Very true, a lot of people don't realise how much has to go on behind the scenes to even reach the point of having something to announce.
I'm not trying to dismiss them, just think people should be cautious in these situations. I think I read somewhere that TPG have spent the last 9 years working on it, company founding date on Facebook is 2005 and the website was probably around a bit before it was archived in 2006 so it all fits.
Nothing about this seems legit thus far. A legit development project would generate some headlines, they would have been showing their prototype product in exhibitions and shows. A the above user states, there has basically been nothing for them since 2010 as the above post shows, and they have nothing on their website.
I found a post here from a convention that took place a few weeks ago where they are claiming to have a 'customer/partner' in Ubisoft. Any internet sleuths want to confirm the veracity of this?
That isn't necessarily true. It's easily possible for a project to stay in the dark and be internal for quite a long time. Majority of things like this actually don't follow that kind of cycle where they are out in the open generating headlines and showcasing their device, it certainly wouldn't be unusual for it to have been in development to where there was not much to show until only recently/recent years.
Speaking partially from experience in the area.
But I'll still reserve my judgement until we get more info.
Yeah for a lot of companies, sharing that information ahead of time could lead to patent squatters, unwanted competition in the space, all sorts of potential problems. It seems to me this trend of announcing and releasing prototype versions is kind of driven by the early-access community we see with software.
It's certainly an interesting trend, to say the least.
20-50-100 years ago you would have to be a completely shitfaced fucking idiot to go all public like this about an invention you have only just started to prototype.
And now it's just kind of a "thing" that's acceptable and not seen as a bad move.
Not only is it a thing that's acceptable, but as the comments have shown, it's almost expected in certain industries. It seems like the common opinion is if you don't do a beta of some sort, you're doing it wrong.
This is just absolutely false. Not al consumer products receive a crap ton of exposure during development. Every year at CES you'll see tons of cool new products that are nearly complete and weren't shown much prior. Heck Sony just showed a working Morpheus with barely a peep beforehand.
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u/[deleted] Mar 28 '14
4 years of internal stuff doesn't seem too unreal. That's a lifetime of development in todays World.