Hi everyone!

Here’s an update for you on the status of TinyNES production. There’s some good news and some bad (but not terrible) news, so let’s get right to it…

The Bad News:

• We probably won't be able to hit our May target for shipping. This is mostly due to extended assembly and shipping times, as well as needing to adjust to the parts availability weirdness that feels like it's the new normal now. We're still feeling quite optimistic about June or July though. I'm tempted to just say July for the sake of under-promising and over-delivering, but I actually think June is a real possibility. So that's that. Delays just seem to be a fact of life at the moment, unfortunately! That said, we've gotten a LOT done, and are excited to share it with you.

The Good News:

• Mouser has received and inventoried all bonus game carts, so they're ready for fulfillment now.
• All Cartridge Latch units have been fully assembled, packaged, and shipped to Mouser for fulfillment.
• All 8BitDo controllers have been received, inspected, and shipped to Mouser for fulfillment.
• The Famicom Adapter boards are being assembled now, and a majority of them have already been soldered. After receiving all the parts and fabricating the bare boards, our assembly partner decided that they couldn't assemble (solder) them. This seems to be because the sockets are installed along a board edge, and their leads need to be bent into the correct position. It's not hard or time consuming to do this, but they seemed hesitant (and then finally unwilling) to proceed with it, so we're doing it on our end. It's proceeding well though!
• The Famicom Adapter enclosures have been ordered and are in production.
• All the TinyNES boxes (packaging) have been received, and they look fantastic!
• The first articles of foam packaging have been received and they're great, so the full order of foam pieces are now in production. The design of the foam inserts allows for the TinyNES console to fit in its retail box WITH or WITHOUT the Cartridge Latch installed, which is a handy feature! If the latch is installed, there's a little less room for cables, but it's still much better than it not fitting at all.
• All cables and power adapters have been received. The RCA and USB cables are lovely color-coded nylon-braided cables, and the adapters are compact and very similar in appearance to Apple designed USB-C adapters. Each cable comes with a small silicone band to keep them neat.
• All TinyNES controller port modules have been received, and hardware has been pre-installed on all of them. Cables have been pre-installed on most of them.
• All TinyNES enclosure panels have been received, and assembly has begun. A large number of enclosures have already been soldered, and a percentage of those have also gone through the first stage of mechanical assembly.
• All TinyNES plastic cartridge guide inserts have been received and are ready for assembly.
• The first article TinyNES main boards are scheduled to be delivered on Friday (May 6), and we're VERY eager to evaluate them. Several testers will be shipped units with these boards!
• Roughly 100 additional sets of clone chips have been tested and added to available inventory.
• The printed paper insert is still in the process of being finalized.

Pictures!