Bleak times indeed. Ayn returned after a well-deserved New Year’s holiday to give a much-needed update on current shipping times and batches for their Odin 3 and Thor lines. The good news is that Thor batch 3 and Odin 3 batch 4 will ship next week (with some users already reporting tracking), and the newer batches will open on March 1st and ship sometime in April. Because of the AI-induced RAM and storage situation…yeah, we will only see pre-orders. Oh, and speaking of that…
The Thor Will Receive a “Price Adjustment”
It’s no secret that demand for this console is through the roof, and that 16GB + 1TB Max version at $450 is still an attractive price for our dual-screened friend. Real-world events related to the RAM (and now storage) continue to see shortages in supply as big corporations are tying up manufacturing for the AI push, and as such, the Thor (and most likely the Odin 3 as well) will see a price increase in April, with an additional one on the horizon depending on the market.
The total price increase is unknown as of now, but it was already alluded to in a previous update. The Thor is already a heavily scalped device on places like eBay and Mercari, and with no end on the horizon for the current AI bubble beyond negative financial projections, the price of entry for it is going to be expensive. RAM-related price increases are also a wild card, with the 32GB Legion Go 2 rising to $1,350 and Anbernic’s 34XXsp dropping to 1GB of RAM to keep the price point. If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say expect a $50 max increase for the Thor. Again, there is no news for the Odin 3 just yet, but expect that update sometime soon from Ayn.
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1 Comment
I think that this is actually a good thing. Ayn made us, the retrogaming community, an incredible gift in creating the Thor. If people are willing to pay $600 for it, why should they sell it for $450 and let a scalper profit? I’d rather have the company benefit from it and hopefully, use the extra income to create even better products.