50% is the basic mark-up for all retail items sold? Get real...

[swiss]

Originally Posted by brando

Take a look around you, at your electronic devices, your furniture, even the clothes you are wearing. Don't you know that 50% is the basic mark-up for all retail items sold? Get real...

Clothes is a good point.

The most expensive, super high quality T-shirt on planet, is $2(!) wholesale, yet it is unlikely you'll ever find this quality in store.
Standard quality for western countries is ~$1.

Percentage:
We had items in the shop with a net profit of 90%.
That's not cost times 1.9, but cost times 10. Plus tax and CC commission.
WTF?!
We must be billionaires!
Really?
It's a cycle tube, cost is 85cent landed, retails for $10.
For those $9 you have to ship from the warehouse to the store, unpack and put in the shelve, answer stupid questions(is it the right size?), it enter into the system and cash it. Sure, there is still some profit left, no problem.

But:
We only sold 2k pcs of them per anno, so it's still only 20k which is more like peanuts. We could have sold them for $20 and would still sell 1800.
On the other hand if we sold them for $5 we could possibly increase sales to 2.5 units.
Do the math.


Another example?
You can sell one lot(50pcs) of $2000 bikes, ready to use/warranty/1st service incl. with a margin of 25%, or even less, as you get $500 a pop.
You CAN NOT do the same wit a $500 bicycle.
Assembly and service cost stay the same.
And in this example we don't even have R&D...