Tuesday, January 30, 2007

countdown to launch

It seems like we’re flying at light speed these days. We had a very successful CES. The booth was packed and the Novint Falcon dropped lots of jaws (as always), despite our location in a back corner of the Sands. The press continues to give us high marks. CNET put Veronica Belmont’s video demo of the Falcon on their front page, listing us a one of the best things at CES (please check it out on our home page if you haven’t seen it). Many people told us we were the most exciting thing they saw at the show. We were even named to the list of Top 5 Coolest Gadgets at CES by TechEBlog.

Our preorder website has launched and demand for the Limited Edition Falcon is also keeping us busy. After working out a few kinks in the system, it is now operating at full capacity. We’re incredibly proud and excited about achieving this milestone and appreciate all the interest and support we’ve received from you.

Novint is exhibiting at the Game Developer’s Conference in San Francisco in March, and will also be holding a special session for developers Thursday, March 8th which will provide an overview on how to develop games and mods for the Falcon. We’ll also be releasing details on our Developer Program and SDK in the next few weeks, which is something many of you have been waiting for. While we can’t let the cat out of the bag just yet, we think everyone will be happy with the news.

We’re adding new games to our roster and expect to have a bunch of great content at launch, with even more to come out after launch. It is difficult to describe the concept of touch in computing without trying it directly. Words really never quite convey how powerful it is. Our new videos help, we think, but at the end of the day: touching is believing. To that end, we’re planning lots of hands-on events for our launch, so people can experience the WOW we know the technology delivers. We’ll be announcing more details on this soon, but in the meantime, if you want to lobby for an event in your town, let us know.

With only five months to launch, we’ve got a lot of stuff going on, so check this site for lots of new announcements in the coming months. The big push through GDC will be on software and games, and we have quite a few announcements and press releases to make between now and March 5th, so check the site and blog often through that time.

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

starting the new year with a bang

Novint is planning some big announcements next week at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), and our blog readers are getting an exclusive sneak peak of what’s to come. While at the show, we plan to announce the Falcon’s final pricing and launch date, details on some of our launch titles, as well as some other surprises. Keep an eye out for these announcements in a press release going out on January 6th.

As we look forward to an exciting 2007, we can also look back at an extremely eventful and successful 2006. Our company went public (trading on the OTC:BB under NVNT) and continued to assemble a great team and build a fun work environment. On the technology side of things, the Falcon got a slick new look, we added a quick-disconnect feature to the Falcon’s handle for easy swapping between different grips, we incorporated many new games to the list of titles set to be available at launch, and we announced that VTech will manufacture the Novint Falcon.

We also won awards from several prestigious sources in the gaming and consumer electronics world in anticipation of our launch. The Falcon won the “IGN Best of E3: Gear” award in a category that included the Wii remote. The Falcon was one of three finalists in the “IGN Best of E3: Hardware/Peripheral” award, alongside the PS3 console and the Wii controller. The Falcon was a Gamespot Finalist for “E306 Editor’s Choice Award: Best Hardware,” again as one of three finalists alongside the PS3 and the Wii. Recently, Novint was also named “Innovations 2007 Design and Engineering Awards Honoree” by the Consumer Electronics Association.

As part of the Innovations Award honor, the Novint Falcon will be highlighted at the 2007 International CES, which runs January 8-11, 2007 in Las Vegas, Nevada, at Innovations Plus at the Sands, which showcases the hottest technologies in the consumer electronics industry. It will also be featured at Novint’s booth 72924 in the new CES Gaming TechZone in the Sands Expo. We’re honored to be invited to show off the Falcon in such a prominent venue—it’s a great way to start off the new year.

As we move forward, much of our focus will be on preparing for launch, and we want your help in getting ready. Tell your family about the Falcon. Tell your friends about the Falcon. Tell strangers about the Falcon. The more Falcons we sell, the more we can expand with many more great games and software.

We also want your help in setting some of our direction. We want to hear what Novint Falcon games folks are anticipating most, what software and genres they most want to see that we are missing, and what games you would most like to see expanded with additional levels and gameplay. We still have some flexibility before launch, and a lot of flexibility for titles to come out soon after launch – we want to give you what you want. Let us know what you want to see available for launch, and of course feel free to write about anything else you want to discuss on our blog. 2007 should be an exciting year for Novint!