Jim Bagley made it really clear on the Facebook group that the Next on show at Play Expo was the only working prototype they had (which was rejected)
I totally understand the issues of working as a remote team, but here are a couple of interesting Facebook posts from Jim Bagley and Mike Cadwallader, who are both on the Next team.
Mike Cadwallader People are fed up of asking for updates and people are also fed up of people asking for updates I get that. Some are content with whatever the situation may be. Asking in here is asking the wrong person. Bear in mind that Henrique runs the Kickstarter and that he is not actually on here to see any such requests.
Over the past 18 months or so I have been channeling the sentiment and requests from this group and building up points and topics for the KS updates. This I then throw over to Henrique and then I pester him to get time away from his day job to author a new update.
This was fine for a time but my motivation on this front has been severely lacking of late. Call it weariness on my part. This is also partly due to the lack of appreciable change on many aspects of the Next front.
Henrique knows that backers need updates and nothing would please him more to have an arsenal of information to disseminate. If there is no news then there really is no news. If things plod on for a significant amount of time with no knowledge sharing then perhaps we need to share some information on any current issues. Issues always look better in a KS update when we have a happy ending, not a cliff hanger. This has been mentioned in the past that updates are often not made when we're in an indeterminate state.
So yes it has been very quiet, the wheels of progress are more the vehicle that used to move the Space Shuttle into place than something that turns visibility to the eye.
Jim Bagley The infornation is the same as the last lot just because it's been a couple of weeks things sadly ( yes I mean for us moreso than you lot as we want to get our Nexts too just as much as the rest of you and the sooner we get them to you the sooner we won't hear where is our Next. ) but the thing is these things take time and we don't have an informative other than we're waiting on them making a fixed membrane, and for those lucky enough to be going to Play Expo this weekend I will be bringing the prototype case and membrane and keyboard that were rejected by us and I will happily explain and show the reasons they were rejected which is why we are still all waiting for our Nexts to arrive. And if you're really good boys and girls I may let you play a game on it, to see what you think of the keyboard. So yeah the update is we don't have any new info over the previous update other then my awesome band of brothers called the Next Men will be heading to Play Expo Manchester for the weekend to let people who haven't got one yet play on our board only versions in various cases and some without cases. Because we're either good guys or stupid when we could be relaxing at home playing and making games, or just spending time with our families
It sounds like the both of them have no actual idea how the Next is progressing, they're as much in the dark as everyone else as to when it's going to be finished.
While it's nice that there is a sort of update hidden away in the Facebook group, it doesn't look great that two of the team don't have any more information when we're now 6 weeks before the Next is supposed to be in the hands of the backers (the deadline issued a few months ago was Q2 2019). When one of the team, Mike Cadwallader, is saying he's lost motivation due to the lack of "appreciable change on many aspects of the Next front", then that's even more worrying.
