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Originally Posted by Snow Sciles
Barty and kellynj, I agree with your sentiments. There's so much scope for ereaders, but it seems these companies have become distracted by tablets and other things. It seems the ereader itself is secondary. It's frustrating.
I would have thought keen readers are the ereaders' core audience, as that's what it is, a dedicated reader! It's akin to the playstation or xbox, and it's my understanding that those technologies cater to the keen gamer, or a least above median.
But I take your point. I guess this is why many companies started making tablets. In the long run, that's where the true median readers will be imo, and that's what they're chasing. Imo, the ereader should be for the keen reader, while the tablet for the casual reader.
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They can charge an insane amount of money for those machines and games because people will pay that money. And even if the XBox or Playstation are made for the more serious gamer, there are probably more serious gamers in the US then serious readers so there is more money to be made on that crowd then there are extreem readers.
Heck, we bought a Playstation because it wasn't that much more expensive then a Blue Ray player at the time and we like to play games. The XBox, Wii, and Playstation have gone pretty much untouched since our son was born almost two years ago, but we have them all. Before Little Man was born, my husband played an hour or so every day and I used the Wii. Not exactly extreeme gaming by any standard.
The difference between the Wii and the other systems is that the Wii caters more to families, kids, and people who don't want to play first person shooter type games. You can find some of those types of games (Sonic, sports, and the like) for the other systems but the Wii was the one to bring in the bowling, tennis, and the like that so many people enjoyed. It was a little less expensive, had a different type of game, and was a hit for people who didn't want to blow stuff up all the time. There was a large enough market that XBox and PLaystation finally jumped into that market as well and have eaten into the Wii market.
Back to e readers...
E readers are pretty cheap to make and I honestly don't think that there is a large enough market to sustain the type of customaization you are talking about. Sony's e reader business took a huge hit when the Kindle came on the market and was about $50 less then the Sony. As that price difference grew, Sony's business shrunk. It helped that Amazon actually advertised and was able to get on Oprah's favorite things list but anyone who did research on e readers saw that the Kindle was less expensive.
The original Kindle had an SD Card slot and speakers. The SD Card slot caused enough problems that Amazon got rid of it (at least that is my theory based on the number of problems I saw posted about indexing and issues around the use of cards). The K2, without a card slot, was less expensive then the K1 and about $100 less expensive then the Sony and had a wait list. So I think Amazon figured out that demand was high enough without a card slot that caused problems and increased customer service calls.
Building customaizable solutions for what is, I am guessing, less then 5% of an already niche market is not going to be profitable. The few attempts at making niche e readers, the DX and 5 inch screens, ended a while back. Kobo doesn't seem to want to put money into hiring people to make the firm ware that allows for a ton of customization to be stable enough that it doesn't cause the problems it does now.
As much as we hate it, e readers are a niche market that does not make the makers moeny. It is the sale of the books that makes them moeny. So the companies are not going to cater to a small minority in a niche market. We simply do not bring the money that gamers bring to the table so we don't fully matter. If we did, the e reader market would look very different then it does today.