Hey guys!
What Arseen said is correct. I plan to introduce most of the case designs one at a time.
However, when it comes to the Specialty Cases that only support one or two different things, like the Sonic & Knuckles + Genesis Gameboy Case, I plan to also have other case designs in the same mold as it, thus saving a lot of startup money on the molds, but there is a catch.
No matter what injection-molded case designs I make, or how many designs can be put in the same mold, I will need to make
at least tens or hundreds of thousands, per run, in order to keep the per-case costs nice and low (well under one USD).
Last year I inherited my grandmother's house, and am using it as a climate controlled warehouse, so space isn't an issue when it comes to doing those large runs.
The only real issue is the startup costs for doing Injection Molding.
Most of those costs go in to making the molds themselves, and the entry fee starts at about 25,000 dollars.
When you add the one-time mold fee to the cost of doing a huge run of cases, you'll start to understand why it is that no one else has already started making custom cases.
For example, lets's take one of the rough-estimate quotes I got earlier this year for a run of 100,000 Game Cases @ 0.21 cents each. That right there is 21,000 dollars, then you add the mold fee to it, and boom!
The cost of the first run shoots up to 37,000 dollars.
You then take that 37,000 dollar amount, and divide it by the number of cases for the first run (100,000) and that makes the first run actually cost, on a per-case-basis, about 37 cents each.
I also need to get some custom shipping boxes made, to support the various quantities people may buy.
Custom shipping boxes are relatively cheap for me, though, as I live rather close to a company that does that.
It works out to only add a fraction of a cent to the cost of each game case, if someone buys a 100 or more cases at a time.
In the long run, it is also cheaper to get custom boxes made, for specific quantity ranges, for three reasons.
1. Retail outlets that sell boxes in bulk mark up the price, so they can turn a profit.
2. By designing your own boxes, you can make sure they will protect your products properly during the shipping process.
3. You can qualify for, and pass on to your customers, lower shipping prices, because you aren't wasting a lot of space, and don't need to use as many Styrofoam Peanuts to fill any voids.
So yes, it is very possible for me to get the custom game cases made, here in the States, and keep the price of them very competitive with the UGC's. I just need to earn enough money to do so.
Keep in mind, though, that the numbers stated above are based on rough estimates I got from Injection Molding companies earlier this year.
In order to get hard numbers, I need to either hire an independent 3D CAD Designer, or pay additional fees for the 3D CAD modeling to be done in-house by an injection molding company that offers that as an option.
Some of the 3D Designers also have 3D Printers for making prototypes.
The costs for getting 3D CAD Designs made varies, as does the 3D Printing Prototype service.
I'm still weighing the options available, but will make sure to pick an option that does include the 3D-Printing-Prototype option.
To be honest, I wanted to start with the tall Sega CD/Saturn Game Cases, and the NES Game Cases, first, but I did not have enough start-up money available, in order to be able to afford to do so. That's the reason why I had to go with the HuCard / SegaCard sleeves first.
I fully intend to see this project through, no matter how long it takes.
I do have a regular (boring) job apart from gaming, that I use primarily to pay for utilities, gas, and food,
and am saving whatever money I left over from that, and adding it to the 'Company Account', so to speak.
My Grandmother's house is paid off (I only have to pay property taxes on it once a year) so even if I can't sell enough HuCard Sleeves to start production on the Game Cases, I will still be able to make them, eventually, thanks to my regular (boring) job, but it'll take a while.
For clarification, whenever I start a new product line, I will still continue to make older product lines, whenever the stock on them gets so low as to warrant another run.
In other words, I'm not going to stop producing any of my product lines, unless I make a revision that gets the job done better than the previous design.
I really hate it when companies just stop making something good, because it's not bringing in "At least X Amount" of profit per quarter or whatever, when it comes to certain products, such as gaming accessories.
I do understand the reasoning behind it, but that still doesn't make it right.
Case in point: Ya can't use a Game Genie/GameShark/ActionReplay/CodeBreaker and so on, with Virtual Console (or whatever they call them on other consoles) Games. You need to have either an Original Console for that,
or use an Emulator on your PC, and hope that the emulator fully supports your game, and the PC is powerful enough, and so on.
Also, the last time I checked, you can just go out and buy an adapter that will let you use Any Controller from Any System with Any Other System. Some limited versions of said adapters do pop up from time to time, and some companies do make reproductions of older controller designs, but how long do they stay on the market? Not long enough IMHO, but I digress...
Ok, on to the good stuff: The Design of my Game Cases.The cases for NES, SNES, n64, SMS, Genesis, and 32X (Carts) will have the same outer dimensions of the UGCs, and be fully compatible with all of the wonderful covers here that were made for UGC Cases.
The cases for Sega CD/Saturn games will look like a standard single-disk DVD Case, but be a little taller, so the manuals for those games can fit inside, and be held in place safely and securely. As soon as the dimensions on these cases are finalized, I'll publish that info here, and on my website.
For the short-term, regular cover inserts designed for standard-size DVD cases should be compatible with them,
*assuming I don't need to increase the spine height in order to be able to accommodate the Disk + Manual,so you all can use those temporarily, until some users here are able to make taller versions of the covers.
*I might need to have a thicker spine than standard size, because I don't want to make any cases so tight that they will make an impression of Disk Holding Parts, or Cart Holding Parts, on the Manuals. That would be very bad, and make the cases pointless.
The Sega CD / Saturn Cases will feature a push-button style core, that will not Chip or Crack the center hole of the game disks.
The manual holder half of the case will have the Tabs arranged in such a way, so as to never come in contact with any area of the manual that is Embossed, or has Foil on it.
The DVD-Style Cases for SegaCards and HuCards will be fully compatible with the Standard-Size DVD Style Inserts available here.
The CD-Style Cases for SegaCards and HuCards aren't compatible with any of the inserts here, I think, as it looks like you all are only making inserts for DVD-Style Cases, when it comes to this game type. There is at least one person over at the PCEngineFX.com forums that might make inserts for these. I'm not sure.
The Outer Dimensions of all of the cases for Portable Games will either be the same as, or very close to, Nintendo DS Cases. As has already been mentioned, some of those cases will have to be a little thicker, or taller, or wider, to accommodate certain Manuals and Carts. These cases are most likely to be made last, because I need to have an extension built on to the house and/or another structure built on the property, so I can have more warehouse space, before I start making them.
After I have all of my case designs active and available, and either the addition to the house and/or other building constructed, I will be able to then start investing $ into getting the other product lines up and running, such as Gamepads, Composite AV/S-Video/RGB/Component Cables and Adapters and Converters, Power Bricks, Replacement Parts, Console Shells, and a number of other things I'm keeping secret for now.
Whew! Sorry for the long post!
If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to post em here, if you want my responses to be public (a good idea),
or send me an e-mail or PM if you don't.
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After I click on "Post", I'm going to change all of the "Late 2011 / Early 2012" entries to "TBA" on my website, for the products that I don't have active yet.
I made those estimates back before I knew how long it take to coordinate the the Box Manufacturing Process with the Sleeve Manufacturing process, with the Injection Molding Manufacturing process,
and I assumed the HuCard Sleeves would have been in much higher demand than they turned out to be.
I also lost nearly a whole month of time to get this going when I got the Flu.
I spent the whole time I was ill at my folk's place, and added a week of wellness to the end of that, before I went back to the warehouse, because I wanted to make sure none of my stuff would get contaminated with germs.
I'm not really prone to getting sick; it usually happens to me only once every couple of years.
I have some agreements set in place now with some family members and friends, so that the next time I do get sick, one or more of them can fill orders in my absence, so it won't be an issue for you all.
The only thing that me getting sick again will affect, are new product line launches, if any of them happen to coincide with me getting sick, as that's something I
have to handle myself. Even then, all that would do is delay a launch by a few weeks or a month. This is highly unlikely to happen again.
Did I just jinx myself?
EDITED TO ADD:I forgot to mention that my website is currently frames-based.
You'll have access to other areas and more information, if you visit
http://www.seymoronion.com directly.
