Subject:
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RE: Mindstorms in 1999
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.robotics
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Date:
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Wed, 10 Feb 1999 20:41:38 GMT
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Original-From:
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Jim Thomas <jim.thomas@^StopSpam^trw.com>
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Viewed:
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1146 times
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Yes, there is the World market. I guess I was thinking more along the US
market but my points are still may be valid.
My fear is based on Lego competing against itself with very similar products
at very similar prices (both $150 and $200 fall in the expensive category
for toys). If the accountants win out (because it does not really make
sense to compete against yourself, financially), either one will get dropped
or they will attempt to move the products away from each other in price and
capability. This raises two questions in the world market:
1) Will they both be available at the same time worldwide?
2) Will they raise the price in worldwide release? This
is easy to do because geography and currency
differences make price comparison to the $200 price less
likely.
I think it will be easier to get the new "blue" unit targeted to different
languages because of the on screen programming paradigm and no host
computer/software required. I would be surprised if there is a one year
delay for the new system to go into worldwide release after an initial
limited rollout (if it is limited at all).
In the US I don't think they can get away with raising the price enough to
make a difference (I think at least $50 is required to separate it better)
because customers know what it used to cost. This could drive them to
making the RCX Dacta only in the US and the Mindstorms kit as we know it
goes away.
I expect to see the new systems on shelves everywhere in the US that carries
toys and it will be much easier to get than Mindstorms has been. I expect
Mindstorms to become a harder to get specialty item. Who knows, we might be
sending money to Europe to have somebody send one here!
JT--Not too panicked. Looking forward to the new systems too...
PS One option I overlooked is to re-release Mindstorms as an adult oriented
system with a more sophisticated programming paradigm. That would separate
competition by age bracket. REK is for kids, RIS is for adults. Based on
what Jonathan said this does not seem likely.
-----Original Message-----
From: Peter Ljungstrand [mailto:peter@informatik.gu.se]
Sent: Wednesday, February 10, 1999 11:44 AM
To: lego-robotics@crynwr.com
Subject: RE: Mindstorms in 1999
I really don't think Lego will discontinue the Mindstorms RCX series for a
while.
Remember, the RCX has so far onlyu been marketed and sold in the USA, Canada
and the UK, as some sort of "test markets".
(http://www.legomindstorms.com/press/releases/8_98.html)
In the 1999 lego catalog that is everywhere in every toy store in Sweden,
there are a couple
of pages informing about the new exciting Mindstorms RCX kit that will soon
be available
in Sweden as well, but with Swedish software. However, it does not say
_when_ it will
be available, as with most other Lego kits. I am pretty sure it is the same
thing in other
European countries, as well as Australia and other parts of the world. Lego
wouldn't be
marketing the RCX and the Mindstorms RIS in other countries if they were
planning to
discontinue it in favor of other p-bricks.
> My fear is that Lego thinks they can make much more money on the new lower
> priced (and likely higher margin) products, and may not do another run of
> Mindstorms (support Dacta type product lines with Robolab only), or if they
> do they might raise the price significantly. As long as the much more
> capable Mindstorms is available for only $50 more, it will cut into the new
> system's sales volume. If you think about it, the Mindstorms costs them
> more to produce because of the serial transmitter, the PC hosted software
> product support and development teams, and I bet more parts than the new
> system. When you put the wholesale/retail prices into the equation, Lego
> might only get $15-$30 more for Mindstorms (I don't know the standard
> markup, but I have to imagine that wholesale is about 40-60% of retail).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter Ljungstrand; PLAY Research Group, Viktoria Institute
http://www.viktoria.informatics.gu.se
Email: peter@informatics.gu.se
Phone: +46-(0)31-7735543 Mobile:
+46-(0)708-302251
Fax: +46-(0)31-7735530 ICQ: 6820636
Visitors: Viktoriagatan 13, 7th floor
Snail-mail: Box 620, 40530 Göteborg, Sweden
--
Did you check the web site first?: http://www.crynwr.com/lego-robotics
--
Did you check the web site first?: http://www.crynwr.com/lego-robotics
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Mindstorms in 1999
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| (...) I disagree. Internationalizing PC software is way easier than internationalizing embedded software with its inherent space constraints. To provide Suaheli software for RCX control is just to include another string table and set of (...) (26 years ago, 11-Feb-99, to lugnet.robotics)
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