When we last reported on PlayJam’s Gamestick project, they had started to take pre-orders for the $79 device after their successful Kickstarter campaign. Unfortunately, it appears that success has come at a price as PlayJam has announced they have delayed delivery of the Gamestick until June. PlayJam opened their Kickstarter project in January with a goal of $100,000 to be able to start delivering devices in April. However, they ended up pulling in $650,000 via pledges from around 5,700 backers. The Kickstarter fundraising effort was so successful, PlayJam was able to add a goal to provide a fourth color option for buyers. All of the additional units to be produced have resulted in some changes to production and shipping methods. According to PlayJam,
“Initially we had hoped to deliver GameStick to you at the end of April. We now expect to complete mechanical tooling about 4 weeks later at the end of May. Then the units are assembled, tested and assuming there are no issues, packed prior to shipping to each territory. We expect to ship around the 10th June. The volumes are now too large for us to be able to afford to air-freight them, which was our plan, so now we are going to have to use sea freight to deliver them. That’s going to take around 2 weeks. Then we have fulfillment in territory – which we estimate will take between 1 and 5 days depending on where you are located. This means we think the likely date of arrival of your hand crafted GameStick will be at the last week of June.”
Although it is always disappointing to see delays for any product, especially one that has garnered as much interest as the Gamestick, at least backers can take heart that the reason is due to more demand than anticipated instead of a lack of demand.
source: TechCrunch
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