GW should release their own tablet

[DrLove42]

All this talk of a constantly evolving digital rulebook is all fine and awesome but comes wiræth one minor issue.

Lots of people dont want to fork out 300 of your regional currency on a tablet to buy the digitals on

So imagine if GW did their own tablet. Tescos and Aldi have both release tablets for under £75 in the last few weeks. Imagine if GW did. A cheap tablet that only links to a digital store through Wifi and had all digital books available. No money going to apple. It could even be a e reader for BL books.

If they could put out a 75 pound tablet that came preloaded with the core rules...

At tournies i already see people with iPads and the rest reading their codexes instead of hard copies. a complete push to digital could work if the base technology was available cheaper and more directly accessible

Thoughts?

[Katharon]

This is a rather foolish idea. GW is a model game company. They are not an electronics company and do not have any industrial infrastructure to build such an item even if they wanted to. Now if they were to sell iPad covers that have a 40K or WFB feel to them, then that isn't beyond possible. But no, they will never sell their own tablets because that is not their business. Selling you models and books are their business.

[Darren Richardson]

my god man, are you nuts, GW would put one out and charge £500 for it, after all the inflate all their other prices for everything else

But IF they did do a customised e-book reader for the price range you stated with full ability to create army lists straight from the codex/army book fully initrigated into it and being able to print said lists, perhaps I would buy one...

But the devolopment costs on the software side makes me think such a thing would make it too expensive.

[pgarfunkle]

I've been hoping that GW would release an app similar to ibooks on all platforms (ios, android and Windows) which would allow us to have the interactive army books they put out but not just if you have an ipad. It should log into your Black Library account and be able download your previous purchases.

[Denzark]

This is a rather foolish idea. GW is a model game company. They are not an electronics company and do not have any industrial infrastructure to build such an item even if they wanted to. Now if they were to sell iPad covers that have a 40K or WFB feel to them, then that isn't beyond possible. But no, they will never sell their own tablets because that is not their business. Selling you models and books are their business.

Don't overreact Katharon its not a foolish idea. Its sort of like GW taking someone else's superglue and putting a citadel badge on.

[Wildeybeast]

But it is well outside their field of expertise. They license out their IP for computer games because they don't have the staff or infrastructure necessary to make them and it's already a crowded market place, so there is little point in them doing so. The same would be true for tablets. The supermarket tablets are rather misleading. That is a case of a company with massive profits muscling their way into the tablet market with a budget offering. They will only succeed because they can chuck money at it to buy a stake in the market and they can offer them far cheaper than the existing tech companies can, because their food sales subsidise it (same as they do with petrol and alcohol and mobile phones and banking and video game and so on). That isn't really about them doing something new and filling a gap in the market, it's about them trying to take business of someone else and make sure people don't need to go to any other in the world than that one supermarket. GW simply does not have the sort of profits or customer base to try anything like that and the sales wouldn't be enough to justify. Why would you buy a tablet that only does GW stuf, when you can get one that does it and other things? As you yourself have said DrLove, you already see plenty of people with tablets and GW ebooks, so those people are not going to buy another one.
As for the app idea, why bother? All that would do is provide a service that ibooks and Googleplay already give them. What benefit do GW gain from creating that? And as the customer, I have to pay to buy an app so I can then pay to download the books I want when I was just paying for the books with Google or Apple. Sorry, that's a none starter.

[Deadlift]

It's not impossible to think they could do it though, many toys now have their own branded tablets. Monster High being one I looked at for my daughter as a Christmas present, but we ended up getting her a mini iPad. Sure it's just a rebranding of others technology and selling it at a premium but I'm sure that's not beyond GW. Another example is my wife's iPad. Colleen works for one of the bigger UK banks and they supplied her with a branded iPad. This also came with pre-loaded specific apps that are work specific to her role within the bank. It's not hard to think GW could just as easily do the same. If it were apple based I would likely look at one especially if I could choose specific, exclusive software to go with it. Hell who doesn't want a tablet with (insert army here) specific case too.

[Wildeybeast]

It's not impossible, no, but it is most unlikely. The best question to ask is why. Why would they do it? What is the incentive in it for them? Developing their own one becomes pretty much a no go as the margins will be so, well, marginal. A branded one from another company, possibly. But what do you load onto it? If they put all the codexes and army books, it jacks up the price. And most people don't want them all, they just want the ones for their army. Likewise with the novels. So then you are reduced to putting some sort of GW software on there, in which case, why bother with the tablet, just release the software. Then you come back to the fact that they are making software which is freely available from two other major competitors. GW can't afford to develop an app and then make it free, so that is a non-starter.

I don't want to sound like a negative Nigel, but I can't see any valid business reasons for GW releasing any sort of hardware or software. Now branded tablet covers, those would sell.

[Mr Mystery]

I'd buy one if it was 40k styled

Mainly because I don't currently have a tablet, but am in the market for one!

[Attaturk]

Selling you models and books are their business.

Actually I'd say that making money was their business. An app would be a really clever idea though. A tablet may be too big a step for them.