Report: China's Game Console Maker Eedoo in the Red, Sold to Undisclosed Buyer

Perhaps part of the problem was eedoo’s failure to focus on a target demographic and instead trying to market the device to everyone from primary schoolers to grandparents.[/caption]

I’m confident in saying that we’ve followed the ups and downs of Eedoo more closely than virtually anyone else in English, from the heady days when the company was making a straight-up game console called the iSec through the quiet release and mediocre sales of the don’t-call-it-a-game-console-please CT-510. But now it seems the company’s bumpy ride may have come to an end, with multiple Chinese media outlets reporting the company either has already been sold or is about to be.

Supposedly, most of the company’s staff has already been laid off. The remainder will be transfered to the new company under the flag of the new buyer, which is purported to be a software company. Some reports have that deal as essentially completed; others suggest that it’s planned but hasn’t yet been finalized. Of course, this is all just a rumor for now; we’ve contacted Eedoo for comment and will update this story with anything we hear back.

Although nothing official has been announced yet, the apparent reason for the fire sale certainly makes sense: reports suggest that the company wasn’t making enough money to recoup its expenses. At the risk of sounding pedantic, I’d just like to point out that I basically said this was going to happen nearly two years ago when I wrote that Eedoo’s flagship device was going to cost way too much and nobody wanted one. And that was before we learned that the machine had cost $15 million just in terms of R&D. Although Eedoo gets points for trying, I fear this endeavor was doomed from the get-go. More than a year after its long-delayed launch, China’s troubled not-a-game-console game console might be finished for good.

(via Sohu IT and Tencent Tech, h/t to Marbridge Daily)